What were their other jobs aboard the ship?

[Sibo191]

Specifically Riker and Chakotay. Aside from filling in for the Capt. when they were gone, what else did they do?

Looking at the other first officers, they all had another function while serving as first officer.

Trip, for the few minutes before T'pol was also Chief Engineer.
Both T'pol and Spock were the Science officers of their respective ships.
Kira was the Liaison Officer between the Federation/Starfleet and Bajor, and normally doing something useful on the Defiant when she was there, normally running communications I think. And Worf was the Strategic Operations Officer on DS9, and usually at Tactical on the Defiant.

So what did the other 2 do besides repeat the Captain's orders, and give status reports when the big chair was occupied?

 

[sbk1234]

Seriously, I'd think that being first officer on a ship the size of a starship, especially a Galaxy class would actually be a full-time job. I tend to think of the first officers who double up with a different job actaully would be the exception, even though, as you point out, on the tv shows, most do.

 

[Sibo191]

I can't imagine being first officer on the Enterprise, or Voyager (since both are mentioned) is as difficult as it would be on DS9.

 

[Admiral Shran]

First Officers had to do things like crew evaluations, oversee department heads, help co-ordinate ship functions, and lead virtually all away missions. They also served as "Acting Captain" whenever the commanding officer was away or otherwise unable to perform his/her duties and served as a "Captain's Confidant," so to speak.

I can accept the idea of Riker's job being a full time deal, but Chakotay's? I doubt it. Voyager's crew was about a tenth what the Enterprise-D's was.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

In Lessons it was mentioned that Riker is responsible for allocating all of the ships resources to the various departments and overseeing crew assignments.

 

[Finn]

Specifically Riker and Chakotay. Aside from filling in for the Capt. when they were gone, what else did they do?

Looking at the other first officers, they all had another function while serving as first officer.

Trip, for the few minutes before T'pol was also Chief Engineer.
Both T'pol and Spock were the Science officers of their respective ships.
Kira was the Liaison Officer between the Federation/Starfleet and Bajor, and normally doing something useful on the Defiant when she was there, normally running communications I think. And Worf was the Strategic Operations Officer on DS9, and usually at Tactical on the Defiant.

So what did the other 2 do besides repeat the Captain's orders, and give status reports when the big chair was occupied?

Did you watch either shows? It was clear they oversaw the departments, and responsible for shift rotation and department reassignments and many requests, mostly with Riker. There was a couple of episodes on Voyager where we saw Chakotay taking requests or Janeway refeering people to see Chakotay for issues.

 

[T'Girl]

The traditional job of a first officer is to hand a fully prepared ship to the Captain, so that the Captain can carry out the mission. Given her size and crew compliment, the Enterprise D possessed a full time first officer. The Enterprise prime, Enterprise NX and the Defiant did not.

Please don't ask me to explain Voyager's internal command structure.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The first officer really runs the ship, IMO, as far as the day-to-day operations go. His or her job is to make the captain's job easier.

I think XOs tend to be far more "hands on" in regards to dealing with problems on the ship and serves as a liaison between the captain and the crew. Any crew-related problems (like shift personnel scheduling for example), the XO deals with it rather than the captain in most cases.

 

[SilentP]

In Lessons it was mentioned that Riker is responsible for allocating all of the ships resources to the various departments and overseeing crew assignments.

"Lower Decks" also had him responsible for choosing promotions within the general ship crew.

 

[The Wormhole]

Being an XO is itself a full-time job. Riker and Chakotay being just the XO made sense. Spock and T'Pol having another job was the oddity.

They tried to present a more realistic depiction in the TOS movies. Decker was supposed to be XO only of the Enterprise in TMP. It was only because of a personel shortage caused by the science officer's death that forced him to fill in. But then Spock returned as took over as science officer. Also, in TWOK Chekov was XO only of the Reliant. However, TUC decided to make Rand XO and communications officer of the Excelsior.

Defiantely, by the 24th century they got it right.

 

[Sibo191]

Addressing some of the issues mentioned, sitting in for the Capt. when he/she is unavailable is a given, and not in question.

As I understand it Ops was generally responsible for allocating ships resources.

I would Imagine Duty rosters would be prepared by the dept. heads and submitted to the XO for approval/signing off on, it would seem to me to be more efficient as the dept. heads would have a better idea on who from their dept they would need and when and where they need them. The same premise stands for crew evaluations, and promotions. They would probably come at regular intervals and not be a daily or weekly event unless something out of the ordinary happened. It would seem to be excessive otherwise, So again another efficiency issue there.

Leading away teams is a common part of the job, but on at least one occasion seen on TV other crewmen have lead away teams while the XO stayed behind, I only recall this one off the top of my head but there are probably more, I think this also happened a time or 2 on Voyager (Neelix and Paris in a shuttle comes to mind but I can't place an episode).

 

[C.E. Evans]

Being an XO is itself a full-time job. Riker and Chakotay being just the XO made sense. Spock and T'Pol having another job was the oddity.

Maybe in those days, more authority regarding ship operations was delegated to the individual department heads, allowing execs more free time to serve in a secondary capacity (Number One was both Pike's exec and the ship's senior helm officer presumably).

They tried to present a more realistic depiction in the TOS movies. Decker was supposed to be XO only of the Enterprise in TMP. It was only because of a personel shortage caused by the science officer's death that forced him to fill in. But then Spock returned as took over as science officer.

I think the way it was originally supposed to be in TMP that Decker was the captain and the late Commander Sonak was supposed to be his exec and chief sciences officer just like Spock was for Kirk.

Also, in TWOK Chekov was XO only of the Reliant.

I always thought Chekov was both exec and chief sciences officer on the Reliant? I remember thinking it was odd that his uniform division color didn't change after rejoining the Enterprise crew in Star Trek V, unless astrogation was considered a science back in those days along with communications.

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Honestly, I don't remember Chekov doing anything else on the Reliant to imply he had any other job besides being the XO.

And, to add some more confusion to this matter, Trek XI, which depicts both XOs being just the XO and having another job. George Kirk was the XO on the Kelvin and had no other duty, meanwhile Spock was both XO and science officer on the Enterprise.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^Honestly, I don't remember Chekov doing anything else on the Reliant to imply he had any other job besides being the XO.

It's not really clear, because there was a Mr. Beach that was manning the sciences station (but wearing the same uniform as Sulu and Scott). But Chekov was the one who had picked up something on the nearby dynoscanners and spouting scientific stuff about it possibly being a particle of preanimate matter. That and his uniform division color kind of suggested to me that he might have had more than one job on the Reliant. That purplish-grey uniform color might have been sciences (or services?) during that time in Starfleet.

And, to add some more confusion to this matter, Trek XI, which depicts both XOs being just the XO and having another job. George Kirk was the XO on the Kelvin and had no other duty, meanwhile Spock was both XO and science officer on the Enterprise.

Wasn't George Kirk sitting at one of the forward bridge stations on the Kelvin with a headset on when Robau arrived there?