Was Harry Kim on the senior staff?

[Bacl]

I'm not sure if this was ever directly stated, but I felt as though Harry Kim was considered to be on the senior staff of Voyager.

Wasn't he just an ensign on his very first mission out of the academy? Did he even have an official job title or was he just some junior operations ensign?

 

[Admiral Shran]

Harry was the Operations Manager, the same job Data had on the Enterprise. Therefore he was a member of the Senior Staff, but the lowest ranking one (due to him being an ensign). He also consistently sat in on all meetings of the Senior Staff.

As for why a lowly ensign would be given such an important job....

1.) Voyager was a relatively small ship, only 150 crewmembers (compare Kirk's Enterprise from 100 years previous - 400 crewmembers).
2.) It might have only been intended to be a temporary posting, since Voyager's mission was simply to round up a small group of Maquis before the they got stuck in the Delta Quadrant.
3.) After they got stuck in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway may simply have decided to keep him where he was instead of giving the job to one of the Maquis crewmembers.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Hell, some of the crew might have only meant to be on board for the first mission only.

In and out.

Wasn't that a complaint from one of the Good Shepherd people?

Harry was a section head. he had a staff. Probably mostly uninlisted crewmen who'd beeen at the job for 5 to 15 years who had to do exactly what every noob ensign told them to.

However, if crew with superior rank was staffed into Operations for some reason ,harry would still be able to order them about, since it was his area.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Hell, some of the crew might have only meant to be on board for the first mission only.

In and out.

Wasn't that a complaint from one of the Good Shepherd people?

In "Good Shepherd," Harren says he needed one year of field experience to be admitted to the school he wanted to attend. So yeah, a lot of the people onboard could have been intended to stay only a short time.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Because it's not like Voyager, a fresh ship, with an untested captain, too small to do anything too glorious, too far from home, would seduce the best of the best to flock to her billets?

The ship was named after a mass murderering AI for goodnesssake who almost destroyed the Earth!

The only reason that Voyager would be getting "good" crew is because it's systems were so new that only those fresh out of the academy were qualified to work safely on/in Voyager. It's not like spacedogs are going to go back to school for 6 months so that they could upskill and serve on an Intrepid Class Starship when they still have the technical know how to shine bright as a star on 90 percent of the rest of the fleet and they can take in that 6 months of education on the job as the new tech trickles down through the rest of the fleet as upgrades and refits.

 

[eepruls]

Harry should have been made Lieutenant at the end of season 2. He was the Chief of Operations and a member of the senior staff. Tom was promoted on day one, then demoted, and then promoted again in season 7 and he wasn't even in Starfleet at the beginning. It just seemed silly to have Harry as an ensign in season 7 when he's a bridge officer. Janeway looked like a mean bitch by not promoting him after 7 frickin years!

 

[CoveTom]

From the way Kim is introduced, with Janeway showing him his station and all, it seems that he was always intended to be the Operations Officer even before many of the crew were killed. And I haven't seen anything anywhere in Starfleet that says an Operations Officer has to be high ranking or have a great deal of time on the job. Just because Data was a Lieutenant Commander doesn't mean most ops officers are. Perhaps it's considered the "entry level" department head job; the one that they often give to the new guy. Or perhaps Kim was just considered an outstanding graduate and was put on the "fast track." Hell, if they can make Wesley Crusher a bridge officer at age 16, they can certainly make Kim a department head.

In any event, since Harry was definitely the chief operations officer, it seems clear he was considered a member of the senior staff.

I do agree, though, that he should have been promoted at some point. Seven years as an ensign is too long in that circumstance, and to have a convicted criminal who was taken out of prison be allowed to retain his lieutenant's rank, and then be re-promoted to lieutenant after being demoted, while Kim was left an ensign all that time, would seem somewhat a slap in the face.

 

[eepruls]

I do agree, though, that he should have been promoted at some point. Seven years as an ensign is too long in that circumstance, and to have a convicted criminal who was taken out of prison be allowed to retain his lieutenant's rank, and then be re-promoted to lieutenant after being demoted, while Kim was left an ensign all that time, would seem somewhat a slap in the face.

I agree with your post completely. I can totally understand why he got the job as an ensign in the first season and I have no problem with that. As you said though, never getting a promotion was just silly. It was fine during the first few seasons but then got more and more ridiculous as the seasons went on. I don't understand why the writers kept him an ensign. I think it would have made his character grow if he was promoted and given more responsibility. Instead, Harry Kim was exactly the same in the series finale as he was in the series premiere!

 

[CoveTom]

^ The writers of Voyager were not big on the whole "character growth" thing.

 

[eepruls]

^ The writers of Voyager were not big on the whole "character growth" thing.

So true! LOL

Silly me for wanting character development in Voyager!

 

[kimc]

^ The writers of Voyager were not big on the whole "character growth" thing.

In later seasons they seemed too busy having the Doctor and Seven "find their humanity" week after week.

 

[Guy Gardener]

How come it took so long? Uhura got her brain wiped clean, and they managed to accidentally teach her swahili before English in a few hours and then she was fully qualified to retake her post by the end of the episode. Kirk taught the android Rayna Kopec how to "love" after a few kisses. Maybe if Data had travelled back in time and kissed Kirk "enough" he wouldn't have ever needed his emotion chip?

From what we learnt about Uhura, everything that a Starfleet officer needs to know is and can be downloaded directly into their brains (and that might just be %90 of Starfleet Academy.), which really makes them no different or real than the jem'hadar, I can safely assume after watching two seasons of Dollhouse more so than the first Matrix movie.

 

[CoveTom]

In later seasons they seemed too busy having the Doctor and Seven "find their humanity" week after week.

True, except that they kept telling retreads of the same story with the Doctor and Seven over and over again, and those retreads were already retreads of stories they'd told over and over again with Data. I mean... seriously... how many stories about the Doctor or Seven could you just change to Data stories and they'd still work? Probably quite a few.

They gave a lot of the trappings of character development. But actual, meaningful development was very hard to come by.

 

[kimc]

In later seasons they seemed too busy having the Doctor and Seven "find their humanity" week after week.

True, except that they kept telling retreads of the same story with the Doctor and Seven over and over again, and those retreads were already retreads of stories they'd told over and over again with Data. I mean... seriously... how many stories about the Doctor or Seven could you just change to Data stories and they'd still work? Probably quite a few.

It did have a familiar ring to it...