I was told to my face,
that we could not write up that E6 for incompetence because he was one of the early USN "see, black people can do anything a white man can" hires. He only got promoted because he stocked up enough passed-the-test-but-didn't-make-the-cutoff-score points.
My very first professional encounter with him was a fire drill. Technically just the initial response teams, the roving watchstanders, simulated fire in the Central Atmospheric Monitoring System (which has a 5000v power supply in it to feed the spectrum analyzer). My guys are all the junior watchstanders, Messenger of the Watch formally speaking. All qualified submariners. I'm the senior guy of that group as an E5. Drill gets called away, we all go bolting out of Control and grab air masks on the way. We all get there and grab big CO2 extinguishers, 35lbs each. Then we all just ground and wait,
because there's no point in trying to put out an electrical fire until the power is off. I'm talking to the guys about why we're waiting. We all arrived within like 30 seconds, we didn't have to run that far. About 2 minutes later, this E6 finally shows up. I am expecting him to say, "My name is Petty Officer Cunningham, I am the Man In Charge, power is simulated secured to CAMS, go attack that fire" or something similar.
(Technically, I should have made that announcement myself, since I was the senior man there but we messengers had all arrived in a group and they were already following my orders.)
What I got was "uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
Excuse me? It's not like he was wearing his air mask. "Say again?"
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
Oh,
hell no. This is a nightmare, this dude can't tell me anything. "Say again louder and slower?"
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh."
"
Cunningham! If power is not simulated secured to CAMS, get your fucking ass back up there and secure it!" In full Command Voice that will be heard over a 747 taking off (yes, I've tested that before).
"uh fuh huh, muh fuh." and he lumbers off (dude was huge, 6'3 and like 275lbs).
No sign of hurry.
I look at the Chief electrician's mate and give him a "what the fuck do we do now" expression. It's still useless to attack the fire,
electrical fires will not go out till you kill power to it. And it's been simulated burning for about 5 minutes now. Whole compartment would be engulfed in flames at this point.
My padawans were looking at me with huge eyes, finally one of them says "I thought you were going to lay him out with that CO2."
"I wasn't thinking about that, I promise."
It's been a couple minutes, no announcement over the PA system that power has been simulated secured, no sign of the E6. (now that I think about it, no sign of a couple other bodies that should have showed up, either.)
EMC sighs, writes more in his notebook. "Alright, guys, secure this drill and restow all the gear."
"Aye-aye, Chief."
As my padawans and I are leaving, frankly all a bit shell-shocked, "please tell me this isn't normal"...