Fiction Fragment Friday
Welcome back aboard the Spaceship Oddity for our next installment. This week I knew the conversation I wanted, but it didn’t flow quite as well as I had hoped when I went to write. I need to shake the story up a bit next week and get away from a converastion around a table or desk. If I want to keep going for as long as I plan to with this setting I need to keep things fresh. There is a future storyarc I want to get to, but need the characters more developed by that point.
I think I might include a bonus post sometime before or maybe with next week’s story giving the crew roster and some stats on the ship itself. World bulding things in my head and notebook but not necessarily things that need to come out in the story.
I poked the overcooked thing on my plate masquerading as meat and found myself pining for the Paul Dillon flavorless sandwich and stale chip special. The utility crew rotation had moved Mr. Dillon to break stander giving Miss Nia Torres control over the kitchen. I looked up at my senior staff eagerly waiting for me to take the first bite. “You’re all enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
“Only until we take our first bite,” responded Cargo Chief Marissa Louise. For the past few days, I had been having lunch in my office with my senior staff as a kind of informal brainstorming session. A chance to bond, share ideas, and make me aware of concerns. I had made it clear that these meals were an open forum for speaking freely and nothing said was to ever leave the room. By my own rules I could not comment on her heckling so instead I stabbed the thing claiming to be food and put it in my mouth.
I was pleasantly surprised that the meal was edible though it was a close thing. The meat was very dried out beef in a sauce that had been condensed too far. I pulled a fake smile on my face and looked around the table. “By all means eat up.” The looks that met me were less than pleasant. After a sigh I addressed the room. “Ok food is now moving up my list of things to deal with. Can someone please explain how it is this bad?”
My new Chief Engineer leaned forward and took the lead. “To be fair she is in particularly rare form today. Nia really does try. She has hundreds of recipes she wants to perfect and a couple of them are actually pretty good.”
“A couple? Out of hundreds?”
Chief Burton just shrugged at me, so Pablo jumped in. “If I may sir?” I motioned for him to continue but made note that he seemed to think he needed that permission. “Well as you know we don’t have anyone permanently assigned to the galley. We have three utility crew that rotate duties. None of them chose or were ever trained to work in the galley. We got lucky that Mr. Dillon has a talent for baking. Miss Torres however has more enthusiasm than skill.”
“She actually likes working in the galley. How does the crew not rip her apart when they get served something like this?” I pushed the plate away from me, done trying to force it down.
“Another crew member you haven’t met in person eh captain?” The comment from my cargo chief hit me hard. It was a lesson I should have learned and a mistake I kept making. Seeing the point had been made she softened a bit. “When you do you will find a young woman with an enthusiasm so infectious that no one would dare say anything negative to crush it.”
“Every time I think I’m making progress I find I don’t even understand the actual issue. Bottom line I don’t know my own crew. I’ve only been on the ship a couple weeks now, but that can’t be an excuse forever. Part of my problem is just how flat this reporting structure is. Most of the crew don’t report to a department head or even have an assigned department. Even if I could trust the performance reviews, and let me be clear that I can’t, most of the crew haven’t had one in years.” For a moment I second guessed letting them see my frustration but discarded the concern. My senior staff was my team, and they needed to know what I was thinking. This was the whole reason I had set these lunches up.
“I might be able to help with that sir. If you will look at the proposal, I just sent you. It might not be perfect, but I believe it will give you a starting point.” Pablo was looking down at his tablet and not making eye contact. This seemed to be his default position, but his work thus far had been impeccable.
I opened what I expected to be a document on my tablet and instead found a complete proposal with multiple documents. There was a modified organizational chart breaking the ship into three high level divisions. The first division under Miss Burton was Engineering which was further broken down into maintenance, environmental, and engineering itself. The second division under Chief Louise was Logistics and Operations. This of course covered cargo, but also a crew services department. Finally, Pablo was in charge of a System Division that covered bridge operations and computers.
“Pablo what is this new crew services department?”
“Well sir that covers the galley, laundry, and providing breaks. Instead of rotating duties it would turn them into a team of three that can work together more often. I have a few workday examples in the document titled Crew Services.”
“You did not just put something with this much detail together. How long have you been sitting on this?”
“My first draft was a year ago. I’ve been updating it for changes. A lot of updates since you came onboard sir.”
“I imagine. Have you ever shared it with anyone before?”
“Oh no sir.” He seemed shocked that I would even suggest that.
I hit a few buttons on my tablet and sent it to the rest of my senior staff. “I’d like the three of you to review this together and give me a final recommendation that you are all comfortable will help us support our crew. There is one glaring thing that this proposal doesn’t consider.”
“What’s that sir?” There was a hint of defensiveness to his voice.
“The right seat for the right person. This crew is full of people put here and put into positions. That doesn’t mean those are the right positions. I want to know what job people want, what job people would be good at, and how we can take advantage of their skills to grow each other. For example.” I pointed to my plate. “Find me someone who can cook and is willing to give classes to anyone who wants to take them.”
To my surprise Chief Louise spoke up. “That’d be me captain. My family owns a restaurant on Toran Station. I practically grew up in the kitchen.”
“See folks this is what I’m talking about. Find these happy little surprises on the ship and let’s use them to make it better for all of us.” I took another bite from my plate and almost spit it out. “But in the meantime, let’s continue this conversation by going out to the station for lunch. My treat. We’ll call it an investment in ship morale. Just don’t expect it to become a habit until we improve profits.”