One page, two sides. That’s it.
The Navy Officer Fitness Report.
It’s our annual performance evaluation.
My mission is to complete one for each of the four lieutenant commanders in my unit by the end of the drill weekend.
I’m the commanding officer--the reporting senior.
And I already have them mostly finished, including the narratives.
The narrative is the biggest pain-in-the-ass section. Eighteen lines of the most painful text you’ve ever written.
“Outstanding officer. Highly respected unit and wardroom leader. Engaged. Forward-leaning. Accomplished maritime professional. Exhibits sharp mission focus.”
It’s all bullshit. All we do in the reserves is sit around and drink coffee.
But you have to fill the space somehow.
I roll into the reserve center early Saturday morning.
“Pretend I’m not here,” I tell the troops. “I have to get these damn FITREPs done.”
FITREP is shorthand for Fitness Report.
We’re doing them electronically now.
The Navy finally decided to abandon paper performance evaluations.
Only two decades after the private sector.
I park myself at the Navy computer in the corner of the room.
It has to be a Navy computer, connected to the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet.
Navy programs don’t work half the time if you’re not on a Navy computer.
I have no idea why.
And this FITREP program is new. Which means it works even less often.
I open the first report. The whole front section auto-populates. Which is nice.
I input the narrative section.
And then I hit save and watch the little wheel icon spin.
“Your report has been saved,” the program tells me.
So, I close that report and return to the folder with the others.
Just to be sure the report actually saved, I open it back up.
And it’s completely blank.
Of course.
Now, if you’ve been getting jacked around by Navy Information Technology as long as I have, you’ve learned to expect such things.
I open the Word document in which I’ve stored the narratives for each report.
I cut and paste and hit save. Again.
Then I close and re-open it. Again.
It saves this time.
One down, three to go.
I open the next report.
And as I’m about to input the narrative section, the screen goes blank.
I hear that gentle whirring sound as the computer shuts down.
And then I notice the room is dark, except for the emergency light that’s come on over the door.
The power’s out.
Not just in this room. Not just in this building.
But across the whole damn base, apparently.
Which is super convenient.
I wait around for ten minutes to see what happens.
Nothing.
So, I go back to my room and take a nap.
“Highly respected unit and wardroom leader. Engaged. Forward-leaning.”
I forward-lean into my pillow for about an hour.
And then I go to lunch.
Then I go back to the reserve center. The power’s back on.
But there’s still no internet. Which means I can’t do anything with the FITREPs.
So I bullshit with the guys for about an hour.
Someone eventually says the internet’s back up.
I get back on the Navy computer and knock out the remaining three FITREPs.
And then I hit the button to send them ahead to the next stage in the process.
Which triggers an error message: “You do not have the authority to submit an evaluation on this member.”
Huh? Since when?
The program doesn’t recognize me as the reporting senior.
It’s past four o’clock.
I’m out of patience.
I return to my room, defeated.
And then I go out to dinner.
***
Day two. Sunday.
Maybe whatever glitch caused the previous day’s error message has magically resolved itself.
Hey, it can happen.
But not this time.
“You do not have the authority to submit an evaluation on this member.”
Dammit.
Even though the system is supposed to flag any errors that might trigger such a message, it hasn’t done so in any of these reports.
So, I go looking for mistakes, line by miserable line.
I don’t find any.
I hit the button once more to move the reports along in the process.
Same error message.
Now I’ll have to call the Navy IT help desk.
Which isn’t open until Monday, even though the Navy Reserve has been working weekends for, like, a hundred years.
I begin to prepare myself psychologically for the pain of being put on hold for thirty minutes. And the very real possibility my issue won’t be resolved in a single call.
This is going to be a full-on ordeal.
I begin to curse out loud at no one in particular.
“Did you try Chrome?” my admin officer asks.
Most Navy systems require Microsoft Edge to operate properly. I can’t think of one for which Google Chrome is a better choice.
“Just try it,” he says. “What’ve you got to lose?”
Fair point.
I try it.
And it works.
I hit the button and successfully advance all four reports to the next stage in the process.
FITREPs complete.
By now, it’s lunch.
Which means it’s taken me twenty-eight hours to complete four FITREPs.
That’s seven hours per report.
Including naps.
Lord, help us.
Hopefully, the Chinese are as bad at this shit as we are.
Sometimes the greatest maritime fighting force in the history of the world
Can’t even tie its own shoes.
But you gotta love it.
Go Navy!