What I Learned From My First 24 Hours on a Naval Ship
Translating lessons from the Navy to corporate America
“A sailor’s first 24 hours are their most important…”
I received this nebulous piece of advice during Officer Candidate School in 2012. I didn’t pay much attention to it and simply logged it somewhere in the back of my brain, somewhere between how to shine your boots and the phonetic alphabet.
Three months later, I was a freshly minted naval officer reporting to my first ship, the USS Frank Cable in Guam.
I’ll never forget what it felt like stepping onto that ship for the first time. Bells and whistles were sounding. There were signs and devices that I didn’t recognize. I distinctly remember how everyone seemed to walk about with a sense of purpose — like they knew exactly what they were doing, which greatly contrasted with how I felt. I felt entirely out of place.
I reported to my ship’s admin division. A sailor handed me a check-in sheet, which listed a bunch of locations and personnel that I needed to visit. I took the paper and began aimlessly wandering around the ship.
A sailor stopped me in the hall, stuck out his hand, and exclaimed, “you must be new here, I’m Chief Bacon.” Chief is the rank of a senior enlisted sailor. Bacon was his last name. He was a gregarious and eccentric man from Louisville, Kentucky. He proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes enthusiastically showing me the ship and introducing me to everyone we passed.
He explained to me that he was friends with everyone. As he put it, “everybody loves bacon.” And it was true, everybody did love Bacon. The engineers, cooks, medics, officers, and enlisted — even the Captain loved him. At the end of our walk, he pulled from his pocket the Ship’s challenge coin (a naval tradition) and handed it to me. He said, “don’t worry ma’am, I’ve got your six.” In military jargon that equates to “I’ve got your back.” Chief Bacon made my first day on the ship exhilarating. That evening, advice from training resurfaced.
“A sailor’s first 24 hours are their most important”
What I Learned
But what does this advice mean now? I am no longer in the military, and I spend my days behind a screen rather than at the helm of a ship. I left the Navy to attend graduate school and embark on a corporate career. Yet I still recall my time on the USS Frank Cable often.
I interned at a finance firm before graduate school. On my first day, I was sitting in a conference room with a fellow intern when a Senior Partner entered. He promptly sat down, opened his laptop, and didn’t look-up once before leaving 15 minutes later.
Didn’t he know that an employee's first 24 hours are their most important?
Didn’t he realize that we were interns and our first impression of the firm hinged on this interaction? I did not rejoin that company after graduation.
A new employee joined my office last month. I was tempted to shake his hand, engage in 30 seconds of polite chit-chat, and move on. But my mind flashed back to Chief Bacon. I chose to give my new coworker a tour of the office, introduce him to coworkers, and invite him to lunch. I didn’t have a challenge coin to give, so I handed him a new company water bottle instead.
He has since settled into the office and is thriving. He enthusiastically grins each time we pass each other in the hallway and still thanks me for that office tour.
The lesson I learned from my naval ship expands beyond simply welcoming new coworkers. It’s about never becoming too busy or too important to make others feel included. The 10 minutes you spend with a new colleague, neighbor, or stranger will have a far greater impact than sending 10 emails.
I know that an employee’s first 24 hours are their most important — this rings true both on land and at sea.
