Safety Class

On my birthday, and the next day, I had an evening class at the Navy's Safety Training Center at Naval Station Norfolk to become my division's safety petty officer.

I was given half of Monday off, leaving at 1130ish, so that I could have ample time to rest before it started at 1830 (and supposedly ended at 0300). That morning was taken up with a couple checks on the Dome equipment (piping) before we were to do the water to air interchange the next day. But hazmat was closed, so just before I left, the plan changed (the last check required hazmat). 

I arrived in plenty of time, and sized up the other 30 students from around the waterfront (one other from my ship) and our instructor, an 18-year veteran with lots of safety stories from 5 different ship platforms in her career. We started off with videos of people doing stupid stuff and getting hurt (just like ridiculousness, except without the host or the annoying guests), then did a pre-test, and walked through the slides with the two other locations over microphones and the Internet (they were in Japan and Korea, I think, so that's why the class hours were so odd). We were let go at 2230 for the night.

Next day I was let off work since I was TAD... at first my division told me it was only a one-night class, but it was confirmed otherwise, so I texted Senior Chief and had his approval. The class got let out an hour earlier too, as we took the test and picked up our reference CD by 2130.

Wednesday the 27th, I was allowed to come in late (1100) as well! What a week! Practically everyone was gone anyway... the only thing I managed to get done was update the divisional safety binder before we were let go in the afternoon for PT at the nearby gym.