It’s March 1985 and I’m a newly married 20-year-old. My new wife and I were married in a lavish ceremony in Santa Ana, California. I had just flown home from my overseas duty station in Australia a few weeks before.
We are excited to begin our new life together overseas. There is just one problem. A big one. My new wife may not be able to make the journey back with me.
I joined the Navy simply to get work experience and get out of the house. At the ripe old age of 20, I was engaged to my high school sweetheart and our plan was that I would transfer to my first duty station in June 1984. Then, I would return home in March 1985 where we would get married, and she would accompany me back.
That was the plan. But it wasn’t possible.
The only way my plan would work is if the Command would sponsor my finance. That meant pay her plane ticket, give us Navy housing, and all of my married pay allowances. The only problem was that my Command had a policy that only sponsored family members of those in pay grade E-4 and above. I was an E-2.
But I had a supervisor who loved playing the asshole. While he was good to me, he was a holy terror on everyone else. I’m not sure why he was such a salty old sailor. He had a pretty wife who was several years younger than him and a newborn son. Whatever the cause, Jeff loved creating issues.
Once, he called the base theater to rip someone a new one about why the movie Amadeus (he pronounced it Uhmadius) was only playing one time. Not that he would have watched it anyway. He told me as much when he hung up the phone.
“Sometimes I just like being an asshole,” he said with muted pride.
Jeff was stuck in paygrade E-5. It was very competitive to advance at the time. The only way to break out of the pack to promotion was to get a really good formal evaluation. The only way to do that was to amass a host of collateral duties to work in addition to your “day job.” Jeff chose to work all day at his collateral duties and then come in at night to finish his lab work in the clinic.
When I told him of my plans for March, he was skeptical but agreed to help.
And he did.
He assured me when I flew home in March that he would get us Command sponsored and have a house for us. I took him at his word. I didn’t tell my wife-to-be she might not be coming back with me. I didn’t even have a plane ticket for her.
As the time to fly back overseas drew closer, my anxiety was on red alert. It was five days before I was due to fly back that I received a message from Jeff. Since calling was prohibitive and mail took forever, he sent a Navy message that was forwarded rapidly through the post office.
As I opened that message, a wave of relief came over me.
“Congratulations on your new marriage. You are command sponsored. You have a house waiting for you when you arrive.”
And in that moment, I experienced a feeling of peace. And, this may sound dramatic, a sense that someone cared about me enough to put themselves at risk.
Even though Jeff was a self-proclaimed asshole, he proved he would go to the mat for me. I still have the utmost respect for him.
As a supervisor of humans, what are you doing to show you genuinely care for your people? Are you willing to go to the mat for them? Put yourself at risk?
It’s only through these situations that a supervisor can genuinely prove they care. Are you up for that challenge?