Officers' Annual Confidential Reports

I came across a list of quotations from Officer Annual Confidential Reports which I thought absolutely hilarious. Then I wondered about the Honorverse & all those officers (mainly Solarian but with some Manticorans) that these could equally apply to.
Anyhow here is a selection of some of them & who I think they should apply to:

1) "This officer is depriving a village somewhere of its idiot."
(Elvis Santino although it could equally apply to Josef Byng).

2) "I cannot believe that out of 10,000 sperm his was the fastest."
(As for No. 1)

3) "When she opens her mouth it seems that it is only to change whatever foot was in it previously."
("Horrible" Hemphill, of course).

4) "Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom... and started to dig."
(Pavel Young although it probably also applied to his father as well).

5) "Always wets himself when under pressure."
(Pavel Young again. (The original quotation actually said 'Only occasionally wets himself...' but I reckon that 'Always' is more appropriate for Pavel Young).

6) "He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle."
(Practically every senior officer in Battle Fleet).

Anybody any other examples & who they would apply to?

All quotations from The British Army Guide 2016-2017 by Charles Heyman published by Pen & Sword Books.

There was that moment in Shadow of Freedom, when Mateo was disparaging the Sollie gendarmes. Abigail says, "There's no need to be nasty... I'm sure they're doing the very best they can." And Mateo says, "The scary thing is that you're probably right about that."

Rincewind wrote:I came across a list of quotations from Officer Annual Confidential Reports which I thought absolutely hilarious. Then I wondered about the Honorverse & all those officers (mainly Solarian but with some Manticorans) that these could equally apply to.
Anyhow here is a selection of some of them & who I think they should apply to:

1) "This officer is depriving a village somewhere of its idiot."
(Elvis Santino although it could equally apply to Josef Byng).

2) "I cannot believe that out of 10,000 sperm his was the fastest."
(As for No. 1)

3) "When she opens her mouth it seems that it is only to change whatever foot was in it previously."
("Horrible" Hemphill, of course).

4) "Since my last report, he has reached rock bottom... and started to dig."
(Pavel Young although it probably also applied to his father as well).

5) "Always wets himself when under pressure."
(Pavel Young again. (The original quotation actually said 'Only occasionally wets himself...' but I reckon that 'Always' is more appropriate for Pavel Young).

6) "He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle."
(Practically every senior officer in Battle Fleet).

Anybody any other examples & who they would apply to?

All quotations from The British Army Guide 2016-2017 by Charles Heyman published by Pen & Sword Books.

That is absolutely funny.

I've run into officers who were complexly brainless. with statements like;

This officer would get lost trying to cross the street.
Officer incapable of doing math without taking off his shoes.
Officer can't understand concept of light discipline at night.
Radio silence means radio silence not chat every 10 minutes.

Real world, nobody says anything like that. The way it worked back in the day was that getting anything other then praise was essentially the kiss of death. You can't call every officer "the finest <blah> that I have ever known", you reserve that for people who are really exceptional. Putting anything like the listed stuff would result in your senior rater calling you in for a little chat about professionalism and appropriate language and you would get the opportunity to rewrite this to his satisfaction.

I do believe that the British Navy and Army did have a tradition of being a little more creative than some others.
There are lists around that contain the ones first quoted here, plus even more scurrilous ones. One I remember was "Regards the ship as primarily a device to transport his genitalia to various ports". Or "Can work when cornered like a rat in his hole".

Even when playing it safe you could damn with faint praise. I've used statements like "Generally performs adequately when supervised", or "She is more suited to solitary roles" (after one particularly unpleasant female had a petition signed by everyone from every section she had worked in requesting that she not return).

Edit, Ambiguity can be funny as well. Taylor Anderson's Destroyer books have a recommendation on them from David Weber saying "I cannot recommend these books too highly". I mentioned it to Taylor, and he said it was a mutual joke between them.

Daryl wrote:I do believe that the British Navy and Army did have a tradition of being a little more creative than some others.
There are lists around that contain the ones first quoted here, plus even more scurrilous ones. One I remember was "Regards the ship as primarily a device to transport his genitalia to various ports". Or "Can work when cornered like a rat in his hole".

Even when playing it safe you could damn with faint praise. I've used statements like "Generally performs adequately when supervised", or "She is more suited to solitary roles" (after one particularly unpleasant female had a petition signed by everyone from every section she had worked in requesting that she not return).

Edit, Ambiguity can be funny as well. Taylor Anderson's Destroyer books have a recommendation on them from David Weber saying "I cannot recommend these books too highly". I mentioned it to Taylor, and he said it was a mutual joke between them.

Yes, those two quotation were also in the list in the book I quoted. I just could not think of anybody they really applied to.

I also came across a story where the Imperial Japanese were a dominant space power in the Solar System. After one particularly embarrassing incident the Prime Minister was talking to his senior naval officer whilst the officer in question was wondering whether the Prime Minister was going to resign. Then the Prime Minister said that he was probably going to have to resign... & that he intended recommending his senior naval officer to his successor in 'the most glowing possible terms.' He then put the phone down & the naval officer muttered, 'Well, you needn't be so nasty about it.' Does anybody remember the story?

kzt wrote:Real world, nobody says anything like that. The way it worked back in the day was that getting anything other then praise was essentially the kiss of death. You can't call every officer "the finest <blah> that I have ever known", you reserve that for people who are really exceptional. Putting anything like the listed stuff would result in your senior rater calling you in for a little chat about professionalism and appropriate language and you would get the opportunity to rewrite this to his satisfaction.

They may not in your armed forces but they certainly do in ours. Besides, these reports are not written by the Section, Division or Department Heads, they are usually written by the Commanding Officers.

I was a battery commander. I just wrote a few OERs. But every one then went to the battalion commander next as the senior evaluator. If he didn't like it you fixed it. In any case, the rankings and remarks of the senior evaluator were vastly more important than the evaluator, as has has written a lot more evaluations and seen a lot more junior officers. The army actually had statistical measurements for what his average rating was and what constituted average, outstanding and poor ranks based on all the OERs he had done in his career.

Over the years I was in the US Navy I wrote any number of evals and reviews. One of the first things I learned, to my vast disappointment, was that you would not be allowed to be honest. Very few sailors who ever served under me were bad. Some were misguided, young, inexperienced or occasionally foolish. But not usually bad.

I did have a few, and one of them was when I first began writing evals for junior enlisted sailors. This was the sort of person we couldn't trust to scrape paint. He'd do a half-arsed job of it, wander off or wouldn't listen. We'd tried every method of discipline that we had but still couldn't get him to perform.

His eval reflected that, garnering him a 2.0 in most areas. (On a 5.0 scale) I didn't quite blast him, but I stated that he wasn't trustworthy, was borderline incompetent and should be considered for removal from service. My wording was a bit less blunt than that, but it was sent back several times. I had to sit down with the XO for a discussion about how evals should be written. Overall, it opened my eyes to the reality of paperwork in the Navy.

It's a sad truth that today's military, the Navy at least, is far more interested in paperwork than in getting real work done. All too often this sends good people out of the Navy and keeps bad ones because reviews are not accurate. They're coached in 'acceptable' language.

Rincewind wrote: I also came across a story where the Imperial Japanese were a dominant space power in the Solar System. After one particularly embarrassing incident the Prime Minister was talking to his senior naval officer whilst the officer in question was wondering whether the Prime Minister was going to resign. Then the Prime Minister said that he was probably going to have to resign... & that he intended recommending his senior naval officer to his successor in 'the most glowing possible terms.' He then put the phone down & the naval officer muttered, 'Well, you needn't be so nasty about it.' Does anybody remember the story?

The Rosinante trilogy, by Alexis A Gilliland. But he wasn't being ambiguous, he was being bitingly sarcastic.

Don't have it handy, but before that there's the bit where the admiral's aide warns that the situation is about to go public, with newspaper headlines like "The UFOS is Coming!"
The admiral says that reporters are stupid -- they'll probably write "The UFOS are coming".
"Very funny -- but only in English! I'm sure the prime minister will appreciate your wit."