I subsequently went over this end-of-day checkout event in detail with all the officers. The problem, I explained, was that in this scenario the XO is the one who was being responsible for each department head’s work, not the department head himself. Psychological ownership for accomplishing the work rested with the XO, not the department head. Checking out is fine, I said, but it should go more like this: “XO, I’m shoving off for the day. The charts for next week’s underway are coming along fine, and we’ll be able to show the rough plan to the captain tomorrow. I wasn’t able to see Petty
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