Election News

But not the kind you're thinking of, since I prefer not to be actively political here.

When you're on a ship, there are two ways to pay for your food. If you're enlisted, the subsistence allowance just gets paid right to the ship. If you're an Officer, you get the money in your paycheck and each meal you eat in port gets charged or, all the days meals are charged if you're at sea. The bill is given to the Officers as a group, aka the Officer's Mess, and is paid by a single person, the Mess Treasurer. The Mess Treasurer charges each member based on their food bill and then additional money for things like group gifts (birth of a child, farewell, that sort of thing) and parties or other gatherings.

Nobody who is sane wants to deal with chasing 30+ people around for money. So, in grand tradition, the Mess Treasurer is elected by his or her peers. The usual route is to hold a meeting of the Officers and nominate individuals based on random attributes, most notably presence, or lack thereof, at the nominating meeting. Then, following a brief campaign, the election is held. This poster was submitted in lieu of a speech, because she was at a school.

The irony of this poster is that the person who provided that cartoon at the bottom is both female and a math major. She explained why it's funny to the rest of us.

Despite the general consensus that it would be a good thing for the Officer in question to get some practice and brush up on her math, she did not win the election.

Her fellow Ensign, equally absent, submitted a speech that included a committment to collecting mess dues from each member of the Wardroom on the first of the month, even if the first is a weekend or holiday. We are all curious to see how well he carries out his campaign threats promises.

Comments

[BJ]

My husband runs rings around me with his algebra, calculus, and what not, but *counting*, simple *counting*, such as is involved when dealing with money, is apparently the most difficult kind of math of all. When I used to balance the checkbook, (does anybody do that anymore?) *he* more often than not, was the one who made the subtraction errors, so no, the math major is not necessarily the best one for that job.

Barb in Maryland