How does one deal with somone like Lt. Cmdr. Queeg?

[bbjohn]

This was inspired by one of Kham’s posts.

I recently came across a fascinating essay about “The Caine Mutiny,” Herman Wouk’s story about a minesweeper during World War II. It was in the May/June edition of World War II Magazine, and was written by David T. Zabecki. He’s an instructor at Annapolis, and he uses the story in his classes to get the Midshipmen thinking about the issues it presents.

Wouk’s story was a best selling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It later became a Broadway play and a blockbuster movie in 1954 that starred Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Jose Ferrer, and Fred MacMurray.

Some have called this Bogey’s greatest role ever. In the role of Lt. Cmdr. Philip Queeg, he made twiddling three ball bearings in his hand a new symbol for paranoia.

For the unitiated, “The Caine Mutiny” was set aboard a fictional minesweeper in the Pacific, the U.S.S. Caine. It focused on three officers: the XO, Lt. Maryk, who’s respected by the crew and wants to make the Navy his career; the communications officer, Lt. Keefer, an aspiring novelist who hates the Navy; and the recently commissioned Ensign Keith, a Princeton grad who’s serving his first assignment.

Soon after Keith arrives, the Caine gets a new commander, Queeg, an Annapolis graduate and a distinguished veteran of anti-submarine warfare in the Atlantic.

It doesn’t take long for the three officers to conclude Queeg is not only incompetent, but he’s also mentally unstable and paranoid. At Keefer’s urging, Maryk starts making a list of incidents involving Queeg.

As the incidents mount, Keefer urges the other officers to work against Queeg. He even coaches Maryk on how to relieve Queeg under Article 184.

Queeg, aware something is going on, becomes even more paranoid.

It all comes to a head during a typhoon. Maryk realizes Queeg’s orders and actions could sink the Caine. When Queeg goes catatonic, Maryk relieves him. This leads to Maryk being court martialed for mutiny.

A Navy lawyer, Lt. Barney Greenwald, only accepts Maryk’s case after 12 others turn him down. In the courtroom, he calls Queeg to the stand. Under questioning, Queeg breaks down, and the court can see the paranoia and instability that led to Maryk relieving him. Maryk is acquitted.

At a celebration party that evening, a drunken Greenwald shows up. He berates Maryk, Keith and Keefer for undermining their commander instead of supporting him, but he has special contempt for Keefer. Saying he was the one really responsible for the mutiny, he said he only took Maryk’s case because he believed the wrong person was on trial. Keefer should’ve been the one who was tried for mutiny.

Wouk based his story on his own experiences on a minesweeper, including surviving a typhoon that nearly wrecked his ship. One Admiral remarked Wouk had captured nearly all the many types of characters he had seen in 30 years in the Navy.

Zabecki said he likes to have his students read the book, and then ask them what they would do when they found themselves working for or with someone like Queeg. He said the world is full of Queegs, and that includes the private sector as well as the military. It’s almost certain that, at some point in our lives, we will all have to deal with a Queeg.

I’ll admit I’ve known a few Queegs in my time.

Zabecki pointed out that, for a military unit, these are more than academic questions. What should someone down the chain of command do if the commander is incompetent and his actions are hurting the unit? How does a unit accomplish its mission? How do you protect the members of that unit? How does one does this and also fulfill one’s duties, particularly if someone is an officer? For the military, these questions could be a matter of life or death.

Zabecki’s students have noted the teamwork so essential for a crew to get its job done was not present on the Caine. The top officers and the commander didn't respect or trust each other. As a result, the officers let Queeg down, and he let him down. The people they really hurt were themselves.

Zabecki noted that, in the book, Keith learned about teamwork in midshipman school. He was academically brilliant, but he had a difficult time with Naval discipline. His roommates, who were mostly working class, were better suited for the discipline, but they had trouble academically. They worked out an arrangement: he tutored them, they helped him with the discipline. They all got their commissions.

That sort of cooperation to get a task done was something lacking on the Caine, Zabecki said.

How does one deal with a Queeg? Wouk offered no easy or simple answers in “The Caine Mutiny,” except perhaps that the three officers went about it the wrong way. As Zabecki said, there are no easy answers, but Wouk’s story offers reasons why it takes so long to train officers.

Big Bad John

[kham]

Wouk offered no easy answers, because he knows, there ARE no easy answers. Queeg as I said, was a dickhead. But he had seen years of hard service in the Atlantic, plus been in the prewar Navy before that. He had what they quaintly call today, PTSD. In todays PC-bullshit Navy there too many minders and Zampoliti about than should be, so its very hard to equate to present day rules. Article 184 is dodgy, since if you do THAT, you better be right. Because it technically is mutiny. A capital crime. Now, YEAH, he saved the ship. But other ships in the storm didnt go down (the storm BTW is based on the Typhoon Cobra, or Halsey's Typhoon so its not made-up bullshit)

Barney was right; if maybe his officers had supported him more, Queeg might have come through ok. But his manner, plus the incident during the landings did not help matters. Keefer didnt make matters better by his bullshit, and encouraging what we would call "silent insolence" (think that might be in old rocks n shoals, ,marine edition) degraded discipline at a time it was needed. The fact that Caine had poor discipline on board to begin with didnt help either, and then you have a new skipper who believes in the Navy Way of doing things. Like most mishaps, its not just one thing that does it. Its a chain of events. In a perfect world Queeg should have gotten extended shore duty, or assigned to new construction, which would keep him out of action for a year or more. That would likely have been enough to bleed off the stress. Believe me, even a normal day the hours kill you. And when things are not normal, and they stressful, it all ads up. I have the medical problems to prove it You go through naval history and you will find scores of guys who on paper are excellent officers. But they cant function in combat. Now, I havent been shot at, but I can say after 3 fires and 2 groundings, there enough stuff that you can eventually see how you handle yourself when the wings are burning as they say Aviators say you dont always want John Wayne as your pilot. Unless the wings are burning. I always thought Jimmy Stewart was the better example, gentleman and cool under pressure. You could do worse.

And, It was to me, one of Bogey's greatest roles; way outside his comfort zone, and portraying a character who is not what you would expect of him.

[kham]

Timing being everything, currently reading "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" and in the 2nd or 3rd chapter, there is commentary on several of the captains commanding the escorts of Taffy 3. One guy, is described as 'making Queeg look like a pussy' and this was 56 years on ! So, definitely not feeling the love there. Also described that the guys had ways of getting revenge, like filling the overhead over said captains cabin with marbles, so when the boat rolled in a swell....
Dont piss off your Chiefs and Officers, it will only cause you pain in the end...

[Duncan Edwards]

Dont piss off your Chiefs and Officers, it will only cause you pain in the end...

This is a big lesson for the corporate world. You don't have to be best buddies with everybody but it's a great help to at least keep them on your side. I've been at work since I turned 16 - 34 years and counting. My dad told me about six things in life that have actually been useful. One of which was even if you have nothing to do at least pick up a broom and look busy. To this day I've got a broom in the corner of my office.

One other thing he told me was "Don't ever kick a turd. It just might turn out to be your boss someday." A bit of wisdom that serves me more and more in this time of working in a living Dilbert cartoon.

What all that is about is the Queegs I've worked for over the years. Two really fine examples stand out and they had so few redeeming qualities that you realize they got promoted because others were trying to get rid of them. One started out beneath me so I was glad I didn't give him all the shit I wanted to. What happens though is people like that don't win the support of their employees. You might not actively cause trouble for the Queeg in your organization but nobody has his back. Nobody is actively trying to help this guy. That's a great example of what happened in "The Caine Mutiny".

Remember that in the civilian world it's different' In most jobs your Queeg isn't going to get you killed by his failure as a leader. All you have to do is wait for him to hang himself or retire and hopefully you're on to someone better. This brings in dad's third bit of advice - In any situation the only person you know you can control is yourself. Shut up and keep your head down until the storm passes.

[Nessie]

The bottom line was, whatever his qualifications and history, Queeg was incompetent. I didn't think he was nuts. I didn't think he was stupid. Emotionally, though, he was a bit on the bent side. He might have been all right at one time. It was hard to tell for sure, though.

He was a bomb at dealing with people. If you are the leader, you certainly don't have to be pals with everyone -- it's best if you're not. But you need to be fair. And you need to have a heart. You need to have a grasp of reality good enough to know right from wrong and the guts to admit it when you (gasp!) are wrong. That means that your ego can't be bigger than your brain.

And technically, you need to be better at things than the people under you are. Your people should know that obeying you is more than just a law they have to follow.

They should prefer to obey you because you KNOW what you're talking about.

Queeg just didn't cut the fat. True, Keefer was deliberately undermining him, but on the other hand, you gotta admit...no captain has any business providing so much ammunition.

Just not saying a thing out loud does not make it disappear. If there was no Keefer, I am quite sure the guys would still be thinking it.

I don't see that there's any argument at all about whether Maryk did the right thing. He faced the court martial and was acquitted. Not fun but better than being fish food at the bottom of the sea.

Back to the original question:

"How does one deal with someone like Queeg?"

Tempting it may be, but murder is not an option. So, when Queeg has come into your life, you must do all you can (legally) to get him out of your life.

If Queeg is a family member, you can loosen or eliminate your contact.

I'm not familiar with a real-life military -- just the world presented by the novel, which is fiction -- but those guys were mostly pretty well just stuck with him. [Edit...there was one option: Mutiny.)

So, options in the book: Not many.

I always saw the book as a general statement about the working world. There isn't that much real combat in the book. It's all about shirttails and strawberries.

In the working world, when your boss is Queeg, there are very few options short of quitting your job. All you have to do is go online and Google "bad boss" and the law, and you'll find out in a hurry that the rules are just overwhelmingly stacked in favor of your boss.

If you want unemployment, you can let yourself get fired. But this isn't so great for your future prospects as you'll be forever explaining it, and nearly everyone you interview with will assume that the fault is with you.

If you quit, you most likely won't get unemployment (even if it is Queeg's fault that you left), but quitting looks a better on your resume than being fired.

What I did:

After over three years, my Queeg was still hard at it. I finally lost it and walked off. I should have given notice, but everybody around said, "The economy stinks and you just don't quit a job right now!"

I lost it because trying to suck up everything with dignity and just absorb all the abuse because I need the money can be done temporarily, but it's not a good permanent option.

I took a temp job that was low-paid and very easy just to knock Queeg down a notch on the resume. Suddenly the people at the top of my resume liked me.

Then I took a part-time job and worked it for awhile and that put Queeg down one more notch -- and that boss gave me a current good reference.

Now I have a real job. And nobody calls Queeg now at all to ask about me.

I had to cash in a $4,000 mutual fund to survive while I wasn't working. So getting rid of Queeg cost me $4,000.

Not everyone has the options I did. For somebody with children to support and more bills to pay than I've ever had, I would say -- they could be just plain stuck.

There is some justice in the world, though...I heard that after I left, a new manager was hired over there and put in a place of authority over Queeg. You don't think, do you, that there is any chance at all that the new manager was hired to manage the manager?

Nessie

[kham]

On a slight tangent here, if you never have read Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, you should, if you have any interest in Naval History. It amazes me to this day, there are so few books written about it, or anything made in movies about it. It is, to me, and other historians, THE finest hour of the United States Navy. Not just in WW II. But ever. John Paul Jones would have been very comfortable on the bridge of any of the escorts of Taffy 3. Nelson would have raised a glass to the men of this force. Hollywood couldn't write a story such as theirs. A small force of 3 DD and one DE, covering 6 escort carriers against the entire remaining heavy surface units of the Imperial Navy. Yamato alone displaced more than the entire combined units of Taffy 3

The engagement really is too detailed to go through in a mere post, but despite suffering severe losses (more than combined losses in personnel at Battle of Coral Sea and Midway) the Combined Fleet was forced to turn back. Never again would the Imperial Navy sortie forth in strength.

Hollywood really blew it. Destroyer taking on cruiser, and blowing its bow off; then trading salvoes with a battleship, then later a column of enemy destroyers outnumbering them 6-1 -- and forcing them to break contact. A DE taking on a heavy cruiser and raking it from stem to stern expending almost its entire ammo load. Ceasing fire only when out of ammo or the guns disabled, and gunners killed. (the gunners mate on the 52 mount on Roberts was found dead , his last action trying to load one more 5'' shell in the loading tray..)
Maybe it was too much for them to believe as real.

[Duncan Edwards]

On a slight tangent here, if you never have read Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, you should, if you have any interest in Naval History. It amazes me to this day, there are so few books written about it, or anything made in movies about it. It is, to me, and other historians, THE finest hour of the United States Navy. Not just in WW II. But ever. John Paul Jones would have been very comfortable on the bridge of any of the escorts of Taffy 3. Nelson would have raised a glass to the men of this force. Hollywood couldn't write a story such as theirs. A small force of 3 DD and one DE, covering 6 escort carriers against the entire remaining heavy surface units of the Imperial Navy. Yamato alone displaced more than the entire combined units of Taffy 3

The engagement really is too detailed to go through in a mere post, but despite suffering severe losses (more than combined losses in personnel at Battle of Coral Sea and Midway) the Combined Fleet was forced to turn back. Never again would the Imperial Navy sortie forth in strength.

Hollywood really blew it. Destroyer taking on cruiser, and blowing its bow off; then trading salvoes with a battleship, then later a column of enemy destroyers outnumbering them 6-1 -- and forcing them to break contact. A DE taking on a heavy cruiser and raking it from stem to stern expending almost its entire ammo load. Ceasing fire only when out of ammo or the guns disabled, and gunners killed. (the gunners mate on the 52 mount on Roberts was found dead , his last action trying to load one more 5'' shell in the loading tray..)
Maybe it was too much for them to believe as real.

I know this story and read about the USS Gambier Bay and it's loss in that fight. Yeah, epic stuff and it's hardly ever been mentioned because it was just one more fight in a much bigger picture. Wish we could get Tom Hanks interested in it.

[kham]

That is what really infuriates -- everyone seems to think the Battle of Suriago Strait, with the survivors of Pearl dealing out a one-sided execution of the IJN forces there was a bigger deal. NO. Not even close.

Taffy 3 was in broad daylight, and if they had failed, the IJN had a clear shot at the landing beaches and all the transports. Now, while it is very likely it would not have mattered in the long run, it would have cost a lot of lives and crapped on MacA's homecoming parade...

Maybe it really is too epic for them to get their minds around, that such men actually existed.
Clifton Sprague, an admiral not overcome by ego, who had been a legend himself in the genesis of Naval Aviation, KNOWING what he was asking , yet still making the signal:

"SMALL BOYS, SMALL BOYS, INTERPOSE BETWEEN SHIPS AND MEN" that signal is at least as heroic as anything Nelson ever made. The Sammy B, a DE who is only supposed to do 24 knots, has her chief override everything and she's roaring around at almost 30 knots. The Navy remembered though; the next Sammy B, a Perry -class FFG who hit an Iranian mine -- and should have sunk -- had a plaque that the crew touched as they fought to save their ship - and bring her home. Anyone who says ship's dont have a soul, have never served on one.

[Lomax]

Queegs are not cofined to the miltary.

I once had a boss who was a Queeg. One example. A requirement of the business was to purcahse US dollars from time to time. This was one of my responsibilities. I got in contact with a broker to arrange some forward purcgasing - that is, to sign a contract to buy a certain number of dollars at an ageed future date and a specified rate. Naturally, you can't second-guess the market; but you can take the uncertinties out sometimes.

The boss refused to sanction this. Reason - he had once in the past signed a stop-loss agreement. Broadly, this was an arrangement whereby you told a broker you wished to buy a certain number of dollars by such nd such a date, at a minimum rate. If the market fell below such a rate, the deal crystallised, and you bought the dollars at that rate. In other words, you minimised your potential exchange loss; the worst consequence being that you had the dollars some time before you actually needed them. Fine.

In the event, the market dipped about a week after he signed the agreement. The dollars were bought. Then the market rallied, and the rate spent several months above the stop-loss rate.

My boss was furious. Morepover, he was UTTERLY convinced that as soon as he's signed the agrement, the broker got onto his mates saying, "I've got a sucker here," and had rigged the market to the detriment of my boss. When I tried gently to point out that if ne man could gurantee to move the market the way he wanted he'd work for Goldman Sachs and would write his own pay-cheque, my boss couldn't see it. It was all about HIM.

[Nessie]

Morepover, he was UTTERLY convinced that as soon as he's signed the agrement, the broker got onto his mates saying, "I've got a sucker here," and had rigged the market to the detriment of my boss. When I tried gently to point out that if ne man could gurantee to move the market the way he wanted he'd work for Goldman Sachs and would write his own pay-cheque, my boss couldn't see it. It was all about HIM.

Ahh, you had one of those too, huh?

I have been re-reading my copy of the book because of this thread. And the beauty of this novel is that you don't have to be a military fan to be unable to put the book down.

All you need to know is a Queeg. And you're hooked.

Nessie