Revelation Watchbill
Like most large spacecraft in the Cobalt Protectorate, the ESCI Revelation is primarily manned and operated by flesh-and-blood humans and close relations thereof. As living beings, this crew cannot be expected to work at all hours. Allowances must be made for appropriate downtime for a wide variety of conditions, including sleep, recuperation from injury or sickness, recreation, training, or even - because it is a colony vessel - attending to matters of family and heart. Even Human-Like Artificial Intelligences need downtime to consolidate their experiences and undergo maintenance.
For these reasons, and in consideration of the unlimited duration of the vessel's mission, the Revelation operates under a watchbill (work shift schedule) separated into six ten-hour shifts across two twenty-four-hour working days. Each shift overlaps the one before it and the one after to provide some flexibility for training, staffing shortfalls, shift relief briefings, and other important functions. Multiple members of the crew are assigned to each important post within each shift in accordance with the traditional Evermornan proclivity towards multiple redundancy and to allow more comfortable timing for mid-shift meals and bathroom breaks as required.
When off shift, crew members in mission-critical positions aboard the Revelation are required to remain on call in case of emergencies. Staff on opposite shifts from the current one are called in first in the event of an emergency to ensure they are maximally sharp and well-rested for the task at hand. Training exercises are worked into the regular shift rotation and may extend past the usual end of a shift if a deficit in preparedness is discovered. Continuous overtime is generally capped at a half-shift except in exigent circumstances, as it has been observed that mental focus declines rapidly beyond this point; on-call staff are more likely to be brought in if more staffing is required. Officers with the Personnel Department - usually themselves available on Shifts B and E - have the responsibility to ensure that all positions are filled across all shifts.
The watchbill of the Revelation is much less strict than it would be aboard Cobalt Knights military vessels, such as the CKV Mercury Sable. Each work day is followed or preceeded by a full day of rest, wherein a crew member can venture out into the civilian parts of the colony ship and pursue their own interests as long as they observe on-call procedures. This is done partly because the Evermorn Strategic Colony Initiative believes that a well-rested crew is a safe and efficient crew and partly because a more rigorous schedule isn't necessary - and, some ESCI research has suggested, might be deleterious to the psychological health of the colony over the long term. A continuous shift tempo broken up with occasional bouts of shore leave is easier to maintain over a mission with a duration measured in months or years, but Revelation is expected to main in operation for decades. Moreover, while the Revelation is a large and complex spacecraft, its day-to-day operations are overseen in large part by hardened autonomous systems, making its generous staffing even more generous with regards to the mission's actual requirements and obviating the need for a tighter watchbill. Many crew members take the opportunity to cross-train into other positions when they aren't on shift anyways, allowing them to slide across the watchbill to new shifts and positions when the opportunity arises.
Importantly, even though the watchbill's impact is felt most among those members of the crew that occupy mandatory staffing positions (i.e. in the Astrogation Department), even the civilian passengers of the Revelation observe the watchbill in their own lives to a certain degree. Not only are there shipboard services that should be made available to crew members even if they have oddball shifts - such as barbers to cut the hair of Shift A crew, who normally head into work during a ship-wide 'late night' cycle - but civilians who aspire to critical crew positions in the future would do well to start adapting to their desired shifts while they are still in training for those positions. Moreover, as crew and civilians enter into interpersonal relationships over the course of the mission, friends and family can arrange their schedules around the watchbill so that they get a chance to spend time together on a more regular basis.
Medium
Digital Recording, Various
Location
Signatories (Organizations)
Comments