Characters

  • SFC Baker
  • PV2 Nikki Donner

Locations

  • Joinr Culinary Academy, Ft. Lee, Virginia

So… there’s “management”, and then there’s “managing”.

The military has a whole culture of “risk assessment” and “risk management”. Everything has a risk assessment matrix that can be applied– you take a notion like “what is the worst possible thing that could possibly go wrong” and then work backwards from that: “realistically, how likely is that to actually happen?” and “if it DOES happen, how truly screwed are we?” The idea is to determine if there are any risks that could completely render all your efforts and goals pointless, and the likelihood of that really happening.

Then, you apply “risk management” to lessen the effects of things going wrong. Risk management can decrease the possibility that something happens, or, if you can’t reduce the likelihood, maybe you can mitigate the damage it will cause. Ideally, you want to reduce both “possibility” and “damage potential” both.

But Donner came from cooking in the civilian world, so she sees the word “managing” as something a “manager” –a supervisory person– does. Taking a risky thing or person and separating them out so they can be watched more closely. You don’t necessarily want to get rid of a thing or person that may yet have some potential, because of course that’s money down the drain. So she takes her possibly damaged produce and sets it aside to be sure.

Poor Sergeant Baker. This is why he grows old.

Characters

  • SFC Baker
  • PV2 Nikki Donner

Locations

  • Joinr Culinary Academy, Ft. Lee, Virginia

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