It’s that time again! Post ’em if you got ’em…

Now…the “Sea Story” for the week: “The Original ‘Nickel Back'” or: “How to make civil servant cringe.”

Besides building a lot of FFG-7 Class frigates for us, we also made two for the Aussies; Two w/o LAMPS MK III helicopter capable and two with. Being the officer in charge of training for our non-LAMPS MK III vessels, my office had the pleasure of hosting the crews of the FFG-01 and -02. -01 was there before I reported, but the crew of the ADELAIDE (FFG-02) arrived during my “watch.”

There are funds set aside to show some hospitality to long term foreign visitors (in this case the course was 4 weeks long) and I was informed I could arrange for a visit to the Williamsburg Busch Gardens facility for our Australians. I was also tasked to provide “chaperones” from my staff, and this could include their spouses/girl friends. I forget the ratio, but it was enough for a few of us to tag along on the taxpayers kindness.

Anyhow, I was supplied with the cash to purchase the tickets and pay for some other minor approved charges. We went, we had a great time. The guests of the taxpayer being “english” speaking didn’t require a lot of close supervision, so it certainly wasn’t a strenuous day by any means.

So, on Monday morning, I dutifully added up the receipts for the visit and balanced it against the cash provided. I had a expended all but 5 cents…..I went to Disbursing in the Administrative building at lunch and handed my records and the nickel to the lady civil servant responsible for accounting. She looked at me and said “loose the nickel.” I looked back at her and said “I only have receipts for all but the nickel. Here it is.” Her reply was something like “do you know how much trouble it is to put that 5 cents back into the systems?” and I responded something to the effect that it was a less effort than us both getting hammered for loosing Government money.” and I left.

I know a nickel isn’t much, but it sure wasn’t mine and I had no paperwork to chase it away with, so she got to do the paperwork to put the nickel back in the taxpayers’ account.