US Navy - question re: CPO coffee cups

[Bluehawk]

 

> I've seen that and similar images dozens of times in recent years, so, did this ever actually happen so often that it deserved to become a meme? What might be the origin of the anecdote? Are Chiefs for some reason more fussy about their coffee cup than anyone else? Or, is this just made-up silliness? 

[Dave]

My friends who are Chiefs will deeply disagree with me, but yes...it's made up silliness. Well, as far as not washing the cups is concerned. I have no idea who started the tradition of having really dirty cups, but in all of my commands, it was a sense of pride to have a seriously stained cup. We heard horror stories too of food service attendants (FSAs) washing Chief coffee cups, but I never personally encountered that happening. Not saying it didn't...but everywhere it could have happened, the Chiefs were very picky about who they had working in the Mess and everyone knew......DON'T wash the coffee cups! 

Fast forward to now and the standard ceramic cups aren't as ubiquitous as they once were. I had a Yeti mug for my last deployment and that was pretty common. It was very nice to still have hot coffee an hour or two into a watch instead of 30 minutes the "old school" way. :) 

[Bluehawk]

17 minutes ago, Dave said:

My friends who are Chiefs will deeply disagree with me, but yes...it's made up silliness. Well, as far as not washing the cups is concerned. I have no idea who started the tradition of having really dirty cups, but in all of my commands, it was a sense of pride to have a seriously stained cup. We heard horror stories too of food service attendants (FSAs) washing Chief coffee cups, but I never personally encountered that happening. Not saying it didn't...but everywhere it could have happened, the Chiefs were very picky about who they had working in the Mess and everyone knew......DON'T wash the coffee cups! 

Fast forward to now and the standard ceramic cups aren't as ubiquitous as they once were. I had a Yeti mug for my last deployment and that was pretty common. It was very nice to still have hot coffee an hour or two into a watch instead of 30 minutes the "old school" way. :) 

That explains it nicely, thanks...  I can just picture an FSA E-1 washing a CPO cup now 😆