Recruit Training Command Great Lakes: Case Study

Background Recruit Training Command Great Lakes (RTC Great Lakes), is a unit within the United States Navy primarily responsible for conducting the initial orientation and indoctrination of incoming recruits. It commonly is referred to as boot camp, recruit training, or informally "Great Mistakes". Since the BRAC-directed closures of Recruit Training Commands in Orlando, Florida and San Diego, California in 1999, and then actually decommissioning them in 1993. RTC Great Lakes has been the only enlisted basic training location in the U.S. Navy and has been called "The Quarterdeck of the Navy" since it was first utilized in July 1911. NTC San Diego was established in 1923 and decommissioned in 1993, giving it a proud 70
You learn to conform to the way the Navy expects you to conduct yourself as a United States sailor both on the job and out in town, you have a reputation to uphold as you represent the organization at all times. Most recruits get there and instantly hate it because of all the drastic changes that no one has really explained to you. You can barely call home and when you do the conversations are very short, so you resort to writing letters and that becomes their only solace and at times even receiving those letters is a privilege that can be taken away. The recruits train to the point of exhaustion and then they are expected to sit in classrooms and be focused. Confrontation in this situation happens often because the instructors learn what buttons to push with individuals after spending so much time with the recruits and they do push them to the point that confrontation is inevitable especially for the weak minded. Recruits often lose sight of the big pictures and yell back or in some instances get into physical altercations with both instructors and/or other recruits because they cannot handle the immense amount of pressure and disrespect. They are pushed physically to their limits often getting sick with no way to stop, well that aspect has changed tremendously. However
"They want us to put the Navy into our heart, not our muscles," complains recruit Michael Evans. Captain Whitehead counters that the old system overworked recruits, leading to stress fractures and other medical problems that delayed, or ended, fledgling Navy careers. "We had recruits piling up, waiting for them to get better so we could do it to them again," she says. "Now we rarely break them." (Thompson, 2001). As time progresses changes are made to make it a more pleasurable experience that still gives them the knowledge they need to excel when they actually begin work with their peers in the “Big Navy.” (Military.com, n.d.)
Causes of the conflict situation We are relating the conflict situation at boot camp between supervisor and subordinates to that of manager and new employees at workplace. As described in the background the conflict is between the supervisor and subordinates who are new to the training camp. We analyzed the causes for conflict situation and tried to offer the resolution for the conflict situation. The conflict situation at the boot camp is similar in many ways how the manager-subordinates relationship conflict occurs in workplace.
Following are the causes that we found created the conflict