When the rating of Ship’s Serviceman (SH) was established until 1943, it was divided into four specialty ratings: Barber (SSMB), Laundryman (SSML), Cobbler (SSMC), and Tailor (SSMT). Those service ratings are long gone, replaced by three jobs in the SH rating: Barber, Laundry Operator, and Retail Operator.
By October 2019, the list of jobs in the SH rating had settled at four: Barber, Laundryman, Cobbler, and Tailor—but on the 1st of that month the Sailors performing these jobs were all given a brand-new rating: Retail Services Specialist (RS). The rating change was designed to “directly translate the skills and expertise of the work performed by the Sailors in the rating to work performed in the civilian sector” and to “increase professional alignment with civilian employees, better representing the functions performed by Sailors within the rating.”
While the tasks performed by Sailors serving in the RS rating certainly don’t seem as glamorous as those found in other, more action-oriented ratings in today’s Navy, they are nonetheless just as vital to the functioning and moral of Sailors across all rates and ratings. Life in the Navy is, at the end of the day, life—and with life comes the need for things like haircuts, clean clothes, and places to shop for sundries and essential items.
Sailors looking to join the 2400-plus men and women serving in the RS rating attend the Retail Services Specialist Class “A” School at the Naval Technical Training Center in Meridian, Mississippi. The five-week course is self-spaced and employs an Integrated Learning Environment, a system designed to deliver high-quality learning and training aids that are tailored to the needs of individual Sailors.
Hands-on training for the three jobs in the SH rating is provided in Labs that simulate real-life experiences as closely as is possible. Work in the Ship Store and other duties tasked to Retail Operators is addressed in the Receipts of Ship Store, Breakout, Vending Machine, and Ship Store Labs. Laundry Lab acquaints trainees with the proper methods for receiving laundry and proper ways to operate washing machines, presses, and dryers—and, perhaps most importantly, how to correctly press three sets of uniforms. These may sound like simple tasks, but even the most mundane jobs can become challenging when scaled up to accommodate scores or hundreds of customers.
Retail Services Specialists are assigned to a ships or shore installations following completion of “A” School, and will typically spend sixty percent of a twenty-year career assigned to fleet units.
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