I'm not sure what Navy Boot Camp is like now, but I went through back in the late 80's in San Diego, and I had a completely different experience than anyone else in my company.

My stepfather was a pilot in the Air Force, and I had years before decided that I wanted to work on airplanes. I had been in Civil Air Patrol for years, progressing to a fairly senior position. My rank and experience in Civil Air Patrol qualified me to exit boot camp as an E-3, rather than an E-1. Additionally, I was guaranteed an avionics position for enlisting. Taking these factors into account, my Company Commanders selected me as our company yeoman - in reality, just a paperwork specialist. We actually had two yeomen in our company - one who marched next to the Recruit Chief Petty Officer (the recruit ostensibly "in charge of" the formation) and carried all of the random paperwork, and the one who generated the random paperwork (me). Or maybe they saw how naive I was, and just wanted to keep me close for an occasional laugh.

Nothing happened in boot without copious amounts of paperwork, for some reason. The company has to go to chow? The "marching yeoman" had to carry a chit detailing where they were marching from, where they were marching to, time of departure, estimated time of arrival, and the names of all the cadets in the formation. Any time anyone went anywhere, whether it was the whole company or just an individual, they had to carry paperwork with them... generated by yours truly. Watch schedules, walking chits, orders for the company to go en masse to make their phone calls - absolutely everything.

I was singularly responsible for all of the bullshit paperwork for the company, and it all had to be hand written. In perfect block letter handwriting. In black ball-point pen.

I spent most of my time during boot camp at my dedicated desk in the company commander's office. I'd do the bare minimum to get by (get my locker halfway presentable, etc.) then hoof it back to the office to work on paperwork, confident in the knowledge that the inspection would pass me by. Didn't get dinged a single time on an inspection, which, for some reason, pissed off the rest of the guys in my company - probably more than if I had been a dirt-bag. Yes, I skated by on inspections, but no one ever did push-ups thanks to me either. I personally thought it should have been a wash, but they didn't feel that way.

I had an interesting relationship with my company commanders. When he'd have to leave the squad bay so he didn't laugh at something a recruit said or did? I was in the office with him when he'd be laughing his ass off. And then I'd be in the office when he called home and told the story to his wife. I got to see the real persons behind the "Company Commander" personas, and I interacted with them on a different level than the rest of my company. I still had to be respectful, but there was none of that "Yes Company Commander, No Company Commander" BS while we were alone in the office. I could call them by their first names - "Petty Officer" and "Senior Chief."

I got to know them so well over the time I worked with them that I was eventually entrusted with making decisions for them, once they saw that I could usually predict what they'd say. I got informally tested a few times before they trusted me. One of the recruits in the company asked if I thought that the CCs would mind if he did such-and-such. I said "Well, Senior Chief wouldn't mind, but PO1 wouldn't like it." The recruit did it, and when Senior Chief caught him at it, he didn't mind. Senior Chief asked me about it that evening in the office, and I related the whole story to him. He called PO1 into the office and made me tell him the story - PO1 agreed with my viewpoint. So that's how I ended up making a lot more decisions for our company - while I basically just hung out with an SCPO and PO1.

Back in the 80's, "fairy" was a pretty common derogatory nickname. If you put your sheet on your bed with the hem facing the wrong way (in versus out, or out versus in - I don't remember which), you'd have to strip your bed and hold your sheet around your shoulders like a cape, then run through the whole building repeatedly yelling "I'm a Catch Edge Fairy!"

PO1 told me a story about the "shoe-shine fairy." He told me that if he were to leave his boots in the office overnight, the "shoe-shine fairy" would visit overnight and shine his boots for him. My thought process went like this: I'm required to spend massive amounts of time in here generating paperwork, so I can't afford to spend time on time-consuming stuff like shining my boots - maybe he's telling me that he'll get my boots shined somewhere so I can devote more time to administrative tasks. So I asked "Are you telling me that I can just leave my boots here overnight and the 'shoe-shine fairy' will take care of *my* boots as well?" His response: "Are you being an asshole on purpose right now, or is it just coming naturally?" "I guess... ummmm... it's just... ummm... coming naturally, Petty Officer?"

So now I had a new nickname: Asshole Yeoman. Any time he'd have a question for me, even out in the squad bay or out on the grinder, he'd yell for me "Asshole Yeoman! Do we have a..." or whatever it was.

I graduated from boot camp the day before my 18th birthday, and after graduation, my PO1 took me out for a beer at the E-Club on base. We sat and BS'd for half the night. Our paths went in vastly different directions after that - he was a BM1, and I was a new AN - about to be an AQAN in a few months - so I never encountered him again, but he and the SC made a big impression on me in my first few weeks in Uncle Sam's Navy.