I’ve been sent for 100 feet of shoreline. We’ve also had noobs decked out in aluminum foil so that they can be sent to the focsle to calibrate the radar.
Betrayal of trust? Maybe. Our chief used it to emphasize that knowledge is power, and you’d better have your noses in your PQS. Nothing more useless on a ship than a passenger in uniform. Especially when everyone else is counting on you.
Critical thinking skills, the ability to use your resources to figure out what to do when orders aren’t forthcoming, development of trained initiative - all part of the process.
Most of it stopped when the females arrived. Now we just send two people to do one person jobs.
In the AF a common prank was to send new guys to bench stock for K9P lubricant.