I'm prior service Air Force and am thinking of joining the Coast Guard as a SK. What do they really do? I know the formal description isn't always what they do. (I was a vehicle operator. "You will drive all of the vehicles in the Air Force fleet." I spent every day washing cars.)
As an SK you are the Coast Guard's supply expert/specialist. You may be a purchasing agent, pick up some accounting, working on property, or even the warehouse handling all of the shipping and recieving or you might be doing a little bit of each, there are some oddities in the rate though such as out of rate jobs like working force protection for a MSST, independent duty also doing YN stuff, or working a MEPS billet for the Army.
Depending on your unit and/or command, SK work may be considered a "collateral duty". For example on the 378 being a "law dog" and Damage Control got top dibs over SK work, so it seemed.
Well you are supposed to work supply but there are times for example: Wake up and since the cook is on leave you might cook breakfast for the crew. Then after everyone eats and you prepare to get underway you go to your assigned job as helmsman to get the ship underway. After you get to the first ATON to be serviced you might go out on deck and work a spud then after you get spudded down you might get in the smallboat and help put legs on a 3 pile structure. Then get back onboard and cook lunch for the boys and when it's ready you might standby for the engineering watchstander and keep an eye on the engines and generators while he eats. You can go days doing other things than storekeeper work but it's not always a bad thing. (This was while assigned to 100ft construction tender). Most of the time you end up doing more than just storekeeper work but it's not a bad deal.
Not much on a 378, except get sick, miss patrols, loose doc#s d and say "I don't know, I didn't order it...oh sorry I will oder it now, did you really need it nine months ago?" "Was that the liberty pipe? I'll do it tommarow, Oh you're getting underway... I'll do it when you get back.
A storekeepers job will vary from unit to unit on what you will do as well as by paygrade. Tasks such as (Milstrip Desk, Property Desk, Central Supply onboard a cutter, Purchasing Desk, Reconcilliation of the Unit Accounts, Shipping & Receiving, ETC. You have to remember we are here support for others though. I leaarned early in my career with being underway the importance of remembering our shipmates that are underway and the need for our suport. We will not always be able to please everyone though but we can do the best we can and that's all they are looking for.
