Junior officer
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(Redirected from Junior staff)
A junior officer is a commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant or lower.(citation needed • edit)
The term is often used to refer to the early part of an officer's career when he or she has little or no command experience or department head responsibility. However, an officer with the rank of lieutenant or lower is not considered a junior officer, but rather a staff officer, if he or she serves as a department head or other supervisory position in a particular command's senior staff. A junior officer may be part of a vessel's junior staff.
In 2369, Ambassador Taxco was embarrassed by the fact that Deep Space 9's liaison for the visiting delegation was a "first year officer", Julian Bashir. (DS9: "The Forsaken")
An example of the gap in experience between senior and junior officers was when, on behalf of USS Voyager's junior staff, Ensign Jenkins thanked Harry for diffusing the situation with the Series 5 long-range tactical armor unit that threatened the crew. (VOY: "Warhead")
The term may also be used colloquially to indicate the relative ranks of two officers, as Kim was considered the junior officer on Voyager's senior staff.
Typical Starfleet junior officers included Ensigns Sito Jaxa and Taurik. (TNG: "Lower Decks")
On a starship, it is common for junior officers to be assigned to shared quarters. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, TNG: "Lower Decks", VOY: "Flashback")
On Star Trek: The Next Generation, the set of the junior officers' quarters was originally built as Captain Kirk's quarters for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and would seem to suggest that Starfleet had upgraded its crew accommodations over the years. This seems to be confirmed by Scotty's remark in "Relics" that not even an admiral in his day could have quarters as luxurious as guest quarters aboard the USS Enterprise-D.
