Thats my reading. But apparently not what the expanded Universe says.
As mentioned before, since the show was ended before the Dominion War plotline kicked off, and the movies mostly didn’t cover that conflict, we don’t have any particular canon to say what the Enterprise was doing. Part of this comes from the lack of interaction between the DS9 people and the TNG people (as in, the folks working on either series, rather than the characters in the series).
Unless we are told otherwise, presumably the Enterprise E and her crew spent the Dominion War fighting the Dominion. Just not in the vicinity of Deep Space Nine. It’s a big galaxy.
For that matter, the nearly universal officer/enlisted man distinction is really very strange, from a certain perspective. We let newly-minted lieutenants in their early twenties give orders to men with years of experience in the service. We have good reasons for it, of course - we believe that being an officer is a fundamentally different sort of task than serving as an enlisted soldier, and it requires special training. Nonetheless, it’s not exactly intuitive.
^
Err no newly minted second Lt is giving orders to any man with years of experience; at least not an senior NCO. Young officers are “broken in” by NCO’s. Read Colin Powell’s autobiography, he describes the NCO who broke him in; a chap from deepest Alabama.
The younger officers will give orders, but more often than not, they will discuss with the NCOs to first figure out what those orders should be. Woe to the Butterbar who thinks that merely outranking a senior NCO makes him more important (of note, I have never met an LT who held this opinion, and have only heard a single first-hand story of one in four years and counting).
Then there is the joke of the proper method for a Platoon commander to raise a 30 foot flagpole that has been knocked over.
Turn to the Platoon Sergeant, and say “Sergeant, I want that flagpole up in the next hour. I’m going to go take a nap.”
EDIT: I’ve been in the military for over four years now? Now I feel old.
Particularly when you consider things like Nog being able to give orders to O’Brien.
Nobody gives orders to O’Brien. They make polite suggestions, because O’Brien is a certified badass with a PhD in ass kicking.
Yikes. I’ve been eagerly waiting for DS9 to be on Netflix Watch Instantly so I can stop torturing myself with Voyager. Now I’m not so sure…
This is very true. There’s no reason why there has to be a distinction between enlisted, NCOs, commissioned officers, etc. Roddenberry’s original idea that ensign is the lowest rank on a starship is 100 percent plausible.
It was just mentioned, I don’t recall it happening. If it did, it wasn’t often enough to remember it.
The way I understand it, is it’s an Officer’s job to grasp the big picture and decide what needs to be done it’s the NCO’s position to grasp the details and know how it needs to be done, and the enlistedman’s position to shut up and color and wonder why the food is so crappy. 
Considering the age of many of the NCOs and Senior NCOs, I’m not sure if I’d want a platoon led by a 45 year old second lieutenant. :eek:
EDIT: To clarify, in the Air Force at least, there are distinct responsibilities and expectations for each rank tier: Junior Enlisted, NCO, Senior NCO, Company Grade Officer, Field Grade Officer, and Flag Officer. The distinction between ranks is pretty much borne out of these differences in role. (ETA again) Essentially, a sergeant is not merely a much more experienced private, nor is a Master Sergeant a much more experienced Sergeant. They have very different roles for what they do, even within the same career field.
O’Brien is Chief of Operations (head of engineering). Those under his command call him sir, and take orders from him. Even if he has an officer under him.
From what I understand, the producers never seemed to know what they wanted O’Brien to be. At various times he wears all manner of rank insignia. By DS9, they’ve decided he’s some type of salt-of-the-earth NCO. The fact that he’s one of like three such NCOs we ever see on the show makes this presentation a bit inconsistent, but it lets him play the role of “Genre savvy old soldier” in DS9 pretty well.
See my explanation above. O’Brien wasn’t allowed to be anything less than an ensign on the Ent-D despite never having achieved the rank. Once all the huffy people died or were transferred O’Brien could go back to being “chief” as a rank rather than as a title. Out on the frontier at DS9 they didn’t care.
(You’re absolutely correct though- it was a production issue more than anything else.)
O’Brien’s juniors NEVER call him sir without getting corrected immediately. Only Nog had to be corrected more than once.
Ok, not sir. But he is their boss.
Clearly. And in DS9, it seems that everybody who works in engineering in enlisted, which is clearly not the case in TNG. O’Brien takes Worf to task for riding the engineering crew the way he does the bridge staff; the engineers, he says, did not go to Starfleet Academy and don’t have the same skill set.
In another episode of TNG, the McCarthyism episode, one of the crewman being grilled at the hearing didn’t go to Starfleet Academy either. I think he worked in sickbay.
I recall that one. The difference, though, was that in DS9 it seemed that an entire division was staffed by enlisted personnel.