Advice for first O/S job?

Professional Mariner Forum
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I will be going out soon (SIU) as an O/S. I don’t have any maritime experience besides knowing a few knots but I’m getting the impression that it’s okay to not have experience.

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  1. Don’t talk about your personal life. I.E. you have a wife/girl friend gay/boy friend how many sisters you have brothers/ Do you like to shoot guns/ fuck democrat fags/ the captain was a ass hole to me today. Keep all that shit to your self. The boat is small what ever you tell your “buddy” will ALWAYS make it back to the captain or the chief engineer or both.

  2. Every single person on that boat is out for them self. They WILL fuck you over by leaving you work that they could have done on their shift. They will fuck you if it will make them look good in front of the captain.

  3. People will bitch about how you do your work and tell you it looks like shit and you need to do it again. Accept this and just do it again no questions asked.

  4. If you have worked all day or even the first 6 hours and you are taking your first brake of the day and some one see you on your phone they will go tell the captain because they are fucking ass holes that have nothing better to do in life.

  5. The captain and chief engineer are not your friends in fact no one is if you want a friend get a fucking dog. These people will back stab you/talk about you behind your back and you WILL NEVER know. I can’t tell you how many places i have been to and then moved on and kept in contact with some people and at that point they told me all the shit people were saying behind my back.

  6. Move up as fast as possible as you want to make your self more marketable down the road for when times get tuff and they can be picky about who they hire.

  7. If a guy comes to you and says this guy is talking about you watch what you say to him as that is the mother fucker that will tell the other guy what you told him.

  8. When you are in the galley be VERY carful what you say because every one and i mean everyone at those tables is listening to every word you say EVERY WORD.

  9. Never complain.

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Avoid whatever ship @Menizzi may have been on. Obviously not a happy place.

You have a lot to learn. Keep you eyes and ears open. If you are willing to learn and pull your weight your shipmates will generally go out of their way to help you. Leave you cell phone in you room. You don’t need it working. Don’t complain, you don’t know what you don’t know. There are a lot of shitty jobs that need to get done. You will be doing a lot of them.

Search the posts here, others have posted similar questions.

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Life on the Motor Vessel Mean Girls sounds rough!

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It’s a grand life the sea life! FFS

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When I got started I made the mistake of walking aboard as a know nothing know-it-all punk teenager and quickly got my ass kicked like a field goal.

Learn to make and accept mistakes, check the box and move on. Experience builds experiences and we all make them up and down the ranks no matter who you are or what department you’re in. Own up if it’s your fault and move past it.

Aside from that just be open to learning, be a considerate and caring shipmate and treat it all like an adventure even on its worst days (in the end that’s what it all really is.) Enjoy and be open to it. If there’s one thing I miss after almost 20 years it’s the newness of it all… lord, how time flies.

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