Cognizant points from over a decade ago that still apply today.
Same as it ever was.
December 2012, first post in your link says this: " * Can MSC be that bad with all those great federal benifits? Whatâs a Chief Mate make, I would say $180,000 - $220,000 / year."
Here we are almost 11 years later and the pay is nearly the same?!?
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its not the pay. there comes a point to were the juice isnt worth the squeeze when your sharing a ship with a bunch of lowlifes
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Funny you say that. I was just talking to someone who is about to quit and asked him how bad it really is. He said that, aside from being over four months overdue for relief, one guy they had set to come out there as a relief Second Mate did not have small arms. The Captain made a call to the office about this and their reply was that this particular individual âwas not allowed to carry.â
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Possibly a non-violent drug felony from many, many years ago⌠pretty crazy guys like him can be trusted to navigate a large, federally-owned ship, but the powers that be wonât wipe an old (arguably victimless) slate clean, so that he can carry a firearm for security duties.
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I would have guessed a situation involving domestic violence.
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Yea, wouldnât be surprising. Still crazy. If a dude with a gun can kill X amount of people, a dude with a ship can kill many more than X.
My point is: if the federal gov is willing to credential him and put him in a position of authority on a federally-owned ship, then they should also âreinstateâ his 2nd amendment rights.
This. The Lautenberg Amendment makes carrying a gun, even in an official capacity, illegal. Youâd be surprised (or not) how many people on active duty canât carry a firearm.
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Yeah, the lowlifes that even SIU rejects.
Nobody here said it did. Youâre mixing up two separate points.
The 2nd Amendment should really only be ârevokedâ in the case of violent crimes or non-violent crimes having to do with the illegal sale of firearms.
The 1st Amendment, while arguably under attack, is still seen by most of America as a âGod-givenâ, inalienable right.
No reason the 2nd (and all of the others) shouldnât be, too.
And when the employer is the federal government, well, different rules and standards should apply, such as I outlined in my above posts.
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MSC is currently experiencing a complete meltdown. The organization is dysfunctional and broke on every level; manning, training, safety, everything. Check out the website and see the sign on bonuses they are offering. None of it does any good. We still get only $25/day for being overdue for relief. I think that is the same amount it was in 1990. Messages to anyone ashore get no response. No one who works ashore ever answers their office phone. There is no support for the ships or Mariners. It is every man for himself at MSC. In a way it is liberating, you can literally do anything you want, no one is watching, kind of a Mad Max environment. Iâm not even sure if they can pull off drug testing anymore.
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MSC has a pretty important mission: be the gas station for the Navy.
How is MSC going to continue to perform this mission with such widespread ineptitude?
I almost never walk into a gas station, looked at the people running the place and think to myself âThis is what peak performance looks like.â Yet Buc-eeâs, Costco, and that gas station that always just says âSee Cashierâ and smells like piss seem to survive in harmony. The mission isnât that hard, itâs not technically difficult, itâs not a LNG carrier, the oilers donât even have IG, and Iâd be interested to see if they have/get BWTS, that would likely be the most technical system onboard. Sure itâs specialized, but on the big bullet points I think it would be pretty obvious if someone was doing âwhatever they wantâ to the point of hampering the mission.
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It doesnât have to be that nefarious. Just a contingent of dissatisfied âmarinersâ on a ship heading in to a warm zone saying âOh hell no, we didnât sign on for thisâ.
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Thatâs like half the problem with Merchant Marine for National security as a whole, not just MSC. TSP tankers arenât being funded for funzies, Itâs a cake run refueling Guam and Japan till youâre one of 10 American flagged waving tankers in a warzone. I think itâs much more likely everyone on those government contract type ships would be jumping ship before the MSC folks. I too, would say âoh hell no, I didnât sign up for thisâ which is why Iâd rather not take those jobs.
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Vote with your feet. Or collect the paycheck not doing shit I guess. Iâve worked a bunch of different jobs since leaving a few years ago and none of them were anywhere close to as bad as MSC.
Are things in MSC really that bad? Is violence common on those ships, or physical intimidation?
I never said it was a super specialized decoder ring difficult mission. But it does take at least a bit of competency to get fuel to the navy. Ahhh, shitâŚsilly me. The navy is even less competent but somehow manages lol throw enough bodies at the problem, I guess something happens eventually.
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If you seek out threads here on MSC happenings, you will find reports of fights on board, stabbings, officers getting assaulted, officers ignoring fights between crew members, crew members who refuse to do their jobs, etc
MSC has been going downhill for over 20 years thru many administrations. Why? The Navy doesnât like them. They figure they could do the job with 4 times the people. More rank more quickly. Congress doesnât even know MSC exists as they have no lobbying organization to shovel money to senators. Ask the average US citizen if they know what the US Army, Air Force, Marine Corps or Navy does and they will give you an answer. Ask them about Military Sealift and they will look at you like a deer in the headlights, they have no clue. No PR by design, why?
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