Solution: An HR department that is worth a damn and doesn’t hire some bayou yahoo for a job as master in an unrelated Marine industry to the person’s experience.
There is a strong argument to made that it’s really the owner’s (and vetters) that determine the qualifications of mariners, so there is no need for any USCG licensing at all.
Most owners do a fairly good job of selecting the right employees for the job. However, there are some bean counters and wingnut owners that think a guy with a license must be ok, especially if he has a “big license.” This is more of a small vessel, small company problem, but there are thousands of small companies operating small vessels that require licensed personnel.
If we are going to leave it up to owners to select the right Mariner for the job, the license looses meaning and value.
In the past, I’ve worked Shoreside and it’s always surprised me how when you are working on the Vessels and come to the office for whatever, they will stop talking as soon as you walk up. Once you are sitting at a desk working in the office, they will talk around you because “you are now one of us”. This were the exact words used by more than one when I asked about why this happened.
I’ve been in more than one office and overheard them discussing the Mariners in their employees. I wish I could say that I was surprised to hear them say, "How can the CG hold us responsible when they are the ones that License these Idiots!
Most of the Office Workers that I’ve worked around think we (Mariners) are a bunch of overpaid jerks.
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The trend of having people running the office who are actively attempting to manage vessels underway without any seagoing experience themselves is really getting old. I have no doubt that we are viewed as the problem, but in reality there is no job in that office without mariners on the vessel to support. Support is the key word here. For the past decade or so I’ve seen a greater focus on blame than support from the office. If it were still being run by previously sailing mariners they would probably better understand the struggles onboard. Sadly those days are gone.
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I’ve worked both sides too. The bean counters hire the cheapest mariners they can find. Then they wonder why their crews look and sometimes act like rejects from a street gang. The office staff really really resents that the mariners are paid more than the office staff. The office staff cannot understand why. After all, the office staff has nice hair and they are wearing clean expensive clothes.
This leads to angry and resentful office staff trying to jerk the crew around and trying to screw the crews out of every little thing they can. Why are we buying soda and snacks for those guys? Why don’t they buy their own? The company doesn’t give me gas money, why should we pay for their travel? Why should we provide Internet? Let’s charge the $2 for every email? (Even though it probably costs the company a lot more to manage the payroll deductions and deal with the mistakes) Every assistant bookkeeper thinks she has the right demand that the captain get out of bed to tell her why he bought some $20 item last month. And it goes on and on.
The office people today (and some owners) are generic. They have no background in maritime and don’t understand the business or the culture. From their point of view, mariners are just like temporary, fungible, and disposable fruit pickers.
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I was having problems with my Medical benefits so I called our office. They put me over to someone in Employee Benefits. I was explaining what the problem was and she stopped me and asked what department I worked in to which I said "I’m the Chief Engineer on the XXXXXX Vessel. She once again stopped me and asked what a vessel was! I explained once again what vessel I was from, they it hit me, she had no idea what the Company did and where the money come from to pay her salary.
This was what I would call a Mediminim size company and there was no excuse for here not to have a clue what a Company does to bring in revenue. Now a days, people sit in their cubical and only care about their little piece of pie and are clueless about what goes on outside of that of that damn cubical!
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Oh, you don’t know how good you’ve got it sailing deepsea. At some companies, I get texts and emails from know nothing 25 year old office ladies hundreds of miles away who are trying to make my weather decisions for me.
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You’d think that, but I have similar 25 year olds having to be educated on the nuances of international trading, foreign repair duties, the ship being in a vastly different time zone than the office, etc.
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This may be partly a result of too few ships in a dying industry. Apparently, the business has become so small and so economically unstable that there is a shortage of shoreside staff with a maritime background, or a desire to invest in learning to become maritime professionals.
It seems that offices no longer see the value in having people on staff with years of recent seatime.
I see as the higher ups would rather someone with a Business background and or an MBA instead of someone with REAL sailing experience.
In my old office there was a PE that did have a degree but as it was an Associate Degree from a Local Community College he might have been a HS dropout as far as they cared. Now this guy knew the vessels inside and out plus had worked for a National Engine Repair Company but they constantly passed him over and basically shit on him because he did not fit what they thought a PE should look like. When they closed the Repair and Maintenance office and moved everyone up to the “Ivory Tower”, they constantly gave him crap for showing up in work clothes. This guy spent most of his time on the Vessels so wearing a Suit would not have worked out so well. They finally “allowed” him to wear “work clothes” two days a week. When I asked him how they expected him to handle this, he said they told him to care a change of clothes so he could “clean up” before entering the “Ivory Tower”.
I’m so glad that I’m retired as it was pissing me off when a PE would sit there and tell me how to do my job when they NEVER spent a day working onboard any vessel, outside of whatever they had to do to graduate from whatever school the went to!
Sorry for getting off topic.
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