I liked Capt, Ace, met him years ago when he ran the Pearl old seismic days
They are just trying to sound like the company isn’t run by and owned by a bunch of jerks which it is from what I have read here. I would never work there for fear of that on my resume. No real skills just bayoo bs.
Houma has an airport that can handle passenger jets?
I’m really surprised HOS doesn’t have vans like the other larger OSV companies. I think at one time they might of had them? But again, the vans at the company I worked for sucked. The people in them were usually obnoxious, the drivers worse. Even though the vans ran twice a day you had to wait for the last person to show arriving at MYS. Sometimes, everyone would wait in a crowded van until 10-11pm to find out that last persons flight was cancelled or the person never existed in the first place. Leaving the office to MYS was probably worse. They had a set time to leave, say 9am. Sometimes an arrogant capt or hoodlum would convince the driver to leave early so they could catch an earlier flight. Then everyone who showed up after 8:30am would have to wait all day for the 4pm evening van or hitchhike rides from fellow mariners on other boats. After a while I noticed it was only the cheap, poor & those with no friends who used the free van service to & from MYS. Too much drama. There’s a lot of reasons not to work in the GoM but for me, no free van service to the airport would be low down on my list.
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Houma has a concrete runway 6500’ long and 150’ wide and a second 5000’ x 200 runway. They have ILS.
I’m not an aviator, but that should be no problem for a 737.
I’ve flown into Dutch Harbor on passenger jets (not that I’d recommend it). 4500’ runway with mountains on one end.
If Houma had a couple of flights to Houston and Atlanta everyday, I bet they would be full. They would probably be subsidized by the FAA essential services program too.
Doesn’t Chouest own an airport/ air service on the North Slope in Alaska?
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Sure did. I screwed up and was trying to quote you but fouled it up some how…
HOS has 401k match of dollar per dollar up to 3% of your salary. It’s matched every pay check. You are fully vetted after 6 years.
Health insurance is pretty standard with a range of options. PPO, high deductible, extra life, ad&d, etc I’ve never really had to use it, but it’s not bad and pretty affordable it seems.
Training- you don’t have to sign promissory notes, at least for industry/company mandated training. For license upgrade courses and what not, they are discerning. They’ve been burned too many times paying for a person’s upgrade only to see them run once completed.
Travel- HOS has a deal with enterprise. If you book a rental with the HOS program code, any HOS employee is authorized to drive the rental. That way if your relief totals it on the way to the airport, you aren’t on the hook. Cars are about $65 a day and minivans around $100. Everyone that flys chips in and it’s no big deal. About 1/2 the fleet crew changes on wed, the other half the next wed. With all the flyers, it’s never been an issue either finding a ride or finding someone to return a rental. Though it may require a little leg work to arrange. I prefer it… gives you more flexibility to stop at Walmart, go direct to the boat or stay at hotel, etc. plus it’s more comfortable than being stuck in a bouncy crew change van. The only time I’ve had to fork up for a cab/uber is when I’ve had to get off/on hitch outside of Wed due to personal scheduling reasons.
If you book your ticket far enough out in advance, the stipend easily covers the cost of flying. If crew change gets rescheduled, then you can expense the difference in ticket prices for having to rebook.
Pay- bridge is 500-mid 900/day depending on position and license level. Schedules are 21/21 or 42/21. Engineers are slightly more than mates. Not sure about ABs, but they aren’t complaining. Quarterly bonuses for top 4 onboard is ~7% earned in quarter. For all others it’s a fixed amount, maybe $500 but I think it’s gone up.
Hiring- hiring has slowed down for bridge officers. Think ABs and engineers are still getting hired pretty regularly.
I spent 5 years at Harvey and 5 at HOS. HOS is by far the better company to be at. Every company has its good and bad, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at HOS. HOS has a lot of good crews, mgmt is supportive without micromanaging (but will hold you accountable). Training and personnel depts are being streamlined, but are having the natural frustrations that come with dept reorganizations.
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Apply online through the HOS website. If you know someone working there or have a friend of a friend, get in touch with them and get a referral. HOS has a referral program and your application will go to the top of the stack.
It’s all relative to how far you live from LA. That travel stipend maxes out at 1000 bucks. After taxes you are getting around 700-ish.
Going to work- Let’s say you are living near a major airport on the west coast and are getting the max stipend. Booking your travel in advance, you get a round trip ticket for 400. This will obviously vary.
Your boat has a noon crew change. Well, guess you have to fly out the day before then, right? Okay, now you need a hotel. A dead hooker hotel near MSY will still run you around 100 bucks, if not more. Safer to say around 150-ish.
The hotels are struggling to hire people too. So just count on there being no free shuttle even though they tell you there is. Now you need an Uber.
Your captain doesn’t give a shit helping and coordinating with crew change. He’s like a check valve. Swings one way. So you spend anywhere from 60-120 bucks to get to where you need to be. As stated previously if you are on a regular boat maybe you have this ironed out with your relief or have some shipmates you already know to carpool with. This is a big ‘what if.’
Like I said before, you are on a noon crew change boat. So for the flight home, you book the last flight out that night or the next day? It’s the oilfield, and the client doesn’t give two shits about your crew change. Let’s say to be safe you book the next morning. So it’s either spend the night in the dead hooker motel or crash at the airport for hours and hours.
Midnight crew changes would be more advantageous for folks flying any kind of distance. Can eliminate the hotel costs at least.
So let’s assume I spent 400 on my roundtrip ticket, 120 for the dead hooker motel coming to work, 15 bucks for an Uber to the motel, then the next day I had an 80 dollar Uber to Houma for crew change. Luckily I ran into someone going to the same boat so that cost me 40. 685 bucks to get to the boat. Sure, I got my flight home, but I could accrue more costs with ground transportation going home. Fingers crossed I got a guy on my boat driving by msy! I haven’t factored in money for food while traveling for crew change either. Oh, and my crew change gets delayed two days and I have to fork over another 300 bucks to change my plane ticket. Yeah, I’ll get reimbursed eventually, but it’s still annoying. There is a school of thought on booking last minute plane tickets too. Not sure how great an idea that is.
Just sayin’ after going thru all that for half a year I really like the fact I’m somewhere where my travel is covered now and I don’t have to think about much.
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I always fly in the night before for a noon (standard) crew change. Otherwise I gotta catch a 0600 flight…gross. I get the rental and drive down to the boat that night, if it’s in port. Takes out the cost of a shitty hotel room and I can sleep in and have a slightly more leisurely start to crew change day.
For my distance from the boat, I get around $250 per hitch for crew change expenses. This easily covers my flight cost ($120 round trip) and $100 minivan rental. For someone maxing out the stipend, $1,000 is more than enough for regular non-holiday travel. If it’s not, you’re doing something wrong.
If crew change gets moved around and I gotta stay at a hotel, it’s expense-able. I’ve always gotten money from expense reports within 1-2 weeks. If the boat is on the way in, I’ll see what boats are in port and sleep the night on one of those. I’d rather stay the night on a boat than a shitty moldy hotel room.
I much prefer setting up my own travel. It’s worth the extra leg work, and really not that difficult. A few emails to the boat and texts to other people flying in coordinating and it’s done.
I’ve been at places that book and pay for flights, set up transport to Fourchon. You get a lot less say in what flight you are on, what airline you fly, etc as they are going to book what’s affordable to the company. Crew change vans suck. I don’t wanna be stuck at the airport waiting for 10 other people to land since the office books everyone the cheapest ticket, and not the tickets where everyone lands around the same time.
Hell even if I have to pay a little extra, it’s worth it to me to be able to pick my own flight, arrive at the boat when I want, etc. there are pros and cons to both sides. Personally for me, there are more pros getting the stipend and working it out myself than having the office handle it all.
I do understand that there is convenience to not putting in any effort. Having the airline ticket show up, and told when the the transport driver will show up at the airport/hotel to collect you, etc. But there are downsides to the at as welll.
And as mentioned earlier, if you are crew changing at noon like the rest of the fleet…finding someone on another boat to ride to/from MSY with or return your rental isn’t a big deal. Takes 10 minutes and being proactive. If crew change shifts outside of noon, the office will book the rental and figure out the return, or will use the crew change carry all and someone from an idle boat to drive it.
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There are two sides to every coin, so it’s good to see perspectives from all sides of it. I still feel it’s a much better place to be if you live within a reasonable driving distance with all these variables.
For sure, driving is always the easiest way.
Its standard in America for shoreside workers to be paid while traveling, in fact it’s the law.
It’s standard in shipping and at more and more tug companies (not just union companies either) to pay full day rate “portal to portal.”
Travel is Not just airfare, but full pay too.
I always tell my company what flights I want them to arrange and what seats I want. If I need a hotel, I tell them which hotel I want. They do it; no problem at all.
In the past, I’ve worked at companies that would put me on the absolute cheapest , long, round about , multi stop flights to save $50. I don’t tolerate that anymore. Nor do I tolerate flea bag hotels in inconvenient locations.
When small tugs are burning $10,000 a day in fuel, and large tugs are burning $20,000 or more, the cost of flying a crewman, and paying him, every few weeks or months is a trivial expense.
It costs a lot of time and money to find, hire, train and retain crew. When a company jerks crew around over travel it’s just shooting itself in the foot, and wasting money.
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I implore you to quote directly from the 2023 open enrollment pamphlet on your success factors:
401k - Every year is discretionary. This year happens to be 3% but there is no guarantee going forward.
Training - If you didn’t sign a promissory note when hired for the required T-Huet and Rigging, then you slipped through the cracks. Hornbeck’s training budget is what they get from The Louisiana Workforce Grant.
Travel - You are correct if you can get in with crew that also is going to and from the airport, then you have a ride…else you are on your own and have to burden the expense. I think the MPSV fleet has steadier crews compared to the mudboats, as every hitch it seems 2/3rds of the crew is made up of other boat crewmembers or new hires. You mentioned that you haven’t heard of anyone getting stuck with the rental but that’s exactly the reason why Hornbeck doesn’t rent cars for crew anymore. They got burned too many times and “lost” rentals. I’ve also seen emails from dispatch asking for crewmembers to return rentals for other people as there was no driver to return them. Again…all falls on the mariner renting it. The stipend does cover most of the travel if you live far enough away @ $1000, but whenever an AB or QMED that receives $250, living for ex.Jacksonville or Houston and they have to do an odd crewchange, an added expense of $400, or $500 for travel is significant.
Medical - again refer to your 2023 Open Enrollment and quote the deductibles for individual and family and again ask if they are really good options?
The day rate and safety bonus are the only real reason to work here, and mates and engineers are below Tidewater and Chouest day rates.
[quote=“Wasforkandblade, post:143, topic:64298”]
401k - Every year is discretionary. This year happens to be 3% but there is no guarantee going forward.[/quote]
Unless you are working union, isn’t that true anywhere? Don’t all companies kinda go year by year on what the 401k match is going to be?
My wife and parents who work in corporate America/Fortune 500 are the same way. 401k match is never a set thing and changes by year. At least you get a match every check at HOS. I believe HGIM and Chouest announce around tax time what the previous year’s match is and give it lump sum. It’s been a bit since I’ve been at HGIM…but they would announce a 10% match (Shane specifically would say it’s a 10% return on your investment) and it would only be 10% of what you put in. HOS is 3% of your gross income.
[quote=“Wasforkandblade, post:143, topic:64298”]
Training - If you didn’t sign a promissory note when hired for the required T-Huet and Rigging, then you slipped through the cracks. Hornbeck’s training budget is what they get from The Louisiana Workforce Grant. [/quote]
While funding source is true, promissory note is not. I’ve done multiple THUET, rigging, first aid, and other company mandated trainings and not once have to fill out a promissory note…just a requisition. You have to fill out a formal req to take the mandatory class. There is no promissory part in the req for mandatory training.
[quote=“Wasforkandblade, post:143, topic:64298”]
Travel - You are correct if you can get in with crew that also is going to and from the airport, then you have a ride…else you are on your own and have to burden the expense. I think the MPSV fleet has steadier crews compared to the mudboats, as every hitch it seems 2/3rds of the crew is made up of other boat crewmembers or new hires. You mentioned that you haven’t heard of anyone getting stuck with the rental but that’s exactly the reason why Hornbeck doesn’t rent cars for crew anymore. They got burned too many times and “lost” rentals. I’ve also seen emails from dispatch asking for crewmembers to return rentals for other people as there was no driver to return them. Again…all falls on the mariner renting it. The stipend does cover most of the travel if you live far enough away @ $1000, but whenever an AB or QMED that receives $250, living for ex.Jacksonville or Houston and they have to do an odd crewchange, an added expense of $400, or $500 for travel is significant [/quote]
As mentioned earlier, for the odd crew change; the extra cost is expensable and gets paid 1-2 weeks after incurred. If you rent a car for crew change and don’t have a game plan for how it gets returned, that’s on you. Like I said, with a little proactiveness, for a wed crew change, there should no issue on getting a car returned. Sometimes you gotta reach out to the crew coordinators and see if another boat has people headed to the airport. No big deal. Once you been around, you know what other boats CC with you and have people that fly.
If you are renting without a gameplan for return and depending on the office to get it returned, yeah it’s on you. Sorta a fail to plan, plan to fail.
I won’t beat a dead horse, it’s obvious I prefer arranging and planning my own way to the boat and taking the stipend, it’s not that difficult. A lot of people, especially new hires, seem to want the office to hold their hand every step of the way.
I feel like we are getting too far away from objectiveness on this subject and editorializing.
Compared to the insurance I had at HGIM, it’s less expensive and more encompassing. Short and long term disability are covered by the company. At HGIM, short and longterm cost me ~$170/month as optional coverage. When I compare my deductible to my wife and parents in corporate America, it’s fairly similar.
No system or benefit package is perfect. But I think overall, HOS is fairly competitive with HGIM, Chouest, and Candies. All have pros and cons that differently suit the individual. HOS may lag behind on pay slightly, for now. Not perfect by any means, but neither is the competition…especially when it comes to company culture.
I haven’t drank all the kool-aid I promise, I saved a cup for you.
No. Some drilling companies paid 6%+ into your 401k even if you didn’t contribute. Immediate vesting. For the most part they aren’t union.Some covered insurance premiums for employee !00% and a small contribution to add family coverage.
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Again, travel home is not expansible unless the boat is late for crewchange.
Medical - wasn’t comparing anything to HGIM, was comparing on average and surprised that your parents’ medical plan is comparable considering they are “CorporateAmerica!” I know quite a few sailors with wives that are nurses (mine included), teachers, gov. employees and all have much better plans than here. I honestly wouldn’t mind paying more for a much better plan, as I chose the best plan they offer and again, its subpar and slightly better than what’s offered with Obamacare Marketplace. We can go round and round about this and I encourage you to post anything from the Enrollment Handbook to contradict it. Most tugs in the Northeast have a far better plan with less of a yearly deductible.
Training - Everyone I work with does in fact sign a promissory note for training. I could probably dig up the one I signed if necessary.
Travel - You just confirm that again everything is placed on the mariner for travel. Sometimes you can’t plan and because there is no logistical help from the office, its left up to you and can be costly.
I left the GoM in the spring of '16…overall, I enjoyed the 6years I spent there and enjoyed a different segment of the marine industry (just wish HOS would have let us fish!). Admittedly, I bounced around from '10 to '16 but I had a set of “DP2 keys” as Master for a while, upgraded to CM oceans, and had the drillship experience, too.
Travel for the drillship was nice; door to door everything was covered and always had the flight/hotel I wanted. My first job with Aries Marine was great as I made my arrangements to Lafayette and they got me to the boat from there. Anyhow, much has changed since then and while it was a good ride during the last wave, I don’t think I would do it again. For some people it works, but I guess I prefer something a bit closer to home.
401k matches are a promise and a definite obligation the company has made to employees. They cannot be changed after they have been earned. At least not at any honest company.
Most maritime employment and most companies are too unstable for company match vesting over years to be a reasonable and meaningful benefit. Vesting must be instant, otherwise it’s probably worthless.
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