Frustration is building (again)

I’m in the same boat as you,jusdt a little ahead,it has averaged about 30 days between responses for me. Then they ask for more info.,stop the clock,I reply, wait 30 days…and so on. The good news is you must be getting close…Leigh :smiley:

It just keeps gettting better. The reply to my latest email querry states they are “unfortunately running about six weeks behind” and that items are processed as they are received . . . of course mine is almost a week behind where it should have been since they misplaced the stupid thing even with a FedEx tag!

Maybe they need to “surge” people to deal with appeals/reconsideration.

Well, I am well and truly hosed by the NMC; DENIED on reconsideration;’ partially. I need a 20 hour STCW refresher course. Since I have been working on license since 1994 I guess I don’t know how to do all this stuff. I am so pissed I can’t see straight. They lose my reconsideration paperwork, Capt Stalfort says it went for review (9-18-09), and then they keep adding weeks to the process . . . now, this BS.

I looked at the refresher course; JOKE! This STCW stuff is such BS I can’t stand it! I watch STCW qualified crews on salties that come up the Seaway and 2/3 of them couldn’t navigate their way out of a wet paper bag! But, by golly, they are “STCW qualified” . . . give me a break.

Sorry for the rant. What really yanks my chain is that I know other people with the same license and training that got an OICNW and I get hung in the wind by those yahoos in WV. I have 30 days to formally appeal or 120 days to meet the refresher course. Great. Time to start writing.

Boy I feel your pain guys and girls, I know how frustrated you must be having seen it from the other side. Greer is gone, he took the SIP job in Charleston, I’m not sure who is running the floor now if anybody. It’s been a year at the end of this month that my wife and I walked out of there and it sure looks like nothing has changed. Barnam and Bailey have nothing on that place when it comes to a three ring circus!

[QUOTE=former contract evaluator;30418]Greer is gone, he took the SIP job in Charleston,[/QUOTE]

That guy was a real piece of work. He told me once “you don’t have those $20,000 worth of classes to have that license”, my response “So what you’re saying is I did not buy my license”! No loss on the mariner’s part him transfering…

Time has healed some wounds, or at least scabbed them over! After the STCW refresher course (which at least gave me the opportunity to buy some lobsters to bring home) I went to GMDSS in Morgan City in late January. Within three weeks of mailing in my paperwork, I had OICNW for my 3/M NC. I sent in my application for INL Master to 2/M Ocean/1600 Ocean Master crossover. That came back approved within a month. So this Sunday morning I am off for my flashing light course/test and plan on writing my upgrade in May. A classmate of mine just completed the test last week (way to go rjbpilot) and I am hoping to walk out with a smile in the next few weeks. Coffee, coffee, coffee.

While I don’t want to jinx anyone, it [I]seems[/I] as though the NMC is stepping up their game in the past few months. That is good. I only hope the next round of IMO/STCW stuff doesn’t start a whole new nightmare.

Looks like there giving us some more time on the new IMO/STCW thing>

My original REC was New Orleans where Mr. T. E. Purvis twice denied my request to increase from Inland to Near Coastal in conjuction with my 1st and 2nd renewals. I would need to redocument my original seatime on USCG forms. It did’nt make sense to me but he had me because I needed my licensc. When Katrina hit my file was destroyed so I sent copies of everything to Charleston. The first thing they said to me “why don’t you have Near Coastal, Your qualified” Where New Orleans wanted to give me 100 ton Inland and something else Near Coastal, Charleston said 100 ton is 100 ton. The inconsistencies at the NMC are the only thing that is consistent.

The inconsistencies of REC’s are one of the reasons for the NMC.

Overall they do a pretty good job. It’s your job to know what you are qualified for. To me part of the vetting process for licensing is knowing that, and have the ability to advocate for it.

If you can’t read a CFR, I don’t want you standing a watch for me.

Whatever you are smoking I want some.

The nmc is far from consistent. I don’t care how well one knows what they qualify for or don’t, the odds are against you when it comes to having a good evaluator who wants to help the mariner and understands what the hell they are reading in the checklists/cfrs.

Folks like me that live driving distance from a REC most surely miss the old way of things. Being able to talk to the evaluator face to face that would otherwise be actively dodging you is more efficient.

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Never had a problem that didn’t get handled promptly. Got every license and upgrade that I ever asked for. They even helped with issues that were my fault. Like waiting until last November to take ECDIS. They got me issued before the New Year.

YMMV

Your experience is an exception, not the rule. You may possibly be the first person I have encountered to speak so positively about the nmc.

My personal experience, about 90 % percent of the transactions I have had (renewals and upgrades) with them since they started have been painful and long winded.

Prior to every transaction I have always done my best to be prepared. I have never applied for something I wasn’t qualified for.

I jumped on the license consultant band wagon at one point because my evaluator simply wouldn’t pull his head out of his ass and listen to me. Now I swear by having a consultant.

The only easy transactions i have had have been renewing my medical certificate.

That sucks, for real. Sorry bro.

They were great for a while. Fast, knowledgeable, efficient.

Then this backlog happened from the gap closing classes…

Maybe they were ok for straightforward upgrades to Unlimited licenses, but never any good for anything more complicated.
6 months to approve an application is not “great"
9 months to approve a request for reconsideration is not 'great” either

They used to handle complicated upgrades quickly and easily too. I’ve done a few confusing upgrades with minimal issues, at least until recently.

My personal experience with the NMC has been a headache since long before the gap closures.

It’s all in the luck of the draw.

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I have had maybe one reasonable experience with NMC, everything else including simple renewal has been a nightmare. Lots of mistakes. Lots of very long delays. Totally unresponsive. No accountability.

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I refer to my proposal from some years ago…put a 5yr renewal on Coast Guard commissions, too. Then, just to be polite, we can put MARAD in charge of the process (or let those run through the NMC as well). Watch how fast things change when a batch of O-6’s and flags face not getting paid because some contractor with ZERO understanding of the actual license/commission they are evaluating causes delays in the process.

The NMC is a ridiculous waste of federal money and a headache since day one for mariners. When you have to explain the regs and licensing structure to the “experts”, something is horribly wrong.

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Time does heal wounds…last renewal was just under 30 days from app to new “little red book of Mao”, including adding Mate of Towing, Oceans.