His story reminds me of a CIVMAR who was sent from the Norfolk pool to our T-AOE for his first MSC hitch. After being shown the open berthing, he said “no effing way”. He grabbed his gear and went back topside. I was chatting with the guy on gangway watch when the guy came back up. He was yelling that we were a bunch of crazy bastards and out of our f’ing minds before running back down the gangway.
I never found out whether the pool reassigned him or whether he just quit.
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There is where I lost HET, the first sentence. It was as if HET was something special because HET agreed to sail for MSC. Did they seek this jewel out? Why would such a treasure be looking for a job at MSC anyway? That gift to the merchant mariner world should be in great demand on ships with equal time schedules and manned by top notch crew up the standards HET expects.
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Yes actually, they called me.
I promise you every story in that post is true and I witnessed first hand. At the time at lot of it was pretty funny, but looking back it was not a great workplace. Other gems I forgot to include:
Captains forcing the OT driver to stay out with him until five in the morning, swearing he’ll “fire him” if he didn’t.
Navigators with liquor openly on display in their cabins.
OSs so out of shape it took them nearly five minutes to get down a ladderwell
Oh yeah, and the berthing is terrible. When I got there my room had all of my relief’s stuff in it, with a sticky substance all over the floor. A month later I would hear a story that he had gotten excessively drunk and pissed all over his mattress and bunk (thankfully I had picked the top bunk, but turning over my roommate’s mattress revealed the crime scene)
Thirds getting wasted and vomiting in the galley.
Maybe I should have reported it, but everything I had seen from shoreside led me to believe it wouldn’t be followed up on.
Anyways, after my last hitch ended, being overdue for quite some time I had racked up a lot of vacation. Two weeks in I get told I’m expected back by the end of the month, I say I would like to use all of my vacation time I earned (about two and a half months worth). I was told no, and an hour later I put in my resignation. A few weeks after that I got an email and (grouchy) call from my detailer saying I was AWOL. She had never even read my email (using the proper resignation form) saying I had resigned. She apologized and said that she had been on vacation a few weeks and had let the emails build up (making me wonder what their vacation time looks like).
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I understand your comment on the fiefdoms.
I still remember during a noon meal conversing with the C/M puffing up his chest and proudly stating, “I never was in a good old boys club until I got on this ship”. I immediately the O mess without saying a word.
Condoning cliques and fiefdoms not at all conducive to a good working environment.
MSCas a whole keeps allowing this shit and looks the other way.
I have no doubt these stories are true, unfortunately, based on my own experiences.
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Quite a bit better than what you were going to get apparently.
You are an eloquent writer, I’ll give you that. What you describe is probably some form of my worst nightmare for operations. Frankly, it is sad, if it is true. You allege a LOT right here! Like 20/20 or 60 Minutes producer salivary gland activation level of dysfunction in a government system allegations.
Best of luck there…
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Wow, sounds like a lot of unhappy people voicing their opinions. Oddly, I haven’t seen anyone commenting on how to make it better there. I’ve always been of the mindset that if you’re not part of the solution, you may very well be part of the problem. Does no one have anything constructive to say? No ideas? Is everyone stuck in the broken can’t fix it mentality? It’s good to vent, express your opinion but how much better off we would all be if we offered real solutions and pushed those agendas? I know MSC has some huge problems stemming from management level decisions, poorly trained leadership, and yes, the influx of many new hires that have a less than desirable work ethic make it a challenge for supervisors but what are your solutions? Life isn’t a battle, it’s a process that we need to keep pushing forward on and continually at least attempt to improve. Same goes for MSC, it’s not great there right now but it IS fixable. It jut needs a different approach. Hopefully they can implement those changes in a timely manner before complete implosion. Find the bright spots, capitalize on the those and build on them. How about some positive suggestions that can produce positive results. Nothing about it changes nothing. Are YOU part of the solution?
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Everyone has commented for at least the last several decades that the way to make it better is with even-time or similar rotations like every other shipping company in existence. If they had a reasonable fixed rotation they wouldn’t have people months overdue and pissed off all the time and quitting.
And in those same decades they have implemented zero changes except a pilot program in last year or two. Timely manner? That is not a team MSC or the government is familiar with.
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Haha! You really think anyone in the office would care at all about any suggestions any of their knuckle dragging mariners might give?
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I quit MSC in 1997 after 17 years there. The C/M’s and 1/AE’s had the same problem. Write the guy up all proper and then deal with a mountain of paperwork from the racists at EEO.
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I don’t know. I watched the video posted on this thread and it explains a lot of the problems at least from one perspective. All seems fixable to me. Perhaps they are at the point where they now have to act? Without supply lines, the Navy doesn’t run. They have to realize that. Maybe this whole mess will have an impact big enough to force the change. Still, nothing is ever accomplished by merely complaining about it.
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Does working for MSC allow you eligibility into the same military and retirement benefits, active military get? If that is, then that would definitely have some amazing value if you put in 20 years. If it is, then you have to look at it the same way as a military deployment, which is not even time.
Nope. No military benefits. The same as if you worked at the post office
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As I understand it, the main sticking point with changing to a more palatable even time rotation within MSC is the vacation rules for federal employees. Is that correct?
Essentially, because CIVMARs are considered federal employees, they cannot be given more than a certain amount of vacation time per year.
Seems like something that could be fixed.
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According to previous posts, the sticking point is that this particular change can only be made by Congress. For some reason I don’t understand, that seems to be an unreasonable expectation.
ACOE hopper dredge crews are federal employee civilian mariners and they have been even-time for decades now. So it can be done, and is done, with civilian federal mariners already.
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I don’t know what classification COE dredge workers are under. Survey launch operators are WG (wage grade - non supervisory employee). Their work schedule is nominally 9 to 5 Monday to Friday.
Does this mean the only reason MSC doesn’t a leave system suitable for humans is that management hasn’t bothered trying?
IF readiness was important the US Navy would man the ships that MSC operates BUT then they couldn’t complain about the need for more ships. At least in the past US Navy ships were listed as USS XXXXX and part of the Navy. MSC ships were USNS and not officially part of the US Navy fleet on paper, that may still be true. I know I personally saw a ship built in San Diego as a USS ship brought to Portland and become a USNS The former admirals and captains working directly for or as lobbyists for the contractors could complain about the shrinking fleet and get billions of dollars for crap like the LCS program. The +trillion dollar a year ‘defense’ budget has little to do with defense,
Everything is what you make of it and I do not share the same experience/perspective as the OP.
I’m not sure if the OP is the same person in my NEO class, but a new hire rage quit during the second week of NEO. His reasons were his own, but the rest of the class managed not to have a problem.