Military Sealift Command

Maritime Employment
21

I am back! Yep… more questions… first an update. I finished my QMED paperwork and just submitted it through email to the Houston REC. Hopefully I will hear something withing a few weeks. I am a little bummed about MSC though. They took the opening away for Electrician. Does anyone know how often jobs come back? I am figuring maybe the 1st of fiscal perhaps? I know the electrician opening was on there for a while and knowing my luck it had to go away. The only thing I am qualified for is unlicensed engineer and I would have to work a lot of overtime just to make what I am making now in my current profession. So I guess I will get my QMED/Electrician endorsement out of the way and hope the opening for electrician comes back.

Martilyo

22

Youve gotten some good, informed info here (granted Im not a big fan of the folks that abuse the sick leave, infact I think its down right shameful, mainly b/c it makes having to use it for its true/intended purpose that much harder due to all the paper work hurdles you have to go through.

NWA (Non-Watchstanding Allowance, Leave Supplement); what does that mean…I have no idea, heard numerous ideas, but what it comes out to be is a bonus on your paycheck every pay period while on leave (some calculation based off how many days you served on the vessel in your rate…i really dont know, couple hundred bucks maybe, per check)

Im working on my 2nd “5 year plan” right now (ie 8years now, planned on 5 like everyone else says) its a unique place, we have our ups, we have our downs, like any other place we have good people that make the job fun, we have bad people that make the job MUCH harder than it has to be.

Leave, yeah it sucks, but even still, again, not the same as the commercial world, people stay on ships for months to be able to get into their “duty” rotation back on the East Coast (West too, but not familure with that side as much) lots of guys stay on ships for years, do a 6 month deployment, come back and go home very frequently when the ship is back in the states.

When youre looking at the pay scales online, PERM is the pay you make while in training or on leave or in the pool, the rest of the tabs are the base pay for THAT SHIP, + OT and Premium rates. If you want to figure out what your base pay would be for either shipboard pay periods or shoreside, take the base pay, divide it by 26 (26 pay periods per year) and thats your 14day pay, take the OT multiply by anywhere from 32 to 50ish (avg IMO) add that to your base pay and that is more or less what you can expect to make 14day pay periods (paid every other Friday).

I would watch the sealiftcommand site frequently as well as the civmar website, both have promo/openings info; we have MANY ships coming online in the coming months, seems theyre just getting caught up on manning right now, my guess is its soon to fall behind again as new ships come online (or get transfered over to MSC)

Good Luck

23

Hello all, I know it has been a while since I have posted, but MSC just opened jobs for second electricians. I am taking my QMED - Electrician test tomorrow and I hope I do well. I want to be able to send in my application soon. I was looking at the job requirements for second electrician and something bothered me. It was asking for job related experience for the last 5 years. Unfortunately I don’t have any. I was a Navy EM2 for almost 10 years and got out in 2002. Do you think the amount of time that lapsed since I have been in the Navy will hinder my application? I still remember pretty much everything and troubleshooting skills just don’t go away. I graduated top of class in EM A school and C-7 advanced electrical maintenance. What do you guys think? You think I will be ok? Thanks for all of the advice.

Martilyo

24

Martilyo, you should be fine. Youcan change a light bulb and work on a washing machine, can’t you? That’s about all a 2/Electrician does at MSC. If worse comes to worse take a wiper job and wait.

25

im applying for the OS advancement program…

26

I just submitted my package application today, and the position I was applying for was for the Assistant Store Keeper, I had a few questions and would really appreciate if any of you can assist me on it.

  1. With me being a former Veteran of the armed forces, and I am currently a DOD Civilian and also have a secret clearance already as that is required for my current job, how long does it take until you get a reply back on whether or not you got the job offer?

  2. Is it even worth attending the job fairs that MSC have? I was thinking of attending one even though I have already submitted my application package along with all the required documents. would it be worth to talk to a recruiter face to face?

  3. My last question that I have is if you are sailing out of Norfolk Virginia what are the ports that you go too and to which paticular countries? And how about for the west coast?

I would really appreciate any information.

27

[QUOTE=Salinity Now;49749]Youve gotten some good, informed info here (granted Im not a big fan of the folks that abuse the sick leave, infact I think its down right shameful, mainly b/c it makes having to use it for its true/intended purpose that much harder due to all the paper work hurdles you have to go through.

NWA (Non-Watchstanding Allowance, Leave Supplement); what does that mean…I have no idea, heard numerous ideas, but what it comes out to be is a bonus on your paycheck every pay period while on leave (some calculation based off how many days you served on the vessel in your rate…i really dont know, couple hundred bucks maybe, per check)

Im working on my 2nd “5 year plan” right now (ie 8years now, planned on 5 like everyone else says) its a unique place, we have our ups, we have our downs, like any other place we have good people that make the job fun, we have bad people that make the job MUCH harder than it has to be.

Leave, yeah it sucks, but even still, again, not the same as the commercial world, people stay on ships for months to be able to get into their “duty” rotation back on the East Coast (West too, but not familure with that side as much) lots of guys stay on ships for years, do a 6 month deployment, come back and go home very frequently when the ship is back in the states.

When youre looking at the pay scales online, PERM is the pay you make while in training or on leave or in the pool, the rest of the tabs are the base pay for THAT SHIP, + OT and Premium rates. If you want to figure out what your base pay would be for either shipboard pay periods or shoreside, take the base pay, divide it by 26 (26 pay periods per year) and thats your 14day pay, take the OT multiply by anywhere from 32 to 50ish (avg IMO) add that to your base pay and that is more or less what you can expect to make 14day pay periods (paid every other Friday).

I would watch the sealiftcommand site frequently as well as the civmar website, both have promo/openings info; we have MANY ships coming online in the coming months, seems theyre just getting caught up on manning right now, my guess is its soon to fall behind again as new ships come online (or get transfered over to MSC)

Good Luck[/QUOTE

@salinity now… could you please
give me a example using the OS base pay of 24,994$ so i could get a idea of how much a check would be including OT…? i got lost when i tried to do the math…LOL thanks in advance

28

@salinity now… could you please
give me a example using the OS base pay of 24,994$ so i could get a idea of how much a check would be including OT…? i got lost when i tried to do the math…LOL thanks in advance[/QUOTE]

$1027.00 per payday BEFORE taxes and deductions. There is no way to guess how many hours of OT someone MIGHT get. The payoff with the MSC OS program is the paid training, seatime and the pathway for advancement to AB. I recently worked with 2 OS’s at MSC, one was about 22 and laid-back, one was mid 40’s and hustled. Everything else being equal, guess which one earned more OT and was ahead of the other in completion of PFPNW.

29

[QUOTE=CMA_Decky;49339]1. It’s a job.
2. Dayrate’s lower, but net pay is higher than working 6 months
3. Actually get good port/liberty time (except in the gulf, but who cares there)
4. More interesting than doing a coastwise route. If you can maneuver for traffic around Singapore, then the US will be a piece of cake.
5. Get to do a lot of cool things like UNREPs, VERTREPs, etc.
6. It’s a job.[/QUOTE]

on #2:

Pay is higher than who? I thought the reason to go to sea was to have the time off. I would rather work half as much as a MSC Mate and make the same $$$. Why not go commercial deep sea?

30

[QUOTE=Mate;56639]on #2:

Pay is higher than who? I thought the reason to go to sea was to have the time off. I would rather work half as much as a MSC Mate and make the same $$$. Why not go commercial deep sea?[/QUOTE]

Working half as much and making more $$$ aint gonna happen. The point he was making in #2 is that the MSC Mate is going to make more in a years time than the non-MSC Mate because the MSC Mate will work more days, regardless of salary differances. If having long periods of time off appeals to you, don’t work for MSC.

31

Plenty of 2m & 3m’s are making 100k+ working 6-months. From what I hear, thats about what you pull at MSC working 10-months. I’d take the extra time you have off and use it to make more money if working is what you want to do.

32

NWA is paid to people who are “permanent” watchstanders while on leave…intent was that you would get paid the same as a “permanent” day-worker who was on leave. Don’t ask why the Pursers (who are not watchstanders) have a NWA rate. Remember, when you are on a ship and take leave for a day, you should get NWA too…

33

Can anyone tell me if the MSC new hire orientation/training is paid? The website says it takes 4-6 weeks. I know this is slightly off topic but I’ll be damned if I’m going to start another MSC thread.

34

search for a post by deckape about this- but it should be paid, you just have to get there

35

Yes, you are paid. You are paid the base wage for the job you have. You also get $38/day for food.

36

So after the new hire orientation and after the fire fighting class that is for 4 to 6 weeks, when will you actually know if you will be either assigned to the west coast or east coast?

37

[QUOTE=Mr.International973;56904]So after the new hire orientation and after the fire fighting class that is for 4 to 6 weeks, when will you actually know if you will be either assigned to the west coast or east coast?[/QUOTE]

After training in NJ you’ll be bused back to Norfolk. No one knows how long you will wait there to be told where you are going but when they do finally tell you, you’ll be traveling quickly so have your affairs in order.

38

[QUOTE=Jeffrox;56964]After training in NJ you’ll be bused back to Norfolk. No one knows how long you will wait there to be told where you are going but when they do finally tell you, you’ll be traveling quickly so have your affairs in order.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the response, so they will pretty much tell you there if you are going to be in the west coast or east coast

39

You will be east coast. To transfer to west coast you must put in a coastal transfer request. Transfers times are dependent on rate and take anywhere from weeks to several years to receive.

40

[QUOTE=DeckApe;56969]You will be east coast. To transfer to west coast you must put in a coastal transfer request. Transfers times are dependent on rate and take anywhere from weeks to several years to receive.[/QUOTE]

Thanks alot for your information, another question I had is when you start off in the east coast to which ports in the world do they normally sail into? Do they only go to european places when you are in the east coast?