Greetings All,
Just spoke to the NMC regarding “the wait”, and was told it is currently7-8 weeks from “ready to be evaluated PQEB” to actually getting an evaluator assigned…I turned in my package 60 days ago and reached PQEB on March 19th, add a couple of weeks and I’m roughly at the 80 day average that the NMC promulgated at the beginning of year…Guess I’m just venting, but I’ll be lucky not to be bankrupt by the time I’m looking for work…Sure am glad this REC consolidation is working out so well…
Back to the books…
MTSKIER
Well, that sounds like bad news for me…mine just went to ready to be evaluated PQEB last Friday - I was hoping to have made some progress!!
My upgrade package has been “READY TO BE EVALUATED PQEB” since March 10th. They have told me it “should be assigned to an evaluator any day now” for the last week or so.
I belong to the 109 day club myself. I sent in my package on January 16, 2009 and It was granted and mailed out on May 1. In all fairness to the NMC, I did have a medical issue that required additional information by a doctor be sent in. By the time that I recieved the request for additional information, made doctors appointments, waited for letters from the doctors and mailed back to the NMC accounted for 6 weeks. During this time I called the NMC 3 times and got through to a live person within 5 munutes and 3 emails were answered within 2 days. The days of one week renewals are over, allow 4 months, especially if you have medical issues.
I think most of us are being too kind regarding the NMC back-ups just because of a medical condition requiring a waiver. Everyone has to pass through medical evaluation. If one has a need for a waiver (I do), and has met the published requirements before submitting the application (I did), it should take only about 2 minutes longer to evaluate the medical status. It’s simple: Met or Not-Met. I submitted 2 blood tests, each one page long. That took 2 months to evaluate? I had to have waivers before. Did the REC’s all employ doctors? The evaluation process should be really simple if everything is submitted, even with the new medical standards. The real reason for the holdups is bureaucratic laziness, plain and simple.
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I actually posted this under another thread because there are several threads on basically the same topic.
All,
I submitted for Master Unlimited March 30th under the new system. The new system for those who don’t know is that the upgrade requires no exams just review of Seatime sailing as Chief Mate unlimited. I breezed through the Medical April 15th. Since then the application has sat idle. I wrote the NMC via email and they responded with the following May 22, nearly 2 months after initial submission.
[B]“Your application is currently pending assignment to an evaluator and this process may take 5-7 weeks.”[/B] They also spelled my name incorrectly when they responded. They also did NOT respond to my first email.
I paid $190 for a service and would have to say any commercial business would be out of business with this dismal customer care. My previous upgrades 3 (2/M, C/M and 1600 Master) at Boston took between 1 and 3 days.
All write letters to your representatives and include Elijah Cummings. This new NMC is NOT working.
Congressman Cummings is a senior member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, where he sits on the Subcommittees on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials and Aviation and serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
In his role as Chairman, Congressman Cummings oversees the implementation of the U.S. Coast Guard’s FY2009 $9.6 billion budget. [B]He has made it a priority to ensure that the Coast Guard has the infrastructure and resources to successfully balance[/B] its critical homeland security missions with other crucial missions, including interdicting drugs before they reach America’s shores and conducting search and rescue missions and ensuring the safety of the U.S. maritime transportation system. He has also been working to increase diversity within the Service and the Coast Guard Academy and strengthen the acquisition management process to ensure that our taxpayer dollars are used effectively and efficiently.
I wish all you all better luck than myself.
“Standing by to Sail these ships, sucking the tit of unemployment in the meantime…”
“They also spelled my name incorrectly when they responded.”
Yes, and check carefully because when you finally get your MMC your name may still be misspelled. I received my license, STCW and MMD two months ago all with my name misspelled, I sent them an email about it and have yet to get an answer.
The easy fix would be for them to just shoot me a short letter on USCG letterhead stating that on my documents my name should be spelt yadayadayada, but somehow that may not be redtape enough for them.
See, if misspellings, etc occured at an old REC, it was a quick and easy on-the-spot fix, now a fix is a major cross-country event.
It may be easier for me to go to court and change my name to the spelling on my license!! Ya, Ya that’s the ticket…
I submitted my app June 1st at the Miami REC. I called NMC yesterday (18 June) and was told my app is PQEB. I asked what the backlog time is: “6 weeks”. I have to agree, you pay for a service and expect a little quicker turn around time for the money spent. Capt Dave has done a good job at NMC, but they should continue to improve the process. Maybe the should look at the people and not the process? Pay them based on processing and accuracy of each application. Considering how many mariners are in the US. I wonder if other countries have the same “hurdles” with their licensing. Guess it is still early for me to be ranting. Just trying to get ahead of the game.
Seattle REC got my raise of grade and VSO application on June 9th. I just checked and it is “ready to be evaluated PQEB”. Looks like it breezed through the medical review 'cause when I checked on Monday it was still “in transit”.
So, I actually have a story in which NMC personnel are the good guys.
I submitted my application a couple of months a go for 1600 Master, 3rd Mate. I was worried that I would have to take 2 weeks of exams, i.e. one week for each license, since I was not sitting for a 2nd Mate (the regs say that a 2nd Mate can take the 1600 Master crossover, but there is no language that covers an otherwise qualified applicant that is also taking the 3rd Mate exam).
Anyway, I emailed the NMC info email address and asked that my question about the crossover be forwarded to my evaluator. Miracle #1: it was. Miracle #2, she replied back that she would look into it for me and get back to me. Miracle #3, I got approved to take the crossover exam.
But wait, there’s more.
Yesterday afternoon, I had completed taking all of the 3rd Mate modules and was in the middle of the 1600 Master crossover exam. I get to number 54 (out of 70) and see that somebody before me had circled the answer to 54 and 55 in the exam booklet. Crap. That is immediate grounds for failure, and I wasn’t about to get blamed for it. So I got up and took it out to the examiner and asked for a new exam.
He apologized, but then told me (after a discussion with his boss) that he shouldn’t have given me the crossover exam at all and that I wasn’t qualified for it as I didn’t hold a 2nd Mate license. “Sorry, my hands are tied. You need to take all of the 1600 Master modules. Want to come in next week?”
I literally had to walk away for a minute to make sure I didn’t say something that I might regret.
I got myself under control and asked him to call my evaluator at NMC. Miracle #4: she was at her desk and answered her phone. She assured him I was approved, qualified, yada yada and then she sent him the string of emails between herself and her boss so he could have something to put in his files.
Happy ending, he gave me a new crossover exam, I passed, and I think I’ll name my first born after the NMC evaluator.
I contacted NMC, via email, and asked about processing time for app to test for 16OO ton master - oceans endorsement. I currently have 1600 ton mate with oceans endorsement. The only thing I need to submit is additional sea time.
I was told, in writing, that the processing time was 12 - 20 weeks, once it is received at NMC! :eek: Yep, three to five months. I can’t believe that it is still getting worse. This is beyond disappointing.
13 weeks for me for a simple PIC endorsement. Well, 13 weeks to be issued - still waiting for the nice man from USPS to put it in my mailbox!
I’m not positive on how the individual PQEB evaluators are paid, but the contractor that provides them, is paid by the volume of applications procesesed.
This is a direct benefit of the centralized NMC, and having the guys who make the exams in the same building as the application evaluators.
This question came up a little while ago and we looked at it more broadly than ujst reading the CFR. While the CFR speaks to the crossover at 2nd Mate, it was written when 2nd Mate was a separate exam. The premise of the crossover reg was that if you took the 2nd Mate exam, there was only a few things that you were not tested on that are on the Master 1600 exam, this is what’s on the “011X1” crossover exam. Since the 2nd Mate material is now on the OICNW exam, if you take the new OICNW exam for 3rd Mate, you can meet all the Master 1600 testing stuff by only adding the 011X1 crossover.
The REC should not have taken the exam from you. NMC now decides what exams you take, not the REC. If the REC thinks a mistake was made, they need to contact NMC to resolve the question.
Everyone should check out DougPines Facebook page on mariners who are sick of the way the NMC is handling things.
Mr. Cavo, we all greatly appreciate what you do, and the help that you give us all. What are the people in your office saying when you mention the trouble that almost everyone is having on this site with the way the NMC does buisness? I and others understand that certain things are better, like your mentioned above, but why does it take soooooo long to do something that seems like could be done rather quikly? We all work so hard to get that upgrade and then have to wait for ever to get the MMC and see the reward in our paycheck. What do you suggest that we do?
[quote=jdcavo;14152]This is a direct benefit of the centralized NMC, and having the guys who make the exams in the same building as the application evaluators.
This question came up a little while ago and we looked at it more broadly than ujst reading the CFR. While the CFR speaks to the crossover at 2nd Mate, it was written when 2nd Mate was a separate exam. The premise of the crossover reg was that if you took the 2nd Mate exam, there was only a few things that you were not tested on that are on the Master 1600 exam, this is what’s on the “011X1” crossover exam. Since the 2nd Mate material is now on the OICNW exam, if you take the new OICNW exam for 3rd Mate, you can meet all the Master 1600 testing stuff by only adding the 011X1 crossover.
The REC should not have taken the exam from you. NMC now decides what exams you take, not the REC. If the REC thinks a mistake was made, they need to contact NMC to resolve the question.[/quote]
The above premise covers the testing aspect of the crossover exam but was there no discussion of the one year of seatime as 3rd mate? What about that?
[quote=jdcavo;14152]This is a direct benefit of the centralized NMC, and having the guys who make the exams in the same building as the application evaluators.
This question came up a little while ago and we looked at it more broadly than ujst reading the CFR. While the CFR speaks to the crossover at 2nd Mate, it was written when 2nd Mate was a separate exam. The premise of the crossover reg was that if you took the 2nd Mate exam, there was only a few things that you were not tested on that are on the Master 1600 exam, this is what’s on the “011X1” crossover exam. Since the 2nd Mate material is now on the OICNW exam, if you take the new OICNW exam for 3rd Mate, you can meet all the Master 1600 testing stuff by only adding the 011X1 crossover.
The REC should not have taken the exam from you. NMC now decides what exams you take, not the REC. If the REC thinks a mistake was made, they need to contact NMC to resolve the question.[/quote]
So if you took the 1600 Master exam under the new scheme, do you meet all the 3M/2M testing testing stuff? The reason I ask is because I am about to re-take what I assume are the same 7 modules that I took for my 1600 ton Master exam to receive my unlimited license as per my approval to test letter.
Jeff and Azimuth, I should have clarified that I was separately qualified to take the 1600 Masters exam based on sea service, etc. I was also qualified to sit for the 3rd Mate exam, based on other sea service, etc.
So, I was extremely happy that NMC actually used some common sense here and recognized, as Mr. Cavo pointed out, that the 3rd Mate and 2nd Mate exams are now the same, so since I was otherwise qualified to take the 1600 Master modules, why not just take the crossover with the OICNW exam.
Yay for common sense at NMC.
[QUOTE=jdcavo;14152] If the REC thinks a mistake was made, they need to contact NMC to resolve the question.[/QUOTE]
The good news is that they did just that, albeit with a little push from me…