Why is it that the smallest department on the ship has 90% of the problems? The Stewards Dept is ALWAYS fucked up.
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A crew member that acts like an asshole from time to time can most often be dealt with by the crew or just by the crewmember being affected.
But action by the crew alone is not the optimum way to deal with the âPersistent Bulliesâ referred to in the thread title. Such people are poison for the crew and can significantly impact crew effectiveness.
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Typical bully response:
âItâs not my fault they canât take itâ.
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So 35 plus years doing this doesnât allow me to give an opinion? Seems like you took offense. Iâll try to sugar coat shit for you in the future as to not offend pumkin.
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Sometimes the people they are serving bring out the best in them.
I havenât worked in an office. My experiences have been at sea. (Ok, I last worked in an office back in â93 but that was civil engineering, not maritime.)
Anytime several young, just graduated new hires from the same small school are put together at the same workplace they revert to familiar behaviors: they act like collage seniors. Iâd bet this behavior is common in any industry.
It doesnât help that American maritime schools on the East Coast seem to breed bullies.
Several years ago I went to SUNY to for a five minute test to upgrade my license (flashing light). A shipmate and SUNY graduate went along for old time sake. As we walked the campus he told me stories such as âthatâs where the freshman have to walk along the wall.â I wondered why they canât just walk. I know at my (non-maritime public collage) as a freshman I just walked to class.
Of course the stupid stories go on and on. As freshman they got abused by the upperclassmen. As upperclassmen they abused the freshmen. That kind of shit didnât happen at my school. But at maritime its âtraditionâ and âbuilds character.â
In subtle ways some maritime academies on the East Coast breed bullies. Then we wonder why many new officers (and some senior ones) abuse their unlicensed and other officers.
I see that shit year after year at sea.
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This is good guidance with regards to harassment and bullying:
The terms harassment and bullying are defined and examples given.
Harassment is a broader more general term while bullying is a specific form of harassment.
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I have to say that I am from KP and I spent 38 years on the Lakes and now do work with the Training Ship State of Michigan with GLMA. Since I knew of one or two other KPâers working the Lakes and not with my outfit there is no ring knocker crap. Had plenty of Maine Engineers a few Mass and a couple from SUNY. When I started almost all were hawsepipers and now most are GLMA grads with the other schools thrown in. In the old days with big crews there were bullies of all stripes. And yes, the Stewardâs Dept was often a mess but not rife with bullies mostly rumors. Nowadays with 1 man galleys and 18 or less in the crew bullys are fewer. However, having gone through the process of getting somebody off of the ship for cause is an exercise is total frustration. If they have a union then you have to jump through a host of hoops and you have to get people to put their names on a complaint. I had a cook who I had written up several times, I had counseled and I had jumped the hoops. I had the crew on board and it went into their meeting minutes, I had all the deck officers on board but I could not get 1 engineer, even the chief who would not eat in the galley or the 2nd or loudly griped everyday, to sign a petition because he was a union brother. What a crock. I finally shamed the Chief into at least contacting the hall and telling them I was not wrong. Bang, guy was gone, but I learned a lesson in human dynamics. Easy to say get rid of the bully but in practice a different story and this doesnât include what you have to do to get the office pukes to do something they donât want to deal with.
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The problem with this argument is the logic fails, the replacement is going to be a union brother (or sister) too.
The unlicensed deep-sea SIU contract general freightship contract Iâm familiar with doesnât require a petition. a couple statements from crew members would suffice.
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I have had the unfortunate task of terminating people in the past. As @Kennebec_Captain said above, I didnât need a petition to show them the gangway.
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What few employees that needed to be shown the door, was not that hard to do. Office pukes did not hear from me very much. But when they did, it was actionable, with desired results.
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My experience has been the same. Maritime union members have no patience with members who reflect badly on us as a group. If the police and teacherâs unions, among a few others would adopt the same attitude it would help all unions. If youâre member of a union you are expected to adhere to certain standards. There is no room nor need to defend " a few bad apples."
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Having to fire someone requires administrative duties that take some time. It also involves about 5 minutes of discomfort during the actual final step of reading the Discharge for Cause (DFC) letter to the offender.
Itâs often easer for senior officers to ignore the troublemaker which means the crew has to live with the tension, level of disfunction and constant friction that person creates. Who is the snowflake in this scenario?
Iâve had crew say they feel badly about firing a troublemaker but once the dark cloud they created is gone nobody misses them.
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Relating to administrative duties to remove a bad player, was at the time union and was required to fly about 900 miles to our office for a meeting with company and union rep. This wasnât about bullying, it was lack of performance in port over an extended time. We had a crew reduction and needed every hand. Dude was always having âback problemsâ when it came to loading or discharging. His âproblemsâ amazingly cleared up once we passed the sea bouy, until we got to entering the next one, the malady would show itself again. I paid this guy overtime to stand anchor watch while transitting Mississippi Riiver. He would not answer the walkie talkie, so I sent another crewmember to check on him. He was asleep. At the meeting with all concerned parties, He declared he was awake and remembered the exact page he was reading from a book, at night with a flashlight. The look on the union reps face was priceless. Needless to say, he did not fare well. Two precious days of my and mates time off to get rid of this butthead.
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Firing troublemakers and poor performers creates a virtuous circle.
For one once a few people have been fired there will be several letters of warning and DFC letters in the computer. In most cases warning or firing someone is just a matter of pulling one up an old one and changing the names and the dates, only takes a few minutes. The actual firing goes well too as itâs become routine for the senior officers and they see the benefits.
For another once someone gets fired the rest of the crew is on notice that bs is not going to be tolerated.
Also once the ship gets the reputation of not putting up with bs the weak mariners will avoid and the good ones will take the job and then return.
Hmm. Brings to mind a Joseph Conrad novella. . . .
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