Shipmates: Am I the only one getting tired of the office using our personal credit and cash as a travel “Piggy bank”? For the last 5 weeks I’ve had to put out several thousand dollars of my own coin, then fight to get claims paid properly while going through training and travel nightmares. The whole “request a travel advance” doesn’t work to well when they take 3 business days to deposit the cash in your account and your orders call you to leave the next day. I am proposing that we start “closing the bank”. 1) upon arrival in the pool, we tell the detailers that we have no money or credit card available for government travel (notice the wording in that) and require an advance with our orders for anything above a cab ride to the airport. 2) If there is no advance, then we require an agent to meet us upon arrival with the understanding that said agent will cover all lodging, meal and transportation costs until we travel on or get to the ship. 3) If neither of the foregoing is done, then when we get in country with no $$, we call the embassy and declare ourselves abandoned seaman.
This might sound a bit extreme but consider: Baggage fees run from $50 to $100 every day. Hotel and eating costs in Djibouti, Bahrain, Dubai, Singapore, etc… are very high. And there is no requirement that we be able to front this money out of our pockets. We all have to eat the interest costs on or credit cards, and many cards rack up interest daily. When it comes to training, rental car costs are always required to go on a credit card. Also, the office has a nasty habit (I have had to beat them out of this more than once) of paying “pool rate” per diem when full per diem is required (if you’re on TDY).
I’m throwing the topic out for discussion and debate. Would very much like to hear opinions.
The office was and it seems still bent on the mariner solving all thier problems. Use a travel card and they don’t have to do anything.
Question: why are you traveling so much? Don’t you go to a ship for a few months? Also, before I left I seem to recall they did away with credit cards for mariners. If so why do you still have one?
Yea, I guess that’s it. Still, a lot of travel coming and going for a mariner. I would often use my card, file the claim and it would be paid before the bill came. The gov travel card was a nightmare.
Capt.: They had me on a training roller coaster from hell. First, Sandog to Norfolk to go to Explosive MHE Instructor (already had this through a contractor, and I buffed it up at BATS, but they still made me go). After that it was off to Ft. Lauderdale for FRB. I am in Singapore right now after flight from hell waiting to catch the flight to De-Gar. Travel advance for each and every set of orders was delayed while I used my personal credit card and cash. Also had to fight for proper per diem in training vice “pool rate”. I raised enough hell in Sing that they broke through the “3 day” advance bar and miraculously got me some cash. I threatened to go to the embassy and declare myself an abandoned seaman. THAT got some action.
This same issue comes up on return from ship to home. The office is now telling Pursers to refuse the flight cash advance for mariners to make their own travel and making mariners go back to either Norfolk or Sandog. I rotated off my last ship and had a Purser with heart and some brain cells that gave me the cash anyway. SATO insisted that they couldn’t fly to my home (Seattle) and I had to go to Sandog. I went to Griffin Travel (great outfit!) and they got me to Seattle on my schedule for $100 less than SATO’s cost to Seattle. See why I am pissed?
[QUOTE=The Fat Man;113735]Capt.: They had me on a training roller coaster from hell. First, Sandog to Norfolk to go to Explosive MHE Instructor (already had this through a contractor, and I buffed it up at BATS, but they still made me go). After that it was off to Ft. Lauderdale for FRB. I am in Singapore right now after flight from hell waiting to catch the flight to De-Gar. Travel advance for each and every set of orders was delayed while I used my personal credit card and cash. Also had to fight for proper per diem in training vice “pool rate”. I raised enough hell in Sing that they broke through the “3 day” advance bar and miraculously got me some cash. I threatened to go to the embassy and declare myself an abandoned seaman. THAT got some action.
This same issue comes up on return from ship to home. The office is now telling Pursers to refuse the flight cash advance for mariners to make their own travel and making mariners go back to either Norfolk or Sandog. I rotated off my last ship and had a Purser with heart and some brain cells that gave me the cash anyway. SATO insisted that they couldn’t fly to my home (Seattle) and I had to go to Sandog. I went to Griffin Travel (great outfit!) and they got me to Seattle on my schedule for $100 less than SATO’s cost to Seattle. See why I am pissed?[/QUOTE]
If you feel like they have taken your money…just take it back
Yep, it sure is a mess. I know really makes no difference now, but I always instructed the purser to just pay the rate to home port and let the mariner see a travel agent. Wtf, it’s your money really. I ways always amazed at how the office seemed to be at war with the mariners. What other outfit would treat their employees like that! It’s a real shame to be sure. Hang in there, perhaps tossing the " abandon seaman " card will become the new norm. I see msc still treats employees like they are on a work release program from Sing Sing.
This is what happened when I entrusted my travel arrangements to the purser and the travel dept. I was transferring from a ship in Guam to one in Djibouti.
They flew me EAST. The loooooooong way around the earth.
Guam -HI
HI -LAX
LAX -Denver
Denver -Chicago
Chicago -London
London -Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa -Djibouti
It would be a hellish adventure. In addition to my total flight time, there was an entire day of layover time, broken up into four hour intervals. Since I was flying east I was effectively going back in time so although the trip only seemed to last a day, in fact it was several. During the long layovers I subsisted on a dangerous combination of bloody marys and espresso with a few red bulls as well. I was afraid I would miss my flights if I slept. My eyes were bloodshot. I looked like a dangerous psychopath on the edge of total collapse. Families clutched their children tight.
When I reached my destination I learned that my ship was still a day out in the Gulf. The agent was not helpful. I was dropped off at the miserable camel pier and abandoned to my dusty fate. This wouldnt do. I hopped the bus back to the city and got some khat off a cabbie and had him drive me to the Kempinski. The security men let me in out of pity although I surely looked worse than any street urchin in Djibouti. In the lobby I was able to pull my lifeless body up onto a lush European couch-looking thing. I slowly began to sense that I would be ok here, that this was the perfect cocoon in which to patch up my tattered mental framework. Soon a lovely Ethiopian girl came by and helped me get beer and cigarettes. I drank and smoked. The alcohol no longer had any effect on my nervous system. Fuck the ship, I thought. I am going to spend the rest of my life here, in this lobby. I can find some way to support myself. I can be a gun smuggler like Rimbaud. Then I crashed, hard.
I completely understand. But when you say “we should start cloing the bank” you forget that we have plenty of shipmates who do just that. They don’t move without the base fully funding the effort.
You’ve fallen for the trap by being a concientious employee. A curious thing happened to me a few years back while traveling to Djibouti to meet my ship. It was a saturday, the second favorite travel day at MSC. My ticket did not include the leg from Norfolk to Dulles. I toyed with scrapping the mission and going back to the pool on monday like a seasoned pool rat would. But I worked with the clerk and they squeezed me onto a flight. My reward: The fucking ship was not in Djibouti and was not going there anytime soon. The detailer was warned of this and chose to let me hang. Luckily the ship’s captain somehow got with Inscape and I was rescued from the barbwired airport and sent on to Fujairah. Assertive and committed employees get the shaft at MSC and the rest of the layabouts rest in comfort at the contract hotel. As for giving mariners travel cards: I’d sooner hand a monkey a shotgun.
