When I was in maritime school in Seattle the guys, deck & engine, that wanted to work for the ferries, either wanted to because they had family that did it, or they didn’t want to go out to sea for weeks/months at a time. That was it. No dreams and no craving a “challenge”. Out of the 12 or so that wanted to do their internship & continue working afterwards with the ferries it was more about not being stuck on a boat and being gone for long lengths of time more than anything else.
As a class we sailed onboard one of the Jumbo’s for half a day. It was interesting and the CE was a good guy, but when the engineer & QMED bragged about how their biggest job lately was a complete teardown/rebuild of the push cart thing for stalled vehicles, what little curiosity I had or the ferries died.
If people like working for the ferries great, good for them. I just think their hiring process is stupid, as it is for other companies that do it similarly. My opinion. You seem to think its great, as is your right.
Well I can’t speak for others but if somebody showed up to do daywork on my ship and had his assessment sheets printed out and asked if I could go over some things with him if we have time, I damned sure would make time to go over the applicable items and sign him off.
It’ll likely take a few years or more, but as the IBU loses members since the Janus ruling, it may get better working for them.
I worked for them for a month, but I ran up against something I still can’t explain. It felt like the HR department and the Port Captains are on different pages and for the first 6 month probation period, if the Port Captain doesn’t like you for any reason you are gone.
The union was alright, the “union or die” members sucked and were nepotistic, the port captain wanted guys to suck up to him, but the HR people were very nice. It felt like most of the guys in my class, for lack of a better term, left and went on to do other things.
I’ve been with them just over two years; it’s actually a pretty good gig, all things considered.
The further north you live/wanna work, the harder it is to get a extended temp/perm job.
There are people from my class(early ‘18) with permanent jobs down south-Vashon, Bainbridge, etc. There are many more working Chief Mate or 2nd Mate. My class is mostly intact, only a few left out of the 18 hires- some because they couldn’t get past cleaning toilets and such. The more successful ones tended to have a lot of their pilotage trips “front-loaded” before they started as deckhands. If you come in as an on call and are motivated you can run all over the sound and get the required pilotage.
I told a friend who sails for MMP but has been thinking about WSF this-
Keep sailing relief out of the hall, get a pilotage letter from WSF. Ride and get pilotage when you’re on your 45-60 days off between hitches. Make your $15k a month sailing offshore, build up the pilotage on your own time, not having to do janitorial in between running up to the wheelhouse if the Capt/Mate allows it, then when you’re close or done come on as a deckhand.
It’d put you a year behind in hiring, but especially now with the ways things are looking that might not be a bad thing.
No one here at WSF wants to say it but I feel layoffs might be coming for hires in the past few years, at least on the deck side.
The run reductions, drop in revenue, loss and non replacement of older ferries, plus cuts coming to state budgets, largely related to the COVID thing, but also we were looking at a predicted recession even prior to this whole mess so…
The WSDOT website even has an updated section for employees that says “if you’ve received a lay-off notice…”
From what I’m told the new hire classes for ‘20 are delayed- or they might bring ppl on to work and do the new hire orientation training at a ltr time. To me that would be indicative of the very tenuous nature of being brought on new in the current state of things.
Just as a reference; remember all the watches here are “shift work”- there are captains here with a lot of seniority who are just getting to the point where they can have weekends off regularly. So even though it it wonderful being home, if you are used to traveling a lot, or enjoying your weekends when you are at home from a hitch, once you come on with WSF there aren’t too many options to have even a relatively normal schedule, at least not for some time.
Hi george44,
While I can’t predict the future regarding future budgets or a coming recession, I can say with some certainty that there will be no layoffs due to COVID or the reductions in service related to it. A big part of the reason for the reduced service schedules was to address the shrinking pool of available employees.
Removing a vessel from service at Bremerton allows WSF to combine two incomplete deck crews into one complete crew. The same is true on the Fauntleroy, Anacortes and Bainbridge crews. Even with those measures in place, WSF was forced to cancel two-vessel service on the Edmonds route yesterday due to lack of crew.
I do hope you’re right; some of the issues with crewing currently seems to be related to the policy of allowing 65 and older plus employees to self quarantine at no cost in vacation or sick balances, so when that is at end it could help with crewing.
Overall what is concerning is the apparent lack of new vessel construction in the pipe even prior to this and with the -976 thing.
The reverberations from the Covid thing might go on way longer than quarantines and self distancing etc. A recession had been predicted for 2020 by some economists going back to 2018.
If I was planning on making the move over to WSF right now I’d weigh “bird in hand vs what could be in the bush” and make sure you’ve got a good, solid cash reserve, maybe a year plus for basic expenses to feel comfortable.
One thing right now is there is a lot of confusion regarding some scheduling changes, without much coming from IBU or MMP(or so I hear). People are in the dark, and the language used recently by higher ups leaves a lot of lee way in which way things could go.
If you can answer this, what position are you in, where you have a good sense that layoffs are off the table?
Yes, some of the crewing issues will ease as employees are able to return to work, and ridership will probably rise along with it. I do think we’ll see a long-term decrease, as people have learned to work remotely.
Spring 2019 budget did provide partial funding for a fifth Olympic Class vessel, but as for 976, that’s all uncharted waters. I think your assessment is prudent. However, even in the 2008 recession, I don’t think WSF had any non-seasonal layoffs.
WSF, IBU & MMP issued a joint release yesterday stating that winter schedules will continue until mid-June. I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind that decision.
I’d prefer not to identify my position if that’s okay, but I will say that I am not in management.
I really considered a WSF as possible career. After looking at an apprentice program offered by MITAGS for the WSF, It was my belief this may be a good and somewhat stable career after I retire form CG here in Seattle. I have the financial means for the training, the work ethic, and know-how.
However, since this post was created and after reading through the comments, I have receded any interest I had for the WSF. Sure, I’ll scrub toilets and, do this or that while learning the system at ground level. What really turns me off however is the system for hiring, and their seasonal highs and lows in staffing. Not sure how one would survive economically while enrolled at MITAGS, on-call, all the while paying bills and basic living expenses.
So, say a guy like me, with an entry-level MMC, just got hired for a terminal position with WSF, but is now on hold due to Covid-19. I’m hearing phrases like licensed vs. unlicensed, and seeing varying comments about whether you can work on a boat with simply an OS rate or not. A terminal employee told me that WSF won’t consider someone with anything less than an AB for even an entry-level deck position. I’m also curious how training works in WSF. Does WSF help pay for training? Do they have a particular school they send you to? Will they allow a terminal employee to attend maritime classes to get their AB or STCW work done, if said employee is not actually in a boat position? I’ve done quite a bit of searching and reading here in gCaptain, but most of the threads are pretty dated and don’t speak so much to the situation for new hires. The WSF HR person seems to have a hard time responding to my emails with these questions as well. I’d love to hear from any WSF employees who can shine a light on these things for me. Thank you!
What you may don’t realize if you are coming in with an officer endorsement, is that you are also required to get a FCP Unlimited for Puget Sound and ALL the ferry routes even to qualify for mate. That process is literally impossible to do under six months anyway so the argument of working unlicensed for six months is total BS. Unless you have worked your ass off to get the endorsement on your own, which I know one person who has so it is possible.
Working on call actually made that easier cause you had more flexibility in working multiple routes to gain pilotage.
WSf has virtually eliminated the on call position for many reasons this forum complains about. Imo, it is actually missed a lot. There was a lot of flexibility in the call position and it takes away a lot from our Relief positions which are hire paid. That’s another story…
For now to answer your direct question yes the hiring process is atrociously slow, but you can work a permanent AB position right away and possibly get paid to ride pilotage. Which has never happened until this year. They’re desperate for mates. The 6 month rule is irrelevant because unless you have an insane amount of free time on your hands and you did all the pilotage on your own, and testing. There is no way you can qualify for the FCP endorsement in 6 months. Not to mention they have an orientation for new mates only once a year at the beginning of the year. It’s heavily involved so they can only budget it that way.