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FrozenVent posted:What did it say? It's about 6 pages - mostly reiterating obligation to MARAD and that they have and will pursue legal actions against those who are non-compliant. Reads like an underhand threat. All graduates from 2007-2013 should have received one.
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Jan 7, 2014 06:12
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X-Bows make for weird looking ships.
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Jan 7, 2014 10:34
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StopShootingMe posted:X-Bows make for weird looking ships. My nav arc professor hated them with a passion. He was much more fond of the Damen axe bow. Doing fwd moorings through gun doors is a loving pain.
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Jan 8, 2014 01:49
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License is coming in the mail! Gonna go get a loan for a new a Camaro and hit the strip clubs tonight.
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Jan 10, 2014 15:48
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shovelbum posted:License is coming in the mail! Gonna go get a loan for a new a Camaro and hit the strip clubs tonight. You'd better enjoy the strip club, since you're getting married tomorrow! (Probably to someone you'll meet tonight) Good job, enjoy the living wage.
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Jan 10, 2014 15:57
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Congrats, time to lose your sanity, morals and virginity.
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Jan 11, 2014 03:10
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pazrs posted:My nav arc professor hated them with a passion. He was much more fond of the Damen axe bow. Pneumatic line throwers are your friend. Except when I operate it and land the monkey's fist in a crane. Every time.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:13
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Its all fun and games until you put a heaving line through the windshield of a parked car. 
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Jan 11, 2014 19:23
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FrozenVent posted:There's a few Canadian companies that operate foreign flag boats that'll take cadets. Having done a similar tour, I can assure that breakfast was the best thing that kid had eaten in his life, holy poo poo. FrozenVent posted:Last time I renewed, and since I started really, the only things that would get you disqualified in Canada were color blindness and maybe, maybe diabetes type 1. Also: Never leave shore.
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Jan 13, 2014 07:00
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B33rChiller posted:Man, this is like reading my own diary. Never tried curry before, then worked a 6-month sea phase onboard a tanker crewed out of Mumbai. I would have killed to be taken out for a decent meal during that time. It has been more than 10 years, and I can only tolerate curry on rare occasions. Weirdly though, on those occasions, I get an intense craving for it, and will get righteously pissed if the restaurant doesn't have chapatis. We went to Wal-Mart in Port Arthur, Texas and I bought two gallon jars of peanut butter. Captain treated us to IHOP right after, and I've never had a steak taste so good ever again in my life. There was a guy from the seaman's church or w/e in Ghent who took a look at the crew list, went "hey that doesn't belong" and actually woke me up to have a chat in French about how I was doing, that did wonder for my morale. It's amazing how lonely you can feel after a few months when you've been completely immersed in a foreign culture. (And working 16 hours days all day everyday but hey) Dude swung by with gigantic Belgian chocolate Easter eggs on Easter too, probably the best received proselytizing attempt I've ever seen. As annoying as I've found some seaman's mission to be, that guy kind of made sure I'd like them all. Also thanks for the chapati craving. I haven't had decent Indian in ages.
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Jan 13, 2014 13:18
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Not a fan of the religion stuff but I try to support mission to seafarers and some of the seamen's clubs because they still do a lot of good, especially for all the sailors that are much worse off.
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Jan 13, 2014 20:18
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Fish Shalami posted:It's about 6 pages - mostly reiterating obligation to MARAD and that they have and will pursue legal actions against those who are non-compliant. Reads like an underhand threat. All graduates from 2007-2013 should have received one. They did that in 2012 for the 2011 reporting year to my class (05). Even active duty Army/Marine guys in Iraq / Afghanistan got letter saying we're going to gently caress you up and make you pay 250,000 $. Minor MSCS web site stuff (forgeting say one field in the form for in year). Pay no mind our MARAD commitment was technically over as per the contract. There ended up being an apology from the Maritime Administrator. Even more awesome no one could get through to MARAD to find out what was going on for like a month. Talk to the alumni if poo poo is ridiculous. They can get results like this: "I understand that some graduates thought that the letter was accusing them of failing to meet their service requirements – that was not the intent. The letter was to remind the graduates that they not only have to fulfill their service requirements, they also have to report them, so we have a record that they have done so. We will revise the letter so that point is clear when we send it out again in future years.' I'm glad I'm done with MARAD and the Navy. They are transitioning to a lets gently caress poo poo up attitude. SSIRRG stuff is getting really bad, anyone shoreside not living near a navy NOSC is hosed right now. Have fun driving to the multiple PFAs and a physical every year. Best part for my class was, people who did nothing, absolutely nothing, no reporting, no maritime job, no navy ADT, didn't get the letter. Mostly people with minor paperwork issues, got it. Seriously though have your poo poo in order if you're a recent grad. Oh and navy ADT every year sucks find a classmate to do it with, it's a thousand times better with friends. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 21:11
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Why would someone put up with 4 years of what I hear KP is like just to turn around and avoid the maritime industry and the Navy as hard as they can?
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Jan 13, 2014 21:16
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shovelbum posted:Why would someone put up with 4 years of what I hear KP is like just to turn around and avoid the maritime industry and the Navy as hard as they can? KP isn't that bad, and personally I really miss having Manhattan that close. Some people are just lazy. I have class mates who sailed who just didn't bother to report. Also the navy stuff is a pain in the rear end, they don't really tell you what to do and then they change the rules on you all the time. Don't get me started on order writing or trying to get paid afterwards. Every time they change something some people just fall off (CAC cards dropped a lot of my class mates as an example) Some people just get frustrated with it and go "gently caress this poo poo". They are often still very pro maritime and maritime employed. Edit: And there are some people who goto KP because of their families and really just want nothing to do with maritime. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 21:24
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lightpole posted:Not a fan of the religion stuff but I try to support mission to seafarers and some of the seamen's clubs because they still do a lot of good, especially for all the sailors that are much worse off. The guy in Chicago showed up with a crate of hand-knit toques and mittens one year, he's like "well the little old ladies at church just made those and I don't think I'm gonna get any more foreign seamen this year so..." And he just left the box in the galley. Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome tuque and it fit great under my hard hat but I felt kind of bad taking charity. And then you read MLC '06, realize that there are FOC companies freaking the gently caress out over having to comply and gently caress the human race.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:17
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My friends who took govt money got hosed by the sequester which screwed up their reserve time by months. Its probably still a clown show. For the most part the only difference between KP and a state academy is KP is free. I'm not a big fan of the structure since seeing unmotivated cadets who haven't taken a simple diesels course out there is really annoying. They also send out some good people, its just that they need to weed out a bit more of the worst of it before sending them out to ships. State schools have a large portion of people that don't go to sea. The MEBA did not hand out scholarships to CMA, at least, since they have been getting so few cadets. Of course when I tried to explain that not only does the oil patch pay much better than going to sea, most cadets could walk naked covered in blood into a building or powerplant around San Francisco and get a job paying close to 2nds wages with less responsibility and work they pretty much ignored me and everyone else saying the same thing.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:41
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lightpole posted:State schools have a large portion of people that don't go to sea. The MEBA did not hand out scholarships to CMA, at least, since they have been getting so few cadets. Of course when I tried to explain that not only does the oil patch pay much better than going to sea, most cadets could walk naked covered in blood into a building or powerplant around San Francisco and get a job paying close to 2nds wages with less responsibility and work they pretty much ignored me and everyone else saying the same thing. Is that shoreside work because CMA gives a mechanical engineering degree? Like are these cubicle jobs I am kind of unclear on this. I've heard that operator type jobs etc are really hard to come by in general unless you want to move out to absolutely nowhere Idaho or whatever but Michigan may just not be the place, especially with the oral boards for stationary steam plant licensing.
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Jan 15, 2014 01:00
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So glad I paid $600 in tuition and walked out of school with no obligation. There's a company roaming the school now offering to pay tuition and give you like $5000 a year to study, as long as you'll work for them for three years after graduation and they can't find people, guess freedom is worth 15k. (Ok once you add in living expenses, it came out to about 20k; thanks mom, dad and people who hire cadets as OS's for 20+ bucks an hour)
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Jan 15, 2014 01:23
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I think CMA was around $45-$50k when I went through but that's 4 years with a BoS in Marine Engineering. It's been ranked in the top ten a bunch of places for value and jobs. Now they are trying to double in size which is stupid. Engineers are extremely expensive to educate, mates less so but more expensive than we paid. The Business Administration people should ask for their money back. I don't know how they are going to do that and retain the quality of education they had. CMA has Marine, Facilities and Mechanical engineers. They used to make everyone get a license in order to graduate but I think they aren't going to require anything from the MEs. They do so much work that a license is basically superfluous. Most of the other state schools have some sort of shoreside program as well, like power engineering. One of my friends from Mass has been doing field service for Siemens for almost 5 years and can't wait till he is vested so he can do something else because FSE's get to go to the lovely parts of the country, for the most part, because that's where they let people build power plants. I've worked in power plants in Reno and SF and have friends elsewhere up and down the coast. I am currently in CO with one of my buddies who works for Miller Coors. Since your school doesn't really try to attract companies you will have to do your own legwork but if you want a job in CA you should look up the International Union of Operating Stationary Engineers Local 39 I think it is. There are plants elsewhere doing all sorts of things. Miller Coors is basically a giant ammonia plant with some turbines, boilers and compressors hidden around. My brother works in SF at a building babysitting a thermostat for the most part, hospitals ALWAYS are looking for people. It's all about what you want to put up with. I don't want to live or commute to SF and I hate hospitals, although I did work in a power plant that was separate from the hospital portion in one spot and it was awesome. I also don't want to work 5 days a week 8 hours a day or get stuck on some stupid schedule rotating all the time. 12 hours, switching between nights and days would be perfect for me or 4/10 hour days. Starting rates in SF for the local 39 are around $50/hr and there is usually some sort of differential, training bonus and vacation/sick day OT to punch is higher. My roommate wasn't a fan of local 39 and is working at a Cogen plant for mid $40s/hr and she is still pulling in $120k without trying. I think Miller Coors pays close to $30/hr but the cost of living is much lower than CA. Field Service pays well but if you want to travel that much just go to sea. If you do go FS then you need to pick a top company such as GE or Siemens and stick with them for years. You will get top notch training and pretty good pay. Some places require licenses, SF doesn't. SoCal does. You would have to check. Some of my friends working at these places never graduated. One at UCSF is beloved by the manager and has been trying to get me on but I hate their schedule and commute. So really, right now you know more than you need to for most any job there is on shore. Also, the quality of applicants many of these jobs attract is quite dismal so if you can show up with all your teeth and look sorta decent while having some idea of what you are talking about you will be in the top 10% without even trying. lightpole fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 02:09
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Most important part deserves a second post. Never, ever, undersell yourself. You are extremely specialized and capable, or should be, but companies do not understand the value you represent, the poo poo they want you to do and put up with and what the broader commercial market for someone of your skills is. If you want to sail, look through AMO and MEBA contracts and take a comparison. If you find something shoreside, figure out where you are living and what pay is like in industry and overall. Companies and unions will try to work you to death with no compassion, poo poo compensation and won't think twice. Seeing and hearing of ways people are injured or killed out here while we are told to bypass or fudge numbers and regulations just so we can make it to port in time to drift at anchor for a day all while the company tries to tell us we are overpaid and should be happy and.... I am really bitter. Don't be afraid to tell someone to gently caress off with an offer even if it sounds ok cause you need the money. There will always be other jobs. Also if someone wants to hire you as an independent contractor or in a temporary spot, demand $20/hr on what they are offering no ifs ands or buts.
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Jan 15, 2014 02:26
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BrandorKP posted:They did that in 2012 for the 2011 reporting year to my class (05). Even active duty Army/Marine guys in Iraq / Afghanistan got letter saying we're going to gently caress you up and make you pay 250,000 $. Minor MSCS web site stuff (forgeting say one field in the form for in year). Pay no mind our MARAD commitment was technically over as per the contract. There ended up being an apology from the Maritime Administrator. Even more awesome no one could get through to MARAD to find out what was going on for like a month. Talk to the alumni if poo poo is ridiculous. They can get results like this: Yea a bunch of my active duty friends also got the letter. MARAD is a joke. I've had fun doing ADT, mostly its a paid vacation to go gently caress off somewhere with buddies. Last year I was in Hawaii and literally worked about 2-3 hours a day for the Navy then got cut loose to go to the beach. This year I'm going to Singapore. Years past was Charleston and San Diego. But it is a huge pain in the rear end to try and schedule, arrange travel, and get paid. I literally spend more hours organizing it than I do actually performing the ADT. I didn't report last year because their hosed up website wouldn't let me log in, and then after I file a help desk claim, they take two months to get back to me and still don't fix my problem. Plus my job is borderline compliant right now, it is in the maritime industry at least. I'm on the fence with whether to come clean with them or just lay low and not say anything. lightpole posted:
I agree KP doesn't do a very good job preparing kids for their first ship, I think the school has the mentality that the crew will do the teaching for them and the cadets suffer because of it. God drat all your posts are making me feel vastly underpaid right now at $75k a year, granted I'm working a job I'm way over-qualified for and don't have to do poo poo normally and only work 3-4 days a week of 12 hour shifts, but gently caress. Fish Shalami fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 06:09
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You can always go local 39 as well if you want. But if the work, commute and hours are all real good there's no need to move. The big thing in the bay is the commute. A 75k job with a 15 min commute is worth it as long as its not in the city. I can look up the local 39 dispatch # if you want, you just call them weekdays 10-11 and they send you a list of all union companies looking for people, you send your resume to the company and they make they decision.
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Jan 15, 2014 16:02
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lightpole posted:I am really bitter. Don't be afraid to tell someone to gently caress off with an offer even if it sounds ok cause you need the money. There will always be other jobs. Best advice I was given. Have a "gently caress off" fund. Save enough money (and keep it liquid) that you are comfortable enough at anytime to tell an employer to gently caress off. And Fish Shalami, I think the shore-side waiver thing is (and has been forever) broken anyway. I went shore-side and submitted a waiver letter when I graduated and then never heard anything. Also you don't have to submit on the website. You can print out the annual report form, fill it out, and scan it in and email to what ever the current Maritime.Graduate@dot.gov address is (edit: I also faxed and physically mailed a copy (signature confirmation), because gently caress them saying they didn't get it). There was a phone number I called too (202) 366-5737. Basically they have a database that flags discrepancies. I called them up they let me know what those were and we just cleared out all my flagged discrepancies. I just told them the information over the phone. You'd have to weigh if you think you can clear everything out vs just lay low for however long you have left commitment wise. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 16:24
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lightpole posted:You can always go local 39 as well if you want. But if the work, commute and hours are all real good there's no need to move. The big thing in the bay is the commute. A 75k job with a 15 min commute is worth it as long as its not in the city. I can look up the local 39 dispatch # if you want, you just call them weekdays 10-11 and they send you a list of all union companies looking for people, you send your resume to the company and they make they decision. Yea I can bike to work in 10 minutes, so no complaints there. I'd be interested in that number actually just to see whats out there if you have it, you can email it to my user name at gmail. Thanks. Stanford Hospital is looking for a Chief Engineer right now FYI. BrandorKP posted:Best advice I was given. Have a "gently caress off" fund. Save enough money (and keep it liquid) that you are comfortable enough at anytime to tell an employer to gently caress off. Hmm alright. 2014 is my last year to report, I did sail a little in 2012 which I still need to report, but not the 150 days they want. 2013 was all shore-side though. If I submit it with everyone else right before deadline it'll probably get lost in the system. Not sure what I'm doing for the rest of this year though, might go back offshore once I'm clear physically.
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Jan 16, 2014 10:18
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Fish Shalami posted:2014 is my last year to report This depends on who you ask, btw. I'm 05. I have an email from Capt Albert where he told me this: "Yes you will need to submit reports for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016." I had a very long conversation with him about that on the phone, I pointed out out my obligation to MARAD was over in 2011, to the navy in 2013 etc. What they argued back to me was you need to submit until the year after you're out of the navy, they extend the MARAD reporting requirement as applying to the navy years. Personally I don't think they have a leg to stand on there if poo poo got serious. That's not at all what the MARAD contract says (is what the lawyer I asked said). Basically I got told to do it anyway unless I wanted to deal with another bullshit letter. I did one last year because of that. Several of my class mates didn't and did not hear anything back about it. I don't know if I will this year. So they could still gently caress with you, I got that letter in 2012.
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Jan 16, 2014 21:19
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You're school is much more hosed up than CMA ever was and I am amazed that's possible. # sent. Oh you will have to pay them like $20 for the list since you arent a member and they will mail or fax it to you. Don't remember what it took to become one but initiation was really low and monthly dues are 2 hours of pay. lightpole fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 16, 2014 |
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Jan 16, 2014 22:49
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Tempted to just join MEBA. Anyone know if any of the east coast halls south of Jersey are profitable for a new guy?
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Jan 17, 2014 21:31
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I've only been to SF but open jobs out of NY should go down the coast so you could try Charleston or Florida and hope for something. Or just got I a real coast.
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Jan 17, 2014 23:33
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How are you guys in the US faring with courses and certificates? The latest for myself is a ISPS certificate... I also have a folder full of different courses and training seminars for equipment from past boats.
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Jan 18, 2014 19:03
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not american but just did my
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Jan 19, 2014 12:49
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Trench_Rat posted:not american but just did my Looking to do the ERM course myself. I have talked with Sjøfartsdirektoratet, and while I'm qualified as an Electician, I want the Electrical Officer certificate 
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Jan 19, 2014 13:48
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Canada is just starting work to introduce the ETO standard... And I think Electrical Engine Room Rating and Electrical AB? Now don't get me wrong, Electrical Able Body is an amazing title and I wish I could have that on my business card, but what the heck do they do?
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Jan 19, 2014 13:58
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Given my observations of SIU Electricians, spend an hour changing lightbulbs and then go hide in the AC room until its time for coffee?
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Jan 19, 2014 14:04
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Azipod posted:Given my observations of SIU Electricians, spend an hour changing lightbulbs and then go hide in the AC room until its time for coffee? Oh we already have those, they mostly run the SUL equipment and bitch when someone try to hoist the boom up while shifting the boat. Because nobody should raise the boom above it's ideal angle, there's no reason anyone could ever want to do that and it costs more electricty! MAH LOAD!  I'm just wondering what the hell kind of a dog breakfast this is going to turn into, if there's any truth to the rumor. They just made a circus of the security proficiency certificate grandfathering process.
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Jan 19, 2014 14:12
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FrozenVent posted:Oh we already have those, they mostly run the SUL equipment and bitch when someone try to hoist the boom up while shifting the boat. Because nobody should raise the boom above it's ideal angle, there's no reason anyone could ever want to do that and it costs more electricty! MAH LOAD! How do you guys man the boom? The engine dept. on the Callaway had a Chief, 3 watchstanding engineers, a wiper/gatemant, and one conveyorman kind of guy and that was it.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:43
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Depends on the boats. The chief's in charge, obviously, and the electrician's responsible for the motors and poo poo. The head tunnelman takes care of the belts and gates and whatnots. The older boats have two tunnelmen on top of the head tunnelman to work the gates, while the electrician sits at the control board and keeps the amps where they should be; the newer boats have computer controls so a mate and an AB (Or just the mate if it's a single belt boat) control the gates and watch the amps while the electrician and the head tunnelman switch off on making sure the tunnel's in good shape. In any case, the mate on deck is responsible for making sure the boom is where it should be. Whether he's also responsible for the hopper lights depends on whether the lights can be seen from the CCR, but honestly no matter what, if that drat thing overflows everyone's in poo poo. Flat-bottomed boats with dozers are different, all you need to know about those is a) gently caress coal and b) Seriously, gently caress coal and dozers.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:49
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Yeah, we had a 1-man engine room so the watch engineer spent any loads/unloads just mostly manning the ballast computer.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:52
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shovelbum posted:Yeah, we had a 1-man engine room so the watch engineer spent any loads/unloads just mostly manning the ballast computer. On the fancy computer-controlled self-unloaders, the mates'll pump in the ballast from the computer while they unload. I've seen one boat where we also pumped out, but that was a special boat (I think the engineers did the stripping, though. Kind of hard to strip ballast from the deck) Spent some time on a boat where the remote controlled valves had died long ago; we had one engineer who could pump the drat thing dry, one who'd leave 8" everywhere and one guy who was so-so depending on the phase of the Moon or whatever. We had a great mate for the first few months I was there, but the guy after that couldn't make up his mind to save his life. The engineers loving hated him, and he made me realize what everyone meant when they said a good load plan could save you a shitton of time.
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Jan 19, 2014 23:00
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BrandorKP posted:This depends on who you ask, btw. I'm 05. I have an email from Capt Albert where he told me this: "Yes you will need to submit reports for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016." I had a very long conversation with him about that on the phone, I pointed out out my obligation to MARAD was over in 2011, to the navy in 2013 etc. What they argued back to me was you need to submit until the year after you're out of the navy, they extend the MARAD reporting requirement as applying to the navy years. Sounds like you've done more investigating into this than most. Yea the contract I signed says 5 years reporting to MARAD, not 8. I think you are well clear, they explicitly stated in the most recent nasty-gram that they were most concerned with 2007-2013 grads.
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Jan 20, 2014 04:53
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Fish Shalami posted:Sounds like you've done more investigating into this than most. Yea the contract I signed says 5 years reporting to MARAD, not 8. I think you are well clear, they explicitly stated in the most recent nasty-gram that they were most concerned with 2007-2013 grads. I would not even be talking about this stuff on SA if I didn't think I was well clear. Mostly I've just gotten in the habit of being all "how are they going to gently caress with me this year?" And they kind-of hosed it up when they went after my class. But that's bad for you guys (unless they just make the same mistakes again) Yeah what ends up happening is a bunch of classmates start talking about their problems with MARAD / the navy then one guy is sort of pushed into making all the phone calls/emails to find out what needs to be done, so he can then email it to the others. It tends to be the person who is the least hosed up as far as having things in order goes. That person can ask questions for the really hosed up people(without giving names), so they can figure out what to do without drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. I ended up as that person for the group of people I stay in touch with. Just be careful (and it's sounds like you are being careful so this is more for other grads that might be lurking). In one of those conversations I got told that they considered a failure to do the eight year navy stuff a MARAD commitment breach even if it was after the five years specified in the MARAD contract. I also spent a lot of time talking to the navy asking questions (specifically to LCDR Cassano) He's not a bad guy, but I'm pretty sure he's got a spread sheet or some sort of database to keep track of who is compliant with the various SSRG requirements. And I think there is a schedule to go about separating people who are not complaint for too long. And I'm pretty sure he's sends all that information to MARAD.
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Jan 23, 2014 19:31
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