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So i ve been onboard a vessel for 12 days as an apprentice officer and i am feeling somewhat annoyed, mostly because of the way they treat me. So i want to ask a few questions to learn if this is what mostly happens on board ships or it is just here.
This is by no means any perfect or standards abiding vessel, i doubt there are many like those in REALITY anyway.(and by standards i mean things that we are SUPPOSED to do but not doing. safety stuff for example)
First of all the first thing i did was
the annoying part is that i feel i have learned nothing of importance all this time, most of the time i just stay on the bridge with the duty officer and do things like
1)Read abbreviations and symbols book. Yes the academies here are crap but the officer acts as if this is the first time i ve seen something maritime related, i already knew 75% of the map symbols. Learning the rest 25% from book and not experience seems kinda silly
2)Do nothing, just wait for the time to pass while listening to what the officers are talking about and randomly ask questions i have. Which are not answered directly or clearly... sometimes they ll even avoid the topic cuz they are too lazy to teach something that requires more than a few seconds... They rarely seem to want to teach me something useful expect in cases like press 2 times cancel when gmdss warnings arrive, it is irrelevant if it is a safety test, urgency or undesignated.
3)Sometimes they tell me to mark our position on the map or go get them something from downstairs or their room. And sometimes escort pilots outside...
4)They dont even seem to trust me to answer them when they ask "what is our speed" and other easy to do stuff, they always ask the 2nd officer...THATS ALL I DO ON THE BRIDGE or dont do in this case...
Oh yes and let us not forget the fact that i cant do nothing but watch the sky when we are near ports or pilot is on board because everyone is busy doing something and cant be bothered to talk. Which i can understand but how the hell am i supposed to learn the jobs that need to be done during those times if people are too busy? When they are not busy, they dont bother to go into detail and try to get away from my question as fast as possible...
On the deck? I did a few things like painting garbage barrels, cleaning oil stains. Nothing more, probably because the first few days of the voyage i was a little seasick(when we fell in 4-5 meter waves), because the weather made it a little too dangerous for cadets, because they didnt give me safety shoes till 8th day and finally because the main deck department didnt work as much when we were near the port or had pilot on board.(also probably because we dont get paid as much since i eavesdropped the captain which told the chief to not tire the cadets much cuz they arent paid much)
Oh yes and during port i have the annoying task of gangway watch. Which can be annoying when during the first day, they abandon you without VHF and suddenly cargo surveyors, agents, draft surveyors, sellers come and i am supposed to somehow tell the officers about it but i cant because i am not supposed to leave.(then chief calls me for some small task while knowing i am on the watch and when i finish his task i go down and have the 2nd officer tell me i shouldnt leave, who are you supposed to listen???)
(and about the gangway watch, they tell us that people that you give a red card are not allowed on restricted areas while the agent freely goes in and out of the ship and he holds a red card...they told me and even have it written down that agents get a red card). Also during the gangway watch people were busy doing something cargo related or other more important things and i didnt learn anything from it because i was left on the gangway watch. And another thing, they tell me that in security lvl1 you have to body search 25% of the people coming on board and then you see that they themselves dont search anyone...(which ok, it is understandable that you arent going to bother at lvl1 but why the hell tell cadets that they should...tell them that it is the policy but we dont do it..)
So my question is, is it supposed to be like this? I seem to be doing nothing of importance and learning from it...
ye company isnt really that good, the pay is around 800-900 euros per month and there are no overtimes for the cadets, that is what the chief officer told me at least. Well the weird thing was that i did stay 6 hours gangway watch during sunday. There is no internet but i didnt expect there would be, i even heard that the agent cant send attachments bigger than 3mb because there is a limit to what the captain can download. Ship doesnt even have ecdis, and learning an outdated system that is going to be thrown away seems like waste of memory since paper maps wont stay for long(no that doesnt mean i act in anyway that would imply i ignore or not try to learn about them)
sry if it is a little cramped and confused, i remembered so many events that annoyed me that i added them at the end of the related whining section ignoring last sentence and generally everything, not a lot of time to stay online.(through modem+card i bought from a seller that came on board the ship, since that was the only way to get online)
Btw this vessel i am on is a bulk carrier with 5 holds. And an off topic question, how is life and money in passenger ships?? If anyone has time to answer the question, i would be really happy. I ask this because someone on board told me how great passenger ships are but the people in the academy told us that passenger ships have less money. And i got no idea how is life and money there in reality, what are the important jobs to be done etc.
This is by no means any perfect or standards abiding vessel, i doubt there are many like those in REALITY anyway.(and by standards i mean things that we are SUPPOSED to do but not doing. safety stuff for example)
First of all the first thing i did was
the annoying part is that i feel i have learned nothing of importance all this time, most of the time i just stay on the bridge with the duty officer and do things like
1)Read abbreviations and symbols book. Yes the academies here are crap but the officer acts as if this is the first time i ve seen something maritime related, i already knew 75% of the map symbols. Learning the rest 25% from book and not experience seems kinda silly
2)Do nothing, just wait for the time to pass while listening to what the officers are talking about and randomly ask questions i have. Which are not answered directly or clearly... sometimes they ll even avoid the topic cuz they are too lazy to teach something that requires more than a few seconds... They rarely seem to want to teach me something useful expect in cases like press 2 times cancel when gmdss warnings arrive, it is irrelevant if it is a safety test, urgency or undesignated.
3)Sometimes they tell me to mark our position on the map or go get them something from downstairs or their room. And sometimes escort pilots outside...
4)They dont even seem to trust me to answer them when they ask "what is our speed" and other easy to do stuff, they always ask the 2nd officer...THATS ALL I DO ON THE BRIDGE or dont do in this case...
Oh yes and let us not forget the fact that i cant do nothing but watch the sky when we are near ports or pilot is on board because everyone is busy doing something and cant be bothered to talk. Which i can understand but how the hell am i supposed to learn the jobs that need to be done during those times if people are too busy? When they are not busy, they dont bother to go into detail and try to get away from my question as fast as possible...
On the deck? I did a few things like painting garbage barrels, cleaning oil stains. Nothing more, probably because the first few days of the voyage i was a little seasick(when we fell in 4-5 meter waves), because the weather made it a little too dangerous for cadets, because they didnt give me safety shoes till 8th day and finally because the main deck department didnt work as much when we were near the port or had pilot on board.(also probably because we dont get paid as much since i eavesdropped the captain which told the chief to not tire the cadets much cuz they arent paid much)
Oh yes and during port i have the annoying task of gangway watch. Which can be annoying when during the first day, they abandon you without VHF and suddenly cargo surveyors, agents, draft surveyors, sellers come and i am supposed to somehow tell the officers about it but i cant because i am not supposed to leave.(then chief calls me for some small task while knowing i am on the watch and when i finish his task i go down and have the 2nd officer tell me i shouldnt leave, who are you supposed to listen???)
(and about the gangway watch, they tell us that people that you give a red card are not allowed on restricted areas while the agent freely goes in and out of the ship and he holds a red card...they told me and even have it written down that agents get a red card). Also during the gangway watch people were busy doing something cargo related or other more important things and i didnt learn anything from it because i was left on the gangway watch. And another thing, they tell me that in security lvl1 you have to body search 25% of the people coming on board and then you see that they themselves dont search anyone...(which ok, it is understandable that you arent going to bother at lvl1 but why the hell tell cadets that they should...tell them that it is the policy but we dont do it..)
So my question is, is it supposed to be like this? I seem to be doing nothing of importance and learning from it...
ye company isnt really that good, the pay is around 800-900 euros per month and there are no overtimes for the cadets, that is what the chief officer told me at least. Well the weird thing was that i did stay 6 hours gangway watch during sunday. There is no internet but i didnt expect there would be, i even heard that the agent cant send attachments bigger than 3mb because there is a limit to what the captain can download. Ship doesnt even have ecdis, and learning an outdated system that is going to be thrown away seems like waste of memory since paper maps wont stay for long(no that doesnt mean i act in anyway that would imply i ignore or not try to learn about them)
sry if it is a little cramped and confused, i remembered so many events that annoyed me that i added them at the end of the related whining section ignoring last sentence and generally everything, not a lot of time to stay online.(through modem+card i bought from a seller that came on board the ship, since that was the only way to get online)
Btw this vessel i am on is a bulk carrier with 5 holds. And an off topic question, how is life and money in passenger ships?? If anyone has time to answer the question, i would be really happy. I ask this because someone on board told me how great passenger ships are but the people in the academy told us that passenger ships have less money. And i got no idea how is life and money there in reality, what are the important jobs to be done etc.
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