Today’s post for Just Jot It January, I’m not following the prompt (felicity), but going off on a tangent of my own…
I keep hoping and hoping that someone will contact me for a ‘real’ job. Since I was laid off from Ocean Rig in September and started looking for work, I haven’t had even one call (normally, I would have had a couple dozen for Christmas fill-ins).
I was very lucky and found a job through a friend. I thought I’d better go ahead and take it since things were so slow. I took that job, but it didn’t work out. I finished my hitch, but decided it wasn’t somewhere I really wanted to be. I decided to take my chances. I didn’t go back.
It wouldn’t have been worth it even if I had returned. They lost their contract and laid everyone off after only 1 more hitch. 🙁
I saw in the news this morning that Ocean Rig lost the contract for the Olympia, so I’m sure they’ll be laying off even more people there. Schlumberger just announced they’re letting go another 10,000 people.
Ocean Rig Olympia (google photo)
I guess I need to face up to the facts and get serious about finding something else to do with myself. It looks like there’s not going to be any ‘real’ job for me for the foreseeable future. Probably at least 1 year, maybe 2.
I wouldn’t be so upset and worried about it if they hadn’t changed the rules as to what we need in order to work offshore. Before, I would have just found something else to do for a while, knowing I could always go back when things got better. That’s hardly an option anymore with the new regulations.
Now, we have to have our documents renewed every 5 years. To do that, we need to have at least 1 year (365 days) of sea time within the last 5 (on vessels of appropriate tonnage). We also need to have a few (very expensive) training classes renewed within that same time period.
I also need to have a USCG approved physical done every year and if they find anything wrong with me, they might decide I’m not allowed to work any more. To top it off, the Nautical Institute (which is where we get our DP certificates) has knuckled under and decided that we all have to renew our DP certs every 5 years too (with at least 150 days). That might not seem like much, unless you understand how almost impossibly hard it is to get ANY sea time on a DP vessel!
So! I have just about decided to give up completely on trying to find some sort of job where I can put my 30++ years of experience to use. What an incredible waste of effort. 🙁
I basically have to start over from scratch. I’ll be 55 this summer and I’m not exactly looking forward to that process. I know I have a major attitude adjustment to make.
I’ve never really done anything else but work at sea. Yeah, I’ve had a few jobs on the beach like tending bar, housekeeping, painting, dishwashing, etc, but never anything serious. I tutored all through school and I liked it (but that paid less than any other job).
Ever since we were working in Thailand, filming the tsunami, I’ve been tossing around the idea of teaching English overseas somewhere. Spending so much time outside the US convinced me that I had to find a way to spend more time outside. I started investigating what would it take to move.
It could be so simple, if only I was old enough, or rich enough, to retire.
But, I have a long way to go before I qualify for either of those things. I still need to work! I found out that the only way to get a work visa in most countries is by teaching English. So, I started looking into teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL).
I’ve been pretty half-assed about it, mostly because I had a hard time choosing to give up the pretty sweet salary and work schedule I had working offshore. Now, it looks like that choice has been taken away from me- there IS no more choice!
I’ve been in contact with a school in Mexico. I’m going to give it til Monday and if I don’t hear some good news by then I’m going to bite the bullet and sign up for school. The course is a month long. After that, I’ll have the option to start teaching right away or do something else for a while.
A month can’t be that bad, can it?
Maybe Mexico will be so wonderful and exciting that I’ll forget all about ever coming back! That would be perfect! 🙂
PS- the ‘featured image’ at the top is one I took in Nicaragua (not Mexico), but a lot of those Spanish speaking countries have more in common than the language. 🙂
Life has a way of eliminating choice as we roll along. Teaching (TEFL) seems a great fit for you. It’s a career field that would actually allow you to spend a few years moving around, teaching a year or so in one country and then relocating. You might even find that ideal retirement spot along the way. Good luck in whatever you decide.
Thanks Rick, I think TEFL is the best option I have right now. At least it will give me the chance to travel and learn what it’s really like to live somewhere else.
I did some tutoring when I was in college and enjoyed it. I tried teaching the lifeboatman course for the STCW and liked that except for having to drive 3+ hours every day (and the salary couldn’t come close to what I was earning). I’d be happy to do something like that now, maybe I can teach at a maritime academy down there. 🙂
It may not be in your wheelhouse, (lol) but what about safety? I work in the refineries and here locally it’s booming. I know there are openings , even in our company. A six week class at the ABC or college will get you in. With your experience you would have no problem. Our industry needs people with real world experience, not these college kids that don’t know the difference between a banana wedge and a banana peel!
Yeah, we have a lot of that going on around here too.
I’ve been considering trying for a job in the plant, but I just can’t get my head around that whole 9-5 thing.
And me? become a safety NAZI???? I don’t think that would be a good fit!
Of course I don’t ever want to see anyone hurt, but I see an awful lot of absolutely ridiculous rules to follow coming from the safety guys and it’s all I can do to just keep my mouth shut and do my job when they start up.
At my last job, I would get SO pissed off. It would take over a half hour to do the paperwork for the simplest 5 min job. Once I was trying to get the paperwork signed off so I could do an inspection of the FRC. The entire job should have taken me less than a half hour. But since it was considered ‘working over the side” (it was not really over the side, but one side of the boat was near the edge of the ship and I suppose it was possible to fall out IF a tidal wave or something hit you). It took me FOUR hours to get the paperwork signed off!
I was never happy on that ship since they insisted the DPOs do all the usual 3rd mates jobs (safety equipment). Since none of that stuff could be done from the bridge and as DPO, I could never leave the bridge without a relief. I either had to work over my 12 hours or go find the chief mate or captain to stand my watch while I checked fire extinguishers. It was just impossible to do the work they wanted done.
Spending hours on getting paperwork signed off was NOT helpful.
So, maybe you can understand why I feel like I would have a hard job making other people do all those same things I hated so much.
I think I just need to move overseas somewhere. Some place where they’re not so concerned about lawsuits!
This country is being weighed down by its glut of burdensome regs. We’re not any better off for all this government ‘caring’, and in most cases, a lot worse off. It may sound cliche, but if that door has closed for you, I believe you can find fulfillment and joy in teaching English. I know you’d be great at it, and it will enable you to live in another country, travel and get out from all the government bullshit that put you in this position in the first place. Embrace the possibilities and best of luck!
Absolutely right Penny!
I’ve been thinking in the back of my mind that this might be the only way I’d ever get out of here until I was old enough to retire. This lack of work here is FORCING me to get out of here, I really don’t have any other option. So , in that way it’s a good thing.
It will give me a chance to get out of here for a while. Learn how I handle the teaching thing. See if it’s really something I can do for the long term.
Maybe I can get lucky and find someone who needs help on their yacht. I still really want to be on the water!
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