06/018 - Strain on Junior Officers
Scenario 1:
A new officer joins the ship (an Aframax tanker involved in lightering trade in US waters). The said officer has never been on ships of this type or size though he has done some courses for the necessary certification required as per STCW’95. He doubles up with other officers during the initial cargo watches before taking over independent of a cargo watch in CCR (the company has a practice of having three watch-keeping officers keeping in view the demands of its trade). It is observed over a period of time that the said officer is not picking up much though the ship is involved in cargo operations every alternate day.
What happens now is that the chief officer regularly instructs the other two watch-keeping officers to do 2 hours extra so as to cover up for the new officer who, in fact, is now close to 2 months on board. Master is fully aware of the above situation but he decides against any intervention as all jobs are up to date and operations are running smoothly. Therefore, the other two junior officers are doing the extra work that is not known to anybody else other than the ship’s staff. The only explanation the master and chief officer have for the other two junior officers is that the new officer cannot handle the work on his own. And to sugar coat it a bit they add, “ We are confident that both of you can handle the job pretty well and you are good officers”. This continues till the time the non-performing officer signs off the ship’s articles. Please note the office is not made aware of this situation at any point of time till the non-performing officer stays on board. Also to be noted is that the senior officers on board demonstrate total inaction to revive the situation. So the net result is that the other two junior officers are working overtime despite the hectic schedule of the ship and also carrying out the jobs expected of them and the “show goes on”.
Self has been sailing for the past 9 years and has been sailing for the last 5 years first as a 3rd officer and then as a 2nd officer. I have constantly come across a myth that life is good on a new ship (where the equipments are presumed to be good and functioning well) and bad on an old ship (where the equipments are supposedly outdated, manual operations etc.). What I feel is there is nothing wrong onboard a particular ship irrespective of it being new or old. What matters is the leadership onboard. Leadership onboard nowadays does not demonstrate any qualities that inspire confidence amongst juniors onboard. For most of the juniors onboard now senior officers are individuals who are sporting 4 or 3 stripes rather than being leaders of men. If this problem can be eradicated people would keep on enjoying sailing and there wouldn’t be any dearth of quality seafarer’s in the near future.
Scenario 2:
Same ship now has a shortage of one officer (has two junior officers on board rather than the normal company practice of having three watch keeping officers). So now the two watch-keeping officers are on a routine of 6 on / 6 off which inadvertently turned out to be 8 on / 4 off or 9 on / 3 off on. At no point of time any effort was made by the Master to make the Chief officer to keep a navigational watch even with the chief officer being properly rested (at least 8 hrs of continuous sleep) resulting in the two watch-keeping officers practically not rested most of the time. None of them was even bothered to relieve the watch-keeping officer for his breakfast. Mind you this incident is a very minute thing but this would remain etched in the memory.
My question is for all those people who are emphasizing on a humane approach onboard ship “ do you people still think that HR skills are ever going to work on board ships?” It hasn’t worked till now despite volumes of training conducted on HR. As a result of all these happenings the two watch-keeping officers kept on doing their jobs and responded immediately whenever called giving their 100%. They never complained about lack of rest. Maybe it was against their work ethics to complain or maybe they were egoistic.