ALL GEARED UP AND IN FULL EQUIPMENT

NEGATIVE VALUES 101

Yet another Tedious and boring drill, Seriously this is just a big <YAWN> 

Finally it's about damn time, that I saw something wrong here on board this ship, as expected on my theory of "observing people for two months" to check for anything wrong really paid off. My "buffer period" yielded to discovering some people here actually think of me as "inferior" and "lacking intellectually" . It may not be much compared to what I had experienced in Cape Tallin or Stolt Strength, but only proves my theory (and rule) of the "two month buffer period" in checking out the environment for any threats. For now my observations include that people here have so far "benign" ego problems, - I'd continue my observations further to see any more threats.

Anyway aside from proving that theory, on the bigger picture. I could assume that at least two thirds of the entire Filipino sailors have behavioural issues - as in serious anti-social behavioural issues !!! , Main reasons why new comers (and deck cadets in particular) should watch their backs.

On my case, it’s a good thing that thru experience, observation and careful analysis that I had develop anti-personnel tactics. People reading this blog would really know the value of "Never talk to strangers" and protection of being anonymous. The only thing they know about me here is that I came from CSM principal and I had been a sailor for quiet sometime - nothing more, they don’t known my previous work done before being a sailor or my background. I am thankful that I had practiced all the precaution rules on this ship and I'm living comfortably that the bigotry here is checked.

Working relations tend to get sour as time goes by , though I'm not exactly involve here but other people around me. The latest from what I heard was that extra working hours done by the mess man and chief cook , will not be paid at all. Technically although work was done on a normal schedule, the Captain wanted them to write on their "weekly job done form" to be less than the actual hours of work done. To make it simple some working hours will be regarding as somewhat "free" - really bad news for them in the sense that no workforce in the world will definitely agree on working for free, and who the hell would want that ? (except slave labour). Really bizarre on how these soviets handle their work force like that.

In relation to the reduced workforce labour. It seems as well that the deck department is having its own share of reduced hours, and to my surprise during the transit going out in the black sea via Istanbul. The captain said that we should take a day off after anchoring early in the morning, probably on the fact that regular working hours will be shifted temporarily on night time because of some sort of provisioning thing (resupply , as a layman's term put it). At first I wasn’t exactly sure if I heard correct on the radio that the whole day work is off and we will be called back in night time, I confirmed it to my co-worker O.S. Ronnie and said indeed there won't be any work on the daytime temporarily.

Later on the evening on that day, we heaved anchor. I had plans to record the heaving of anchor work but I hesitated and decided that I'd do it maybe next time. Soon after the anchor was heaved, The three of us (me, BOSUN Payopay, and O.S. Ronnie) when on standby to await the pilot while channelling and await as well the coming provisions. Based on what I heard from them - provision boat will be arriving by somewhere midnight or past it.

11pm at that day I was waken up from a quick nap by the phone. I quickly wore my coveralls and headed outside, it was pitch dark and I could see a thing outside. Took me quite a while for my eyes to adjust , Good thing that I could hear the sound of the cargo crane machinery being switched on so I had an idea were I'm headed. At about 30 minutes later, almost everybody from the deck and engine department were awake.

Provision boat came close to midnight , and we quickly carried all the stuff to the  provision chamber as soon as the crates were loaded up on the deck area. It only took us a short time to finish the task.

Over the next two days, we were busy doing the usual maintenance work on board. Myself for now was assigned on the work in the garbage, really smelly job and dirty work but that's my assignment for now on segregation of these materials. Both NSB and CSM is very critical about the garbage related issue - given that CSM has been caught in a number of times throwing garbage at sea, latest I heard from them was the U.S. Coast Guard got them red handed and they paid a huge fine plus got them into some sort of probation up to now.

In other matters

To my surprise and astonishment, Friday's work schedule turned out to be half day and Saturday's to be whole day rest. From what I heard there might be a huge work on Sunday and they moved the rest days to a bit earlier just to compensate for the rest hours in a week.

We had a routine drill this Saturday which was an abandon drill and fire fighting scenario plus some boring familiarization about how to operate an emergency generator , emergency breathing apparatus etc.

During the abandon ship , I came into a close call from being bitched out by captain gorge potirniche (the guy has a nasty habit of blaming other people on his mistakes) . Fortunately Bosun Payopay told me to quickly get the pyrotechnic flares and bring it to the lifeboat station. By the time I got there , the captain was making a check on the equipment on each crew member and turns out it was my turn be checked on the equipment part.

As for the fire drill, I had difficulty attaching the fire hose to the nozzle , attaching the hose to the hydrant was easy but on the nozzle it was a totally bitch and wouldn't connect. As a result my whole time on the fire drill was wasted in trying to attach the nozzle.

After a brief boring discussion on the crew mess after the drills, I hurried got out of the room and to my surprise, mess man Montoya followed me and rudely ranted something about me not putting back the chair I sat at on its proper place plus he mention that whenever I would eat beyond the normal "eating" hours, I would have to wash my own dishes and glasses because they have a thing called a working hours cap. Fine by me if that’s the case, but I don't think it’s a big deal about the chair thing being away only for three feet from its original location, plus do I have to really get to know his working hour limitations ? - it's not my problem if he's too damn lazy to wash the dishes or hates going to work , and I never said anything about him working beyond his working hours - nobody is forcing him to do shit ! . If he hates washing those fucking glasses and dishes beyond his working hours, then don’t wash them , you moron ! - simple as that ! I don’t need lectures ! Especially from self-proclaimed righteous people.  I had been doing mess man task a few years back and I know what kind of shit he's talking about and during my time I didn't complain because It's my job as a mess man to clean other peoples crap which includes the job description of washing the dishes and putting all the stuff in any mess room back to its proper place !

Fucking bigots !!!!

From now on I'm starting to distance myself away from him as humanly possible , that bastard thinks he can push people around ….. Well he's screwing the wrong guy.

In work….

Filling out this so called work time sheet, is very chore some and to make it more chore some is I have to write all the jobs I had done in detail for whole week. I don't see any point why I had to write done my work in detail as it clearly understood that 90 percent of my work here is on the deck maintenance. Apparently this NSB work form is much more tedious than the one made by CSM, why the hell do I have to write it in full detail ? Would It be a lot easier for me just to write done "Deck Maintenance" or like in a CSM form that I just only put an "X" mark on the specific time I made work.

Probably NSB think's that its crew is cheating on their work, well not as much as what NSB ( Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft buxtehude )does on its worker's. Damn fucking Soviets ! Ever since they took charge on running the show on the principal , all they do is haggle on other peoples salary and think that we work for free, shit !!! no workforce labour on this planet would like to work for free ! . It was better before when the western European's were in charge. Damn Soviets they still have their communism attitude of forced labour (people working without getting paid) with them even though communism already fell on its ass more than 20 years ago !

On Monday August 18, 2014

It was expected that this ship will arrive at Barcelona Spain by around 10am in the morning and it will be berthing upon arrival but unexpectedly it turned out to be going to anchor first and we dropped anchor at about 10 am, after the successful dropping of anchor, Me , O.S. "Ronnie" and BOSUN Payopay went to the crew to have the routine coffee break.

Exactly after the coffee, We heard on BOSUN's Radio that captain Potirniche is now ordering us to heave anchor and prepare the pilot ladder on both sides. We immediately went to the forward and heaved the anchor, while I was busy lowering the anchor ball and we got only two shackles left on the chain for the anchor to be recovered. We received another order from the radio that we should stop heaving up anchor and prepare again to drop it at sea.

What drop it off anchor again !! You got to be kidding me ?? (that's what I said to myself) . Apparently from what I heard, Captain Potirniche made a mistake on what he heard on the pilot station and had to wait for another for further notice before going into port.

The following morning..

I was busy segregating trash when I heard it over the radio that the anchor will heaved soon, O.S. "Ronnie" came to the trash compartment where I was working and said that we better hurry up.

August 16, 2014….

In a few days' time will be my birthday, that means I'd be adding another year again on my age - it's nothing special I'd be just a bit older than the previous year.

For the moment, things are not really looking good to me financially. I just recently received my payroll form and it turns out that this will be the second month that I had negative values on my salary. To be specific I now had a - 101.49 USD salary. I'm not absolutely happy about this and what on earth is Columbia Ship Management doing on its payroll system ?!!! Last month I was charged for the so called "Overpaid" salary of 300 U.S.D. , so which pretty much explains why I had a -52.53 $ , Now not only that I won't receive a salary for this month ( my salary by the way per month is $ 1262 ) but I'd have to payback 101.49 US dollars to CSM , - WHAT THE HELL !!!! What the fuck is going on with this company ?!! , I'm not very good at numbers but I'm not definitely stupid on what the hell is going in my salary, and I seriously think that CSM is pretty much ripping me off.

If they keep doing this fiasco next month , then expect that I'd be leaving Career  Ship Management for good. What kind of company doesn’t keep accurate tabs   on their employee's huh ? Surely if they keep doing this up expect that retention on their sailor's will be very poor.

Anyway I had already scheduled to be leaving this company by around 2016, the time where all my documents will be fully updated in preparation for the totally renewal of Seminar training of all sailors by 2017. I think I can still shift to another company given that my U.S. visa will still be valid at around April 18, 2018 which that will put me in plenty of time regardless of what rank I'd be and whether or not I got a license. As long as I got a U.S. Visa valid and updated transition from another company won't be that hard.

(Rule of the thumb in labour workforce is that if a company has issues with salary payoff, it would be best advice to leave the job and find another company that doesn't have issues with the payroll. This rule applies to both overseas or local employment , either seabased or landbased)

In other matters…

Last August 26, This ship has finally arrived in la Havre France, and we had to drop anchor. It was thought earlier that this ship might go "berthing upon" arrival scenario but eventually two days before this ship arrived it was announced by Second mate Olan that this ship will be anchoring first. Good for us that this will be the case and were getting some slack over the hard work around here.

During the anchor drop via gravity, I could say that my performance in dropping the anchor gets better and better (on my personal perception) I could now at least "control" the rate of the chain paid out when it drops. Now the only thing I have to get used to is how to quickly put on the brakes without scaring BOSUN Payopay and O.S. "Ronnie" .

The rest of the week was doing the typical routine maintenance such as painting , chipping and polishing and removing rust from the hull, typical sailor stuff of work if were in the middle of nowhere. The only thing different for now is that I had some sort of injury on my point finger, can't exactly say what kind of injury it is but my joints on the point finger is badly inflamed and I can't hardly bend my finger at all, whenever I bend my finger it hurts like hell. Guess I had to use now my middle finger temporarily whenever I'm clicking something on the mouse. This has been going on for more than a week now.  

TRIDENT HOPE

Upon opening up my email on the ship's computer , I finally read some news about what's happening back home at the house. It's a good thing that the email here works and as an extra feature it even receives pictures. A few days ago I was puzzled on why
my emails were not sent and a message appearing "MB limit exceeded" , making me think earlier that this email service isn't free.
 
Anyway the email sent by my sister contains a mostly bad news, and a picture of her dogs. She informs me that Bhut Bhut (my Siamese cat) can be set loose outside the cage from time to time without supervision, and for some reason my cat doesn't go
outside the fence and just roams around the house front yard. Personally I don't think it's a bright idea having my pet run around without any supervision, My neighbourhood isn't exactly the safe one and cat friendly, and on top of that there's a cat
killer person here running loose. I had already learned from time and time again that some of my previous cats were killed in cold bold by this anonymous cat killer.
 
Frankly the letter my sister's email makes me think about our mom's near future situation, it's very bleak and grim and I'm not going to discuss this problem openly.
 
In other news ..
 
Over the past 3 days, this ship was here in Ukraine, I was doing the usual deck maintenance job orders like greasing the whole mooring wires from forward to aft. On Thursday , this ship resumed its business and pulled out of anchor to a certain area
and waited for the Ukrainian port authorities. I waited for the whole night in my cabin for them to arrive (my work there would apparently be rigging the gangway ladder)but no call was made. At midnight much to my annoyance Captain Gorge Portirniche,
woke everyone in this ship announcing that the Ukrainian officials have arrived and we must go to the CCR to get our Seaman's book and show them some sort of immigration card. Unfortunately Ukrainian officials said it was no longer necessary and
instead told us to stay on our cabins for some sort of cabin inspection.
 
Wasn't exactly happy when they said that and I figured that my cabin has so many secrets that , I'm not very comfortable someone taking a peek at it. It was a good thing that when the pest control inspector knocked thru my cabin , she only bothered to
check what's inside the bathroom for a few seconds then finally collected my seaman's book (along with the Immigration card) and went off.
 
After that I waited in my cabin again for a few hours until, it was announced on my call that ship to ship berthing will commence and I had to be in standby on my mooring station. Mooring wasn't difficult and it was all wires that will be used , no
soft ropes whatsoever. Mooring arrangement with the ship MT trident hope is 3:2 (3 stern lines or headlines and 2 spring lines). After the mooring, loading operations didn't started until a day after because of some issue with the Ukrainian surveyors
saying that cargo tanks are unsuitable to load cargo and have to wait for further announcement for the charterer. At about 6 in the morning , about a few cubic metres of cargo were received by this ship in order for residues of its cargo tank cleaned
up. After again another six hours , tank washing didn't proceed any further until It was on my shift again. Apparently from what I heard the pressure of the steam wasn't high enough. Loading of the cargo commenced at during my night time shift (6pm to
12 midnight) and was finished at my morning shift of work (6am till 12 noon, a 12 hour long loading operations).
 
During cargo operations on my night shift last Friday. Me and A.B. Ruben Lawagon Ganub, were busy along with the cargo surveyor collecting cargo samples. Based on what the cargo surveyor told us, after 2 , 3, and 8 minutes after loading cargo samples
would be taken , then next would be every after an hour, three bottle samples will be taken. As a result after the loading operations was finished, we were literary littered with lots of cargo bottle samples, all of these are just for the surveyor and
the ship's own samples.
 
On the afternoon of Saturday. The ship finally casted off and proceeded to an anchorage area where it waited for another day, before heading off to Istanbul again for the transit.
 
 



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 23:55 UTC
Message-id: 197460521

BEING OVERPAID

Got a memo this morning, specifically addressed to me at the crew mess. It says that I would have salary deduction of 300 U.S.D. for this month. Apparently based on the memo , it says that I had been overpaid by CSM last January 2014 during my time in
CAPE Tallin and that I need to return the "Overpaid" salary back to them. Obviously I wasn?t happy to hear the news , not on the fact about being overpaid but by the fact that I wasn?t given any knowledge about this issue during my time in CAPE TALLIN and it took CSM / Career Ship management nearly half a year to inform me. I was still working in CAPE TALLIN in January up until my departure on that ship in March 2014 and nobody even bothered to inform me , and to add at I had a whole lot of time (and a bagful of money to pay it back) on that nearly 10 month stay on that ship. Really frustrating (not sure on the exact word here) that it took them a very long time in settling my accounts and I'm already working here on board Conti Greenland when they informed me. They had a whole luxury of time and options to put deduction either on my on-board pay in Cape Tallin or even at my leave pay in back in the Philippines but they never made any efforts to do so. Now as a result of their laziness , I had a negative salary for this month - really bad timing to be bringing this up on the time that I need the money badly for my mom's medical expenses.

In other matters in work.

On the night of August 02, 2014 Saturday, 7pm, this ship has transited Istanbul channelling area. Weather wasn?t really good and had a rain shower for a few hours and had to put on a raincoat. For some reason the view in Istanbul, turkey isn't really
as vibrant as the first time I saw it - maybe on the fact that I had been in and out of this place a lot, well yeah in the sense that I was here last January 2014 and it was pretty cold back then.
?
While in transit, BOSUN PAYOPAY gave me a short briefing on how to operate emergency steering device here in CONTI Greenland. The emergency steering apparatus on this ship is not much different to the one I saw in Cape Tallin, even down to the look of
the device and the feel of how to operate it. It?s a good thing that BOSUN Payopay gave me a quick browse of the said device, because when I got here on this ship last month , there was no familiarization drill given and had to figure things out for
myself. Normally each ship conducts a some sort of familiarization drill on each new crew member, but given that NSB has short contracts - management here never bothers to give's us any hints on how to operate some machinery and we just basically read
what the manual says (manuals here are not exactly the typical "booklet" type and looks more like a placard sticker sticking next to the device). It?s a good thing that this ship is permanently station here in Europe and will not be going (if ever) in
the USA , or else were going to be so screwed by the U.S. coast guard about the safety management practices.
?
Anyway based on the info I got , this ship will be arriving in Kerch, Ukraine by Monday in the afternoon and proceed on an STS loading the following early morning.
?
Due to the reduction of working hours (specifically the overtime work limiting only to less than 103 hours), the management here on this ship has been giving us a lot on rest hours. For example this Saturday instead of the usual work schedule of a
normal maintenance work (8am till 12 noon), it is to my surprise that we were actually given an early rest and moved to 7pm till 12 midnight just to get the working quota of no more than 4 hours in Saturdays for the Istanbul channelling. This was a big
difference during my time hanging out in CSM, which normally aside from working the usual 8am till 12 noon schedule , we will have another extra hours of work on the Istanbul transit - totalling up to 8 working hours, (4 hours regular and another 4
hours of extra overtime pay)
?
It is very obvious that NSB is really cutting corners on the cost of their labour workforce in any way they can. Most likely they try to haggle our salaries as much as they can, in the expense of having a "scape goat" such as reduced working hours.
?
But come to think of it, CSM on the other hand has normal working hours and have a much stable pay of 120 fix "Overtime" pay. Unfortunately there's too much work being done there that Saturdays and Sundays are also work days. Career Ship Management is
ok but CSM (Columbia Ship Management) is not.
?
In other news related to work
?
Had received recently a new pair of coveralls from BOSUN Payopay, it?s a standard issue red NSB coverall. I'm amazed on that ship supply to crew are bountiful here on an NSB ship , and in particular the coveralls and other working equipment. Rest
assured that I'd take good care of this equipment ( and grateful to add this to my collection of coveralls I had) .

The standard company issue coverall (the yellow one) and the NSB standard issue coverall (red one)

Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 11:00 UTC
Message-id: 195546349

FROM GREECE TO UKRAINE

As expected there was a little difficulty in handling ropes and wires on the aft mooring area , to make it worse the weather was about 35 degrees Celsius in Greece.
?
After mooring , I did my usual routine on work putting SOPEP equipment, fire fighting Equipment, Etc. and helped out in securing the gangway. On my work starts at 12 pm to 6pm (12midnight till 6 am in the morning) every time this ship is on port,
didn't had any problems for me during my time as the gangway watchman. A.B. Marlon Layos showed me on how to use the UTI, not that I don?t have an exact idea on how to operate that device but I had to relearn and catch up on how to use some devices.
?
In my coffee break during gangway watch, I saw a small memo from NSB posted in the crew mess telling that " No overtime beyond 103 hours will be paid without any explanation" . In other words NSB is getting stiff in paying its employee's about the
overtime issue and it?s a big deal to them if an employee exceeds the allotted 103 overtime hours, even entries on the working time sheet are closely being monitored by our chief officer regarding this NSB memo, as a matter of fact they even had us to
write down specifically on what kind of work we are doing during those working hours on our time sheet - as if like they have a feeling that we are cheating on our working. As much as possible they try to tone down the working hours in order to avoid
paying extra for the work.
?
Doesn't really matter to me if the overtime working hours will be reduced or not, Its make no difference on my part. I still do the same old working schedule.
?
Seriously there is a difference on having a fix and open overtime working schedule and both of them have a pro's and con's. For a fixed (or reduced) overtime pay - the pros are employee's get much rest as possible and free time is always on schedule
and never late, the cons of it is that the salary is less (or sacrificed in the process). For the open overtime, you'd get an extra pay on the work but the con is that its wearisome doing a job of starting 8am to 6pm on ordinary maintenance days
(weekends are cancelled PERMANENTLY) and additional working hours if there's a special circumstances involved like mooring ops or cargo ops. In other words, it?s a lot of stress and no rest.

In other news?
?
After 24 hours of operation the ship sailed off and unmoored on noontime. Had no difficulty in doing stuff there. Based on what I heard from second mate olan , this ship will be going to Istanbul turkey for the transit then head off to the black sea
for an STS loading somewhere in Ukraine area. Based also on what I heard it's just only a day's travel and will be arriving the next day.
?
Upon arrival at around early in the morning , as in early mooring. I was awaken by BOSUN payopay to rig a pilot ladder for the incoming pilot , It was pitch dark and good thing my helmet was fitted with a PELI headlight and was able to move around and
work with that thing switched on



Received: from MPD at Globe Wireless;
Sun, 03 Aug 2014 18:01 UTC
Message-id: 189718697