Journal log entry : June 13, 2016 Monday
Area: St. Eustatius , (Somewhere in the Caribbean)
After much
deliberation and thinking, I had finally made a verdict and I think it's best
for me to sit tight and ride this whole contract out. Now the only problem I
have for the moment would be notifying my sister, that I had changed my mind
and will not go home by August.
Maybe
surprising by now that a couple of weeks ago, I was blabbering about going home
and all that shit. As a matter of fact I still do because I was deceived and
coerced by CF Sharp in signing unfair contracts. However despite my reasons , I
cannot set aside logic and reason that land base jobs are more easily
constructed / deconstructed with minimal whiplash compared to overseas job.
Basically having a land based job is more secure and the worker is more protect
by law than the overseas one, As an OFW I have to consider that once I'm
outside the Philippines, It's every man for himself - and that I'm at the mercy
of my employer quiet literary. So its more complicated to quit a job overseas
than quit a job locally because of this because Phil. Labour law doesn’t apply
elsewhere. In other words I'm avoiding the risk of my whiplash if I don’t
finish my contract
As for my
teeth, apparently I had to endure this for a couple of months for now and
imperatively need dental repairs as soon as I get back in the Philippines and
hope that the damage sustained is not that extensive enough to made me lose my
teeth.
In other
matters , ship has recently reached and berthed in St. Eustatius , an island
somewhere in the Caribbean and began loading in cargo. As usual I'm off again
on my usual task of the gangway watchman , and helping out in the manifold
area. Honestly I'm not in the mood or even excited about my work , and the
stinky contract adds more to my dissatisfaction here.
Speaking of
which, I overheard Oiler Edgar being cheerful about the overtime pay, saying
that there's a bonus or some sort of extra pay for the long working hours we
had been working with. I could just giggle and smile about how stupidly naïve
and clueless this guy is, and how he is ever falsely hopeful on the situation.
It’s a surprise that my co-workers are idiotically blind about the contract we
signed with that, they didn't have any idea that we signed on a FIXED OVERTIME
PAY and that CF sharp / Norstar Crew Management has been deceiving us all
along. - Pathetic Fools !!! It took me only a couple of days to figure this one
out and them , up to now are still figuring out the situation. If I could only
tell them on their stupidly tenaciously unwilling brains that they should wake
up and do a reality check then they don’t have to realize first-hand about what
is actually going on here.
There is no
absolutely no chance that this ship nor Norstar Crew Management would be paying
our excess overtime working hours. Why ? They put up a rude gurgle tongued
PRO-COMPANY Myanmar Captain in charge of the whole damn ship ! And applease
Norstar crew "fucking ship" management this Captain has been pushing
the limits of comfortability to the limits, just to save money. Shipping
companies nowadays like Norstar don’t care if the ship is comfortable of not
and their the stereotypical money hungry company , they only thing they care
about is the statistics that they're saving money and whoever does that has a
ship's captains smelly spring time fresh name on it. Bottom line I don’t
absolutely think that our beloved gurgle tongued captain would pay the excess
overtime salaries they owe us, for the rest of my stupid crew member's - they'd
just have to figure it out later this month about the real deal.
THEY COULDN'T MAKE THIS SHIP
COMFORTABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE AND HAD TO LIE TO US POINT BLANK TO BE HERE, SO
I DON’T EXPECT THEM AT ALL THAT THEY
WILL BE PAYING OUR SALARIES THE RIGHT WAY
Despite all
the misery and ignorance this ship has to offer, I had some relieving news that
I learned the tedious procedure of "SMS TIPID" promo of smart roaming
service on the cellphone, convenient in the sense that cost of international
SMS is reduced drastically as low as 2 Philippine Peso. The drag is that I have
to numerously type a set of numbers plus have to keep in mind to type in my SMS
fast before the menu that pops up refreshes. The annoying part of this is that
the service is more of a menu mania ,
but the overall point here is to send message internationally cheaply
despite the cumbersome menu's
From what I
recall here is what I have to Dial on my cellphone, first of course is that I
have to subscribe first.
Dial
*133*<amount of top up load, 100 , 200, 500 PHP> followed by #
Example
*133*100#
After that
, a message will pop up on the cellphone informing the number of international
SMS available
After that
the next thing to do is send a message and again I have to dial a set of
numbers
Dial
*133*<followed by the number of the receiving cellphone> followed by #
Example
*133*09204785463# press call button
A menu pops
, to type in the message then followed by the menu send text and voila !!
International text in low cost served !!!
In other
matters….
Since most
of my contract will be spent on this hell hole Asia pacific , I had decided to
make changes on my equipment as part of my "adaptive tactics". As I
had been writing on the past few months, my equipment is suitable in European
environment (i.e. cold environment) - this maybe good on European setting but
troublesome and terribly uncomfortable in warmer (if not hot) Asia pacific
environment (i.e. warm to hot environment). Basically the designs of my
equipment trap body heat , and if to be put on Asian temperatures it would just
basically roast me to death.,
Fortunately
for me , I bought along the trip some stuff that have thinner clothing suitable
in dispersing body heat. Although the equipment I had with me is few but
certainly it will be invaluable for my work here, and will provide protection
and comfortability at the same time. It’s a blessing that I had been a pack rat
and it really paid off despite receiving a lot of criticism on a lot of
ignorant people saying that I was carrying too much "unnecessary"
luggage. Glad that I had proven them wrong and despite the hardship work here
on this hellish "BOSTON EAGLE" ship , I am confidently saying that
I'm well equip and more of a match on the rigors of work.
