Entry log : November 28, 2017 Tuesday
Location : Enroute to Qatar
Work
Schedule and practices here in this (and probably in Whole shell management) is
in polite term , to be "demanding and difficult" even for a liquid
tanker crew myself. Practically all days here are "Mondays" - which
meant for me to be working Sundays till Saturdays, and to add weekdays have
extended working hours which is starts 7:30 am and ends at 6:00 pm. On
Saturdays it’s the 7:30 am till 5:00pm which is very much the same as weekdays
and on Sunday's it half a day work (7.30 am to 12 noon).
I
am still up to now adjusting to this kind of Work practices, Its surprising
that this LNG ship has this kind of demanding work schedule , even though work
here is quiet light for liquid tanker standards. Anyway there isn't much to
expect , and it's only natural to assume that work here will be demanding given
that the principal is the infamous Shell.
Frankly i don't really mind on the work schedule, and liquid tankers do have these kinds of situation every now and then but the part that tick me off was the company policy here that forbids use of any tools that a crew brought along for work. To simply say all the stuff that I had on luggage , is unusable (that means my work belt and everything in it). According to them any use of "unofficial" equipment is deemed "unsafe"
Frankly i don't really mind on the work schedule, and liquid tankers do have these kinds of situation every now and then but the part that tick me off was the company policy here that forbids use of any tools that a crew brought along for work. To simply say all the stuff that I had on luggage , is unusable (that means my work belt and everything in it). According to them any use of "unofficial" equipment is deemed "unsafe"
When
I found out I immediately lost interest in working with UPL - Shell / Nakilat
and in general even staying to the company because of the so many rules /
and so many prohibition that I find
it, too inconvenient and uncomfortable to work. It's just hard to
professionally grow on this kind of company with so many Do's and Don'ts . Too
much trouble for the effort and it better take my chances on other companies
than this .
Another
thing that annoys me on their work practices is this so called "P.I"
system (which is called positive intervention)which is an anonymous reporting
system. May sound cool , but for a typical seaman's point of view - it's
nothing more than just a basic crackdown on crew like a secret police. Anyone
who gets reported on the P.I. system gets punished heavily and worse summarily
dismissed (sent home / fired ) because of questionable "unsafe"
working practices. You don’t know basically who will play Judas on any of your
crew members and betray you and a helpless crew member won't know until he gets
tagged by the P.I. system. If someone is just simply unhappy on how you work ,
they simply file a "P.I" and find dirt on your work and tag it as
"unsafe" working practice and that's the end of it.
The
scariest part of it is that its company sponsored and they encourage crew
members to report often on P.I. system and they will give a reward of a bunch
of chocolate bars to the person who reported it. In fact the main fleet of
shell requires their crew to have a P.I. , Honestly they may be professionally
right to practice this to maintain "safety standards" , but if a
normal person would analyze if this is morally and ethically right ? It's
definitely a big NO . It's not good to pay Judas and betray people and never is
, in fact the word betrayal is dismaying as well and do Shell people even think
that a person's conscience and ethical moral standards is just worth a few
candy bars ??? That's totally sick !!! Its barbaric and draconian , in every
sense of it .
Yes
it’s a good practice to punish the guilty by the P.I. system , But how about
the people who are just simply being bullied or just simply being harassed ? Do
they even bother to investigate P.I. reports or even analyze if the P.I.
reports were justifiable ? Do they even hear the side of the crew member
accused ? , obviously they don't and people get fired on the jobs for petty
reasons , because of their obsessive quest, called "safe" practices. It’s a perfectionist
system that makes the work place uncomfortable.
Of
course Shell crew never speak about this ., especially Filipino sailors because
they're afraid of losing their jobs and be "black listed" . If this
was a law enforcement system , I would say that it is unfair and unjust and not
fit for the modern world . However since this is the seafaring , where there is
no true sense of justice like in land , companies and people can get away with
this.
I'm
glad that my contract here is just only six months , and I can freely publish
this blog after that without any restrictions.
