Sunday, April 30, 2006

Time to kill

The past week I've been not quite stressed out but definately feeling quite a bit of it. Undergoing new hire orientation, at my expense and it's uncompensated, although I did find out that the state would have paid for my travel to this training, would have been nice before that came out of pocket as well. Spend hours each day filling out seemingly redundant paperwork for all the various entities I would fall under if I accept this job with the state not to mention training that is greared more towards someone who's never worked on boats then towards someone like me who's fairly experienced. So sitting there all week under going training I've already been through, but i have to complete their training model to qualify to work for them.

So I finish jumping through all the state's hoops and go to find out about a ship assignment and they have no record of me being hired. This is in the same office where I did my interview back the first part of march and they practically put me on a ship right then and there. Something felt fishy about the whole thing from the get go, I show up to the training center first thing monday and there isn't any record of a class being scheduled there. After many frantic phone calls, found out it's been moved to a University class room about 10 miles away and class had already started by the time I got ahold of someone.

I guess the paperwork telling me about this change is still in the mail somewhere, it supposedly went out 2 weeks ago but there's no sign of it showing up. Occasionally my mail will get put in my father's box since I'm named after him and most places neglect to put the Jr. on my name, but that wasn't the case.

So, getting things together, I stop off at the local U.S.C.G. Marine Safety Office to begin the process of upgrading my license and having endorsements added. Only I find out some of my training certificates have expired and now can no longer be used on my license. To boot, they were going to reject my physical because it wasn't on their form, even though the physical I had done was above and beyond what they require.

I started to get really pissed about the expired certificates, the company that paid for me to get this training fought me tooth and nail while I was arranging the classes, so instead of things being smooth as I had planned I'd spend months arguing with them that they'd promised me these courses and if they'd follow my planning it'd save them a lot of expenses. No, they couldn't accept what I'd planned and had to dabble with it and drug it out far longer then it needed to be, which is why the certificates expired since some of the classes ended up being piece meal here and there over the course of a year and a half. One of the courses I don't think I had the seatime at the time I completed it to qualify for the upgrade.

I'd be a whole lot angrier if it was my dime but it wasn't, so it turns out them weeks in Seattle, while I got good training, the only thing I really have to show for it is frequent flies miles from the flight, frequent guest points from the hotel, and more airmiles since I paid upfront with my air miles card and the company reimbursed me :D

So, I'm gonna have to spend part of tomorrow in D.O.T office trying to figure out what happened to my paperwork. I figure by the time I get this all straightened out I'll be getting the phone call from CivMar telling me to report back east for their orientation.

Oh, too top it all off, I managed to pick up whatever bug's been going around town. Ordinarily I don't get sick, well the sniffles mostly but rarely will i get laid up trying to recooperate.

This is me, not a very intresting life, but I do try to keep off everyone's respective radars and lead a low key life.

1 Comments:

Blogger PG said...

Hunh. I guess you're right... maybe it is a good thing I held off on my trip to Alaska.
But dammiyt, I still want to go... esp. before we drill the crap out of it for black gold.
(Much to my dismay).
Yet, with my luck, Gus, I will go next year, and then you will be posted out HERE on the East Coast and won't be able to be my guide!
Yikes!
;)

12:12 PM AKDT  

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