Disclaimer: This message is in response to some landlubbers that I have met over the years. It does not intend to say anything against anyone. We were also born as landlubbers, and have a family of landlubbers to take care of. :) Dear landlubbers, especially those from the country where I was born, a country where the general awareness of the profession I belong to is NIL, despite having a coastline almost 5000 miles long. I am proud of my profession, not because of the work that I do, but because of the fact that it touches your lives every day almost every single moment. You may never realize how but that doesn’t make me any less proud of my work. There are countries that call us ‘the fourth service’, ‘the silent service’, or ‘the forgotten service’ and that’s enough reason to make us feel special. Yes, it is a service just as important as the other three services viz. the army, the navy, and the air force. While the other three keep the borders secure, we keep the lifeline of a country secure. We serve not only our county but also the entire mankind in general. If not for us, half the world would starve and the other half would freeze. I don’t need to explain how, I guess you have enough grey cells to discover that. We are known as the merchant navy in the British Commonwealth, and there is a reason why we are called a navy. We have earned it with our service in general. Perhaps we are one of the only few services that are just as active in wartime as well. World wars 1&2, Falkland wars are prime examples of it. Talking of India, we were right there doing our bit with the regular services in the Indian peacekeeping mission to Sri Lanka, the Maldives operation and the 2005 Tsunami relief operations as well, but you never heard of us since we are a silent service. Doesn’t matter, the other services acknowledge, appreciate and respect the support that we extend to them. You might say that it is just our job and we are paid for it. Well, so are the armed forces, aren’t they? If indeed, it is all about money, I double dare you to just spend a day doing what we do and all my earnings for the rest of my life would be yours. It takes more than just a certificate or a college degree to be one of us. It takes balls of steel and lots of sacrifice being where we are. Sitting in an air-conditioned space in front of a screen is not something that we cannot do. We do it at sea as well and that’s only a minor part of our work. Air-conditioning fails and you call a technician, power fails and you get restless, a fire breaks out and you run for your lives. Let me tell you what we do in this situation. We fix our air-conditioning, we restore the power plant and we fight the fire, we do not run away. We are government certified navigators/engineers, medical first-aiders, fire fighters, rescuers, and we learn and practice management, administration, international law by virtue of the nature of our job. Many of us coming from countries like USA, Russia, Brazil, Philippines and Israel also hold reserve commissions in the Navy/Coastguard, and are called back on active duty when required. It is disappointing that a large maritime nation like India has never considered keeping a naval reserve force when both its navy and the coast guard are severely understaffed. Now consider this. How many of you have the floor beneath your feet rolling up to 45 degrees while at work? How many of you have to work in temperatures ranging from -30 to 60 degrees, and sometimes under heavy wind, rains, snowfall and toxic fumes? How many of you have to go back to school and take written, oral and medical examinations, and undergo all sorts of training courses while you are on that precious leave, so that the government may re-validate/upgrade your license to work? How many of you have your competency checked by the government before your company may employ or promote you? How many of you working in private sector have your employer and the employment regulated and monitored by the government? How many of you have to keep working on holidays and Sundays? How many of you have to miss on births, weddings, funerals and all other moments at home once you are back to work? How many of you have to finish a job for which you are never paid because someone else was supposed to do it and he is down? How many of you have to work with risk of life and risk of injury at all times? How many of you have to do a job where one simple mistake could put everyone’s life including yours in danger? How many of you have to live with a medical condition for days or sometimes weeks before any help arrives? How many of you are exposed to the risk of being subjected to judicial inquiry, possibility of facing criminal charges, imprisonment and penalty when some operation ends in violation of national/international regulations? And you think your job is difficult? Yes, we are paid higher than most of you but considering the amount of work we put in and also considering the risks involved, we are grossly underpaid compared to a job that you do. Do not compare us to the person you see while we are on leave. If you find us lazy or laid-back while we are on leave, let me tell you this. You see a person who has done his time at sea making sure that the life ashore runs smooth. He has earned his leave and he deserves that break. He is just relaxing and preparing himself for his next tour of duty at sea. Back at work he is a totally different person, working with military precision doing things that you will never get to do or you will never be able to do. You only see him enjoying the comforts of life at home, you have never seen him go through hell at work. Like I said, you only know the sailor that you see while he is on leave and you might find him an idiot. We at sea trust each other and help each other like brothers. Even if we are complete strangers moments ago, we still know that we can count on each other in times of need. This is one thing that the landlubbers will never learn. If people ashore have issues trusting each other and helping each other, you know where the problem is. But that does not make us angels, there are morons among us as well. A moron sailor, by our standards, still fares better than any landlubber when it comes to helping and trusting. I believe things work differently ashore and I feel lucky that I have an option to escape the ‘practical’ world and live among my ‘idiot’ brothers at sea. I am proud to be a part of the profession that runs more than 90% of the global trade and has been an active and important part of the events in the history of mankind and has been honored by countries that have acknowledged the importance of our work. If another world war breaks out, I know where I will be and what I will be doing. I am not too sure about you though. I also know that your workplace will never be at a risk of being bombed, mine will be for sure. There’s a lot more that I feel like telling you but since I know that your ignorance clouds over your brains and judgement and as you always say ‘the hell do I care’, I guess it will be just a waste of time and energy talking anymore. Stay ignorant, stay blissful, stay happy, for there are idiots who work day and night ensuring your life runs smooth, and be thankful that keyboards do not bite. --- An Old Salt
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 17:02:32 +0000
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