Some of you already know this, but I figured it would be best to provide a central location for any questions. The short version: I'm hanging up my automotive engineer spurs with the General and am joining the Merchant Marine.
I've always loved the water, and have long dreamed of a life at sea. But I never quite knew how to go about it and in full disclosure, I never quite knew anything about anything when I was 18 (I suspect I'm not the only one like this). I worked 3rd shift at a Plastics plant for a while and went to community college to satisfy my mother. I had some fun and learned some new things, but didn't really find my way. Most of my time had been in helping to run a theatre group and being a general nuisance. But I had determined that working plastics was not going to be the thing I wanted to do the rest of my life. And then in the Spring of 1996 I took a class in Electronics and it was kind of fun. And there was money in it then.
So all in the course of a few months starting in May I decided I should go to school and become an engineer, I applied to MTU, was accepted, found an apartment, and started the following September. While I was there I decided to also pursue a degree in Physics because I thought it would be interesting to learn more about it. And it was cool to learn new things and meet the people I had. But most of my time had been spent in helping to run a theatre group and being a general nuisance. When I was graduating I was planning to head out to California to work in the Valley and make the big bucks.
This was the Summer of 2000 when there still were some big bucks in Silicon Valley. I had an offer, but for some reason it felt wrong and I backed off. I moved back to Saint Clair and ended up taking a contract job with the General. And six months later, the market had tanked, the tech bubble had burst and California was dealing with daily rolling blackouts brought to them by Enron. As a junior new-hire I would have been among the first to be cut.
I believed even then that if you follow your instincts and your nature the universe will guide you where you belong. And OnStar was the right place for me to be. And they've been good to me, mostly, or as good as they could be. I would have had trouble with any engineering job, honestly, and the things they had to offer me I wasn't interested in. I'm an experiental learner and I needed to really understand the consumerist fallacy before I could truly reject it. And its time.
I'm not a person who can do only 1 thing. I resigned myself a while ago that I'll never really be an expert at anything. I can manage to be pretty good at a lot of things, but I've never been able to manage being great at any one. And I'm OK with that. But it means I need the time and freedom to explore lots of different things if I'm going to enjoy life at all.
It started as an idea. I'm pretty intensely curious which is a virtue on some days and a curse on others. I would like to try nearly anything, and when I get a hold of a new idea I love exploring it. I had heard months earlier from Chris that his younger brother Jason was going to the Merchant Marine Academy, but it had sort of slipped my mind. But then I got to talk with Jason for a while when I was in Hawaii for Chris's wedding and I was hooked. And I said, "Wow, if I would have known about this when I was 18 I would've done it". But as I continued talking to Jason I found out that there were many other options for me to get into it. And what at the beginning of the conversation was a ridiculous yearning had started to become a genuine possibility.
And when I got back home and started to look into it more it still remained an option for me. In fact, it just made more sense as time went on. Not only was it a job I had an attraction to (being out at sea, a job with very definite delineation between work life and home life, an opportunity to sail around the world dozens of times), but it also freed me to do other things. An officer in Engineering or Deck departments typically works between 5 and 7 months a year, and spend the rest of the time at home, in two to three month chunks. So if I wanted to focus on music, or writing, or theatre, or movies, or gardening, or aikido, or Chinese Calligraphy, or Irish novelists, or just sitting around the backyard enjoying the sun, I'd have lots of time to do so. The biggest downside to the job was being isolated with only a dozen or so people around in the middle of nothing. But that doesn't actually bother me much, in fact, its kind of attractive. Because what better time is there to work on writing than that?
I looked into a lot of options and had mostly settled the path I was going to take. The only thing holding me back was a trip to the dentist, which had been postponed multiple times and was required for my application to the training center. And then, between the latest dental cancellation and my new appointment I went to San Francisco. On my way back, I was bumped from my flight with another man. And in the process of talking to him while we went to cash in our complementary airline burrito vouchers and crash in our complementary airline hotel rooms for 4 hours before the first flight out, I discovered that this man (the only other person bumped from the flight) worked at sea as a Chief Engineer for Exxon-Mobil for over 20 years. I talked his ear off and he graciously answered my myriad of questions. And by the time it was done I had gone in a different direction, instead of going to the training school at Piney Point looking into the Great Lakes Maritime Academy.
Yet again, here it was. Just as I'm about to go one way, the Universe guides me into the right path, and in the process of 3 weeks it was completed. So I'm going to be leaving to train at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Traverse City for a little less than 3 years. When I get out I'll be an officer in the Merchant Marine, and will probably be doing a little better financially than I would've been at OnStar, but only working 6 months or so a year.
The idea of being back in college is a little weird, I know, but really college was never that tough for me, so it doesn't scare me too much. It will be strange to get used to, and it will be difficult financially, but I can't let that bother me. Because I'm so excited right now, that its worth all the big screen TVs and steak dinners I can imagine.
I've gotten a lot of questions, and I'm happy to talk about it, but just for efficiency, I figure I should put up an FAQ for other's benefit.
Q: Isn't this a really nutty thing to do?
A: Perhaps. That's not important to me. I always knew engineering wasn't going to be a whole-life career for me, so it was really a question of when and not if. And everything is telling me that when is now. So who cares if its nutty, I've been called worse.
Q: But you're leaving a Fortune 10 company, one of the Big three and a solid opportunity at a pension and retirement, aren't you?
A: Well, maybe. Depending on how incompetent (or just plain crooked) GM management is, there may not be any pensions or retirement benefits. If they're really as stupid as they've been acting for the last 10 years, there may not be a GM. Besides it was never about that. I took the job with OnStar in spite of GM, not because of it. And really security (job security, personal security, retirement security) is an illusion. No one can control the future. It makes sense to provide as well as you can for yourself, and not to get overextended. But trading your long-term happiness for a warm fuzzy feeling not based in reality is a losing proposition. And a corollary: The only sure investments are alcohol and ammunition, which hold their value even (especially) in the worst of
circumstances.
Q: What do your parents say?
A: Good for you. If that's what you want, it seems like a good fit, and we're excited for you. We wish we could help you with money, but well, you know. Also, you should get a dog and have grandchildren.
(This is one of many reasons I love them so much.)
Q: What the hell is the Merchant Marine anyway?
Q: Are you going to Iraq?
Q: I thought that ended in World War II?
Q: Do you get a gun?
A: The merchant marine is a term that applies collectively to the workers on US Flag Commercial Shipping vessels operating anywhere in the world. It is not a military organization, except for two minor exceptions.
1) When you are in the middle of the ocean in international waters, the laws and authority structures begin and end with the Ship's Captain (or Master). Calling the cops isn't really an option. So discipline is important and a chain of command is essential.
2) In times of national emergency (war), merchant mariners can be called up to serve. However, they do not serve as fighters, but as mariners, the only difference is that the cargo is now tanks, or troops or oil for the military rather than commercial cargo.
I could go to Iraq if I was working for a company that delivered there, but I probably wouldn't spend a lot of time on dry land. Besides, the insurgency will be stamped out in another 6 months, right? The Merchant Marine has steadily declined over the years. Much of this is because shipping has moved to other nations "flags of convenience", which means that the ships still primarily transport American Goods, but the ships are registered in Liberia or Haiti or wherever, which means they can use workers from the Phillipines or other countries who work much cheaper. There are still international regulations for training, but US Mariners require more training than most others. However, there also aren't a large number of people joining the career field, so employment has remained pretty steady.
Currently the average age of a merchant mariner is in the 50s. There are concerns that without a strong influx of new workers, there could be crisis of not enough workers as soon as 2008, which is good news to someone hoping to get their license in 2008. If I worked as a vessel security officer for a ship owned by the Navy I might get a gun. Not much to shoot at, probably.
Q: Aren't you wasting your education?
A: A philosophical question. What do you get out of education? A single good job, or a better understanding of the world? I've had both. And even if I never spent another minute on it I'd consider it a good bargain for the things I've learned. But the odds are that my engineering background will help me a fair amount at sea.
Q: What are you going to do with your house?
A: Try to keep it. Its a bad time to try to sell the house, and I'd have to find somewhere to move my crap if I sold it. And then, holding onto it is likely to pay off in another 5 years. It also acts as a form of security that is not illusory: I have a place to go to, and some equity in something. I've considered renting it, but it seems like I'd have to do a fair amount of work to get it ready for someone off the street. If someone out there is looking for a cheap place to stay near downtown I'd be happy to have you house sit though. A little bit of money and covering the utilities would be enough to make it work.
Q: Where are you going to live in Traverse?
A: As yet unknown. Hopefully I'll have an answer in a couple more weeks. I'm doing OK with not knowing right now, but its making me more and more nervous. If anybody has any ideas or suggestions I'd love to hear them.
Q: What is going to happen to this site?
Q: How can I find out what's going on with you?
A: The same as before. I'll probably be worse (if that's possible) about updating it. But it costs me $20 a year to Chet, which is well worth it for an announcement platform. I'll probably be updating regularly with how things are doing in school, and maybe work out a way to post articles through email so I could even update shipboard.
Q: Will you send me postcards?
A: Maybe. I've already made a few commitments on this front, and I'm really bad at remembering those sorts of things, so I need to temper it somewhat. I'll put updates on this site, though.
Q: How often will you be around?
Q: Can you make it to my wedding/party/bar mitzvah/coronation/insurrection?
A: Not too much. I'll only be up in Traverse which isn't forever away, but I'll be pretty busy, and this change may involve returning to the minimum wage workforce for a little while if I can't find something better part-time. And any break from school longer than a couple of weeks will be spent at sea, getting the time I need for my license. But if you send me dates ahead of time I'll try to make it to catch up with anyone out there. The middle of summer will be tough though, as I'll be at sea for most of the next three summers. Which means this will probably be my last *real* 4th of July. Rest assured, if I can't make I'll have wanted to. But missing out on stuff is going to be something I'll have to get used to. Honestly, though, my current work has kept me from catching a lot of things already. This way, when I'm gone, I'm all the way gone, but when I'm here, I'm all the way here.
Q: When does all this happen anyway?
A: I start on August 14th. Then I'll be going for almost three years, finishing in the spring of '08. Most of the summers I'll be away sailing, and if I can find the work I may sail some of the other breaks too to get more time (and more money).
Q: So you're like totally obsessing and pacing a lot now aren't you?
A: Yep. Absolutely terrified and loving it.
Feel Free to leave more questions in the comments and I can add them in.
Posted by ktismael at July 1, 2005 3:57 AM