When a CEO makes a huge mistake, the company goes bankrupt and everybody loses their jobs;
when a Captain makes a huge mistake, everybody dies and everything around is polluted forever.
You may choose what you consider to be the more important job here; my only point is that any
sailor's job cannot be compared with any job ashore- and promoting that thinking does every
seaman an injustice, is inaccurate and pushes the wrong idea- to prospective and existing
seafarers both- of what a mariner's working life is all about.
Actually, I cannot think of any job that compares with a sailor's. A soldier's? Some similarities
do exist here- away from family in a hostile environment, for example, but there are massive
differences too.
A sailor will not be called upon to face bullets
as part of his job description, piracy
notwithstanding. A soldier’s life is simpler than
a mariners- no commercial, environmental or
such considerations and no job insecurity.
On the other hand, although a Bosun's job is
more complex than a platoon leader's, the
latter is responsible much more for the lives of all his men in combat,
and the cost of a mistake- or circumstance- is much higher.
In a similar vein, a General is far away from the action, usually, unlike a Shipmaster, but he is
responsible for hundreds or thousands of lives and his country's security- a huge responsibility.
So, no real parallel exists here either.
I suggest that we should not even try to find a parallel. Instead, we need to realise that a
mariner's job description and responsibilities are unique and leave it at that. A formal job
description is required only when there is ambiguity or confusion about role, and shipping has
never suffered from that problem. Just say Chief Engineer, and every sailor on earth will know
what that man does, his responsibility and his authority. This is true for all other ranks, and on
any ship on earth. We don't need organisation charts at sea; we know clearly what everybody is
responsible for.
Unfortunately, what has happened is that shipping has fallen into the management jargon trap
where style substitutes for substance- or too often replaces substance. The result is not pretty
and is there for all to see. Crews are today groaning under the weight of manuals and checklists
that have dubious value but enormous repercussions thanks to stress and fatigue that are a
direct result of this nonsense. I see the 'management level' certification and the 'CEO'
pretentious blah as an extension of this thinking.
It may seem like a small thing, the wording on a certificate of competency, but it does matter,
and I object strongly to it. Not least because I am a Shipmaster by qualification and profession,
not a mere CEO.