Geographic Dispersal

Union Halls, Mariner Clinics, Regional Exam Centers, and Merchant Marine Academies: you either live by one, or you don’t. Decades ago, deep-sea mariners were geographically concentrated in port towns. It made sense: you got a job at the union hall, and then took a subway or taxi ride to the ship. Today, maritime unions guarantee airline travel from any location in the US, to a ship assignment, and back. States without the income tax, such as Florida, New Hampshire, Texas, and Nevada, are popular residences for mariners; even if they are far inland. As for the physical institutions of the maritime industry, there is stickiness to old maritime ports, even if the reasons for their presence are no longer needed locally. There are likely more deep-sea mariners living in arid Las Vegas, Nevada than in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yet, for the tradition of having maritime institutions near the water, I doubt that the US Coast Guard will relocate its Regional Exam Center, or the Marine Engineer Beneficial Association its medical clinic, to where the mariners live today. Baltimore, some 12 hours inland of Norfolk, has not been a primary port-of-call since Bethlehem Steel shut down decades ago. Yet the city retains its maritime union halls, a US Coast Guard testing center, and two maritime conference and training centers in the region. Norfolk has a small union hall shared by two of the three officers’ unions, but no Regional Exam Center: the closest one is a 5-hour northbound drive in Baltimore; or an 8-hour drive south to Charleston, SC. Prior to COVID-19, I inquired to the Mid Atlantic Maritime Academy, a private trade school, about bringing the USCG’s travelling exam team to Norfolk several times a years, as they do for Maine Maritime Academy in rural Castine; and on Massachusetts Maritime Academy on Cape Cod. The idea may be worth another go-around.

What Happens at the end of Work from Home?

If you’ve noticed the paucity of communication coming from me, it’s because I am cruising through the northern part of the Pacific Ocean with no satellite service. Providers train their satellites towards near-shore areas, where the bulk of their clientele work and play on drill rigs and yachts. Outside the primary deep-sea trade routes, the satellite providers cut their losses. If you’re wondering, the Search and Rescue satellite system (GMDSS) does ping six times per day as they pass through their respective orbits. This summer brought a number of large-scale return-to-office experiences, from Wall Street, to Main Street Richmond, Virginia. In this case, telework-capable state government employees were given two-months’ notice to return to the office four days per week, or to request additional WFH days from their agency leadership. Records show that 58% of employees accepted four or five days per week; and 93% of employees accepted at least three days per week. The State Highway Department did lose 10 or so engineers over this ask (and a few more who took retirement over this decision), but in the whole, attrition over the issue was less than 1%. Most requests were to preserve the enhanced telework arrangements certain white-collar employees had prior to the Pandemic. As a right-to-work state, government employment in Virginia is more similar to private employment than in other state governments. Thus, private employers can allay fears of workplace exodus, when they chose to return to an in-office schedule. The one caveat is that Richmond, Virginia is home to more traditional industries like medicine, tobacco, and public utilities, where in-person work is a given expectation.

Monkeypox?

The spread of Monkeypox has not reached epidemic proportions, and hopefully never will. But what came to my attention was how it spread: close quarters and skin-to-skin contact. Monkeypox has spread around hot-to-trot nightclubs in urban centers, but has stayed out of locker rooms and mainstream environments...so far. In college, I worked on the waterfront with the offshore sailing team. They would come back from overnight trips, where they slept arm to arm and had the same bilge-water sloshing around their feet. Close proximity, without intimateness. I trust that nautical leaders will implement recommendations for awareness and prevention, so we can nip this virus in the bud.