Assalamualaikum and good day.
You had probably read about the offshore life pros and cons in my previous entry. If not, you read it up HERE.
Anyway, I do have few things I want to add…
So, for those who want to work offshore do take these things into account…
1. YES you get a good wage depending which company you are working with. Smaller company tends to squeeze every penny out of you. Meaning you will be slaved with measly amount of pay…
2. YES you can up your lifestyle with a nice home car and holidays but if you are in the position mentioned in item 1, sorry, no nice home and car just yet. And when you are slaved by the company, you will hardly go for holiday. Some company will not even give you days for you to recover once you return from offshore. You are supposed to be as fit as a fiddle or they prefer you to be a robot… even then, a robot or machine will breakdown if used continuously…
3. YES the financial rewards are tempting meaning if you go offshore often, you will get more. Which is true since you do not have the time to spend the money anyway…
4. YES you do get a considerable time at home when you are home. Refer to item 2. Some big companies do offer off days for their employee where they will be left to rest until their next trip. Some, will have you work for them as long as you can still stand up…
5. YES you are in a cabin or prison cell for twelve hours a day and working the other twelve. I do not get this part actually. I had referred to the labour law and they mentioned that we are supposed to only work 8 HOURS PER DAY no matter where you are working! Yet nobody said anything about this and it seems that working offshore for 12 hours a day is a norm. By right, according to labour law, you should be working 8 hours PLUS 4 hours overtime everyday…
6. YES you have to share with people who snore and smell unless you are some high and mighty guy in your company. You will probably given a room on your own or at least, share it with just another person. If not, everybody is treated like rubbish most of the time.
7. YES you have to put up with substandard cramped conditions and food. The offshore officers loved all this health and safety stuffs. They make it such a big deal that we thought IT IS THE MOST important thing there. After all, all this safety and health stuffs suppose to protect you and keep you safe. I will say, in most cases, they DO NOT CARE about your safety, your place is not always clean and the food served could be better. There are people who said that prison is even better than offshore living quarters…
8. YES You do miss your loved ones and to make it worst, if you are not the high ranking important guys offshore, it will be very difficult for you to keep in touch with your loved ones. Somehow, with all the technology available, most of the offshore facilities in my country have like 1 phone for every 100 people on board. Internet connection is not existent in some places and at places that have it, the speed is really really slow. It took me one hour just to read emails from my yahoo mail and sent a document less than 1MB. I heard, offshore outside of my country have more phones and good internet access. At least you can still keep in touch with people onshore…
These are the points that really make me sit and think about working offshore in the long run…
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