I spent 5 years of my life doing some real mentally-exhausting, emotionally-draining, back-breaking labor for 300-500 USD a month as a Marine Engineer Cadet on board a ship. Got good enough on the job that my superiors have already recommended me for promotion to 4th Engineer multiple times on different ships and contracts. Some 3000 USD a month would have made it all pretty much worthwhile, while having a prospect of future promotions to 3rd, 2nd, heck even all the way to Chief Engineer at a salary cap of around 15k USD in about 10 or more years of working in the industry
Unfortunately, our office has denied me of this promotion multiple times, sometimes on grounds of that they have already lined up a 4th Engineer reliever on board so I'm unable to act as the reliever by promotion, or that I don't have the required certificates and that I would need to comply with them as soon as I went home in between contracts.
What really irks me though is that we have a crewmate who's, for a lack of a better word, pretty much a royal dumbass on the job and could have jeopardized our operations on multiple occasions, also lacks some certificates and this same office CATERED to offer him an online course so he could continue to perform his duties, whereas in my case before where I was pushing hard for a promotion and asking for a possibility of the same online course I was denied, effectively also putting talks for promotion to a stop.
My engineer's license that would have permitted me to take up the role of 4th Engineer is about to expire next year. The last time I inquired if they could promote me, they said they would *consider* it, even if I was already interviewed by nobody less than the Technical Superintendent himself and gave me his approval to be promoted. I feel like if I renew my license and I keep going in this company, they still have many other excuses to give to me to not promote me. But if I try to find another company, they're not going to hand me that promotion either and would probably nail me down to a lower position for years (Oilers get paid around 1000-2000 USD but I just can't bear getting paid to mindlessly clean on board all day everyday, on top of being bossed around to a worse degree than being a 4th Engineer) Besides, a big part of me doesn't want to let go of the opportunity of promotion that I worked hard for for 5 years. Still, I'm clearly torn on what should I do.
Me and a friend have been joking around saying we should set this ship on fire to get back at them.