Back when I was new in the business I got sent to work with one of he company characters and he taught me a lot. he was extremely talented and was patient and liked to teach. I became his student and attribute a lot to him.
When I started in the business there were a lot of interesting individuals out here and the world had a sense of humor. My mentor, Don, had a sort of trademark when he either loaded or discharged at a certain customer's dock. It was expected of him and he wore his trademark.
My trademark for several years was a grubby captain's hat with a 'Space Cadet' patch on it, from the old TV series 'Tom Corbett, Space Cadet'. Later on it became a grubby WW2 German U-boat skipper had with the swastika removed. Don's trademark only to be worn at one certain customer's dock (Acme) was a pair of pink bunny slippers.
Anyway one fine evening we pulled into the Acme dock and I got the discharge and Don finished it and sailed the barge. He woke me a little early and said we were headed to the office because someone wanted to talk to us. Fifteen minutes later we were tied up at the office and Don headed to the building. I followed a few minutes later and just as Don was entering the door I realized he had forgotten to take off his bunny slippers.
Then I realized I was still wearing my Space Cadet hat but figured why not? The office probably had a question or two regarding the cargo. It was probably no big thing. I sped up.
I went in behind Don by about half a minute to see my port captain and port engineer beet red as some guy standing there was laughing himself silly. As I wandered in the man took a step forward and read the patch on my hat. He chuckled and shook his head. "Bunny slippers!" he said. He looked at my port captain and said, "Why am I not surprised?" and the port captain turned redder.
The port captain introduced us to the man who turned out to be the customer that owned the oil we had been moving around for the past two and a half weeks! His name was Mike. This was a first for either of us. Neither of us had ever met the customer before. It was only going to happen one time again years later but I'll tell that story later.
Mike's last name was not Texaco. Nor was it Shell, BritishPetroleum, Chevron or Exxon. He was simply a small time broker/ speculator of some sort that seems to live on the fringe of the big companies. He had bought and resold 150,000 barrels of home heating oil and resold it at a tidy profit of some sort. Speculation in heating oil was somewhat common in the fall months. The speculator was gambling it would be a hard winter and the price would go up.
Mike turned to my port captain and said, "Whenever I can, I like to take the guys that do the actual work to lunch. Can I borrow them?"
The port captain could hardly refuse and the three of us walked out together. The first thing Mike asked is where we could get a good steak dinner and we went to a place a few miles away. It was a nice place I had been to before--but not in coveralls. Don still had his bunny slippers on and the a couple of people looked at them with amused looks on their faces as we walked by. I still had my hat on. I did take it off at the table, though.
We had a great dinner for lunch and Mike was funny as hell. He said, "When I was a kid I decided I wanted to be a big shot. I got about halfway there but realized if I became a big shot I wouldn't have time to go fishin' so I decided to stay a medium shot. I got more than I need and still find time to fish."
Afterwards when we got outside Mike opened his trunk and handed us a purple box each and told us to quietly put it in our vehicles when we got back. The boxes held bottles of Crown Royal. "Put it in your trunk when we get back and leave it there. I don't want to get you guys into any trouble. There's also a little something in the bag so don't throw it out."
When we arrived we hid our goods and Mike headed upstairs. Don and I headed back to the boat. An hour or so later we sailed and tied up for a couple of days to another company holding where we sat for two more days and changed crews.
When I got home I opened the box, pulled the bottle out and looked in the bag. In it was a crisp picture of Ben Franklin.
Things like this happened to me only twice in my career. Incidentally over the years I have only been gifted liquor a couple of times and not once when I was on board or headed out to the boat. It has always been done when I was leaving for home.
The other time was when we went on a fairly long term contract moving oil for an outfit in New England.
The person responsible for contracting us was named Judy and I don't recall her title. She apparently the person that was also responsible for scheduling us. Of course, she would go through the office who would give us our orders but sometimes she would call the barge direct to see how we were doing. She actually cared about us as people which is rare in any business.
When we would go to the main terminal where her office was she would sometimes come down to the dock and visit us. We had her on board a couple of times and in a dress and heels she swarmed up the ladder like a cat and negotiated obstacle course we call a deck rather gracefully.
It should be carefully noted she waas not some kind of 'Tugboat Annie' type, but a professional lady.
She was one of those rare women that men instinctively trust.
We knew she had 'put the fix in' because quite often when we'd arrive at the dock of one of their terminals the dockman would hand us a dozen doughnuts or a pie or something 'from Judy' and a couple times we got a bunch of lobsters. One Christmas eve she sent us some great steaks and a cheesecake.
She also understood our careers and would somewhat often mention to the office that 'her guys' were doing a great job. The office was thrilled to hear we were getting along with the customer. We got a lot of attaboys from them.
A couple of times she would call and ask us and ask us some questions regarding cargo changes and if something or another could be done safely. I never heard her say anything about the delays occasionally caused by the New England winter weather. Not once did she ever complain about the delay was if we got stormed in somewhere.
She cared about us. In return we her our best.
At no time in my career did I ever expect to get anything more than a paycheck. Things like steak dinners, bottles of booze, regular baked goods were really not what I expected and although I was damned grateful for everything above and beyond my paycheck.
Still, between that and a few other things that happened it was enough to at least me wondering what was going to happen next.
I ought to do a piece on Rumor Control.
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