Me: Morning [insert fisherman’s name here].
Fisherman: Go f**k yourself (said playfully).
Me: *"up yours" arm motion.
Such is the beginning of a typical day in the workplace. If
there is one thing I have learned from this giant social experiment, it is to
laugh, and not take what guys say too seriously, but with a grain of salt. Be
confident, and be able to jestingly give it back to them, but without going too
far. Fisherman generally have a sense of humor that varies from sarcasm, to
making fun of themselves (or you), to not having graduated beyond phallic
jokes. Middle fingers fly frequently. It is a hard balance for the good
observer to find, that allows them to be professional in what I would say is a
primarily less than professional environment.
The way I see it, we can have a positive, neutral, or
negative relationship with our boat. I try to strive for a positive and
friendly relationship as much as possible- as I do not think this and doing the
job correctly and professionally are mutually exclusive. Life is better when
you get along with your crew. It turns what for some can be a very lonely job-
born of the neutral or negative relationship- into something socially bearable,
in addition to them being more receptive to helping you whenever you need it.
Part of getting the crew’s respect is going the extra mile,
and not being a minimalist. I try to do at least one thing that is helpful to
the crew on each boat that also gives me an opportunity to do something fishing
and not observing related, just for fun. For example, on the pot boat I was on,
I would occasionally help the crew members bleed their cod if I had some extra
time between samples, in addition to bleeding my own after I was done
processing them for my sample. They appreciated this, and were therefore happy
to help when I needed it. On the longliner I just got off of, they let me use
the pole gaff to get fish that had dropped off of the line before the boat
could attain it. I actually got quite good at it, at least as good as any of
the others. I even got to be the roller-man for short periods of time between
samples. The roller-man gaffs the fish and brings them aboard the vessel before
they have an opportunity to fall off of the hook. This I did not get quite so
good at, but they were appreciative of the effort nonetheless. This again,
resulted in them being quite happy to provide assistance when it was required.
Aside from the freely flowing derogatory language, there is
also the opposite occurrence in the form of language barriers. The Alaska
fishing industry attracts not only personalities, but nationalities from all
over the world, some of which speak English, but with accents so thick, you
have to take the bits that you understand and try to reconstruct what they are
saying, and it is often wrong. There is nothing wrong with that, just spices up
the experience even more. For example, there was a Vietnamese fisherman on my
last boat that I could understand about 5% during our conversations. I would laugh because I thought he
was trying to tell me something funny, but then he would say “No! Not funny!”
And then I would feel silly, but would be inclined to laugh more at the fact
that I had no clue what we had been talking about for the previous 10 minutes.
Finding a diplomatic way out of a monologue is an art that I am working on.
On a different and last note, what makes everything worth it
is when you talk to a fisherman that understands your cause, and thanks you for
your hard work. It may have been because of his youth and lack of cranky
cynicism that is typical of older fisherman, but I appreciate it no less.
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