Pay rise?

Do your job (which includes deck work on a 35m), work hard, stop talking to the chef about things above their pay level, and you will be rewarded for your efforts after you have proved yourself.

As they both have told you, work hard, earn the proper credentials, but just as importantly carry the proper attitude which you can't be doing if you let something bug you constantly and discuss things inappropriately with other crew members.

I've sent you a private message from an employer's perspective. I guess it's also is the glass half full or half empty. Most would consider yours to be more on the full side, yet you seem to be focused more at what isn't in your glass. When you do that you fail to even enjoy what you have.

Crew Politics and Mess Room Lawyers ( Chefs) have been the cause of many issues.

Keep your nose down, work hard and get some qualifications before your start worrying about who get what for what they do. The deckhand may be annoyed you get more than him and refuses to work hard beacuse of it.

You will still be un licensed when your NOE ( Notice of Eligibility) comes through, you will then need to do some type of training and exam or two which must be passed in order to obtain a Certificate of Competency.

I came up through the ranks in an environment that treated salaries as confidential. Discussing salaries with other employees was considered a serious matter. To me, my salary was always a private matter.

And while these discussions among employees are problematic, there is actually something that gets even more people in trouble today. Discussing these matters online. Facebook is problem number one. But forums such as this one can be too. If your captain or owner came here, I can't imagine them being pleased even though this is a more appropriate forum to discuss career matters.

Now for some real irony. Going up through the ranks I never once discussed my salary with anyone. The higher one rose the more they protected it. Then I became an officer of a publicly traded company and it's published for everyone to see. That was absolutely the most uncomfortable day for me when annual reports or proxy statements circulated around the office and all the employees were talking about what all the officers made the previous year. And the officers were comparing themselves to their peers.

Final word of advice to all. Be careful about things you say online. Whether they're about your job, your boss, your boat owners. Whether they're about your own behavior, such as what you did at the party last night. Everything ever published on the web is public. Don't think otherwise for a moment. Oh and you just tell your best friends? I was told long ago by a very wise man, "there is no such thing as a secret among more than three people. Tell the fourth and you might as well tell the world." And sometimes less. Tell a cook, tel e graph. You think for one moment that cook won't discuss what you said with anyone else?

After you get certified you can ask, but definitely don't compare yourself to anyone else, and don't mention that you had a conversation with anyone else about it. If you ask before you certify, you face the prospect of being out of a job and uncertified, and having to find another job without that leg up.

I tend to agree with everyone else about not complaining and do what you do until you are fully licensed. Find more things to maintain or pick away at in the engine room, go clean a/c filters, polish metals in the engine room if you don't want to be on deck the whole time. But if asked to work on deck, then go do it.

I see fully licensed engineers on say 170' who were never asked to do anything outside of engineering and basically nobody bothered them if they were sitting around. I did find it offensive that I was asked to polish the s/s handrails and crap in their engine room (when I worked on deck), when most of the time you'd catch them reading a book in the engine room office (and it wasn't a book on engines or machinery). But you do what you're asked to do.

From my employer position, I say do your job, the chef's job and any other job that needs doing. Get licensed and/or certified. If you are employed by a civil employer you will be compensated. I am sure there are also employers who will take advantage of your hard work and not compensate you. There are even employers that are too otherwise occupied to notice your efforts. So, yes indeed, you may need to approach some employers with a request. I would rather work for an employer who needs no such request.

"Speaking to the chef there was apparently a margin of 3000-3500 for the engineer job set by the management company and I am at 3000 now. Which is low, however I am unlicensed until my Noe comes through."

That says to me that the 3500 was set for a fully qualified (CoC) candidate. Therefore you're paid appropriately. It wouldn't surprise me that the invitation to become permanent would come with an increase, and I don't think asking if the offer comes with an increase, but I certainly wouldn't make an issue of it. Apparently you've been on board less than 6 months. Other than a possible small increase with the offer to become permanent, you're of little more value today than the day you were hired. Also, as mentioned earlier, DO NOT discuss your salary with any of your crewmates. Nothing good can come of it. Those who earn less may resent you, and those who earn more won't care or may feel superior. Then you have the ones who will lie about how much they make to sew discontent in you hoping to get rid of you or use you to pressure the employer to pay them more. A co-worker once learned my salary (DK how), and tried to use it as a negotiating tool for himself. It brought his career to a skreeching halt and almost led to a beating from me.

P.S. Nothing unusual about ALL crew working deck on a 35m yacht. You're a team, and should be happy to help each other.