AN OPEN LETTER ON AN EXTRAORDINARY JOB #2

By Ed Teja

Last time I talked about my job working on the facilities of a research center. If you think about the needs of a marine research center, what it takes to keep it functional and useful to scientists working in and under the sea, you’ll begin to realize the broad range of jobs available, ranging from the technical (requiring science or specialized dive training) to the same kind of administrative jobs that any organization needs on a daily basis. At each center the particulars of the jobs will be different, but in general, a research center has to cover the administrative basics: logistics (a difficult task in remote locations), paperwork filing requirements of various governmental and science institutions, general office organization and operation, funding, and more paperwork. These are not glamorous jobs, yet no facility of any kind survives without someone doing them. This offers an opportunity to those with accounting and logistical skills and credentials who want to get out into the wider world.

Office routines at a research center are not quite what they are in other organizations. Our office staff routinely does the same sort of work that they would do elsewhere, in conventional offices, but because research centers are typically understaffed, they also drive boats for water taxi runs, handle lines when the tanker docks to bring fuel, participate in search and rescue operations, which occur from time to time, and help unload cargo from planes and boats. In order to meet the safety requirements of our operations, all the staff get training in oxygen administration, CPR, first aid, and diver accident management. This training is less to ensure that we know what to do when a problem happens and more to help us gain the awareness necessary to prevent accidents.

Don’t expect routine—schedules are chaotic, to say the least. In our busy season (Summer) we often work seven days a week. Researchers arrive when they can find the time in their own schedules and we have to accommodate them. If it is on Sunday, then that is when they have to be picked up and settled in. The work day has hours that fall into a similar pattern—often we work from early until we are done.

Logistics are difficult in the islands. We import nearly everything. So an ability to deal with barge companies, air cargo companies, customs officials, brokers and so on, can be invaluable. But you have to be adaptable. Knowing how things work in the US or Europe is of little use unless you make it just the starting place for thinking out of the box. Our “weekly mail” travels less than 400 miles, a trip that takes less than two hours. yet we actually manage to get it about once a quarter. No one here has yet broken that little problem down and dealt with it.

The payback for putting up with the hours and the awkwardness is in doing something few people can do (and, if you think as I do, doing anything to help the oceans is a worthwhile thing), in places that others wish they could afford to visit. The island I work on is surrounded by private islands that sell for millions of dollars to corporate executives, entertainers and the like. The view from my house is literally a million dollar view (as I write this, I look out over the Atlantic Ocean and, with a small turn of my head, I can watch the boats in Exuma Sound. There is a small island, tiny really, called Leaf Cay, just in my sight that is on sale for several million dollars). When we do get time off, we can dive or snorkel in some of the clearest water outside of bottled water, and see sharks, rays (huge spotted Eagle Rays and stingrays), lazy Grouper and a huge assortment of other fish. We rub shoulders both professionally and socially with some of the leading marine scientists and can learn everything there is to know about coral or lobster from an expert over a cold beer in the evening.

The point of all this is to let you see that there might be ways to take skills you wouldn’t think of in a research center environment, such as basic office skills and parlay them into getting a job that is not an ordinary job, but extraordinary. Creativity is important in getting out of the box and into the extraordinary.

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If you have questions about this job, or the Perry Institute for Marine Science, or ideas for issues that you’d like to see addressed in this letter, send me an email at eteja@PerryInstitute.org.

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Ed Teja is a writer, musician and sailor who has kindly agreed to periodically send us an "open letter" about some aspect of his or someone else's "extraordinary job". You may also like The Rum Shop, a short story of Ed's, and you can find his novel, The Legend of Ron Añejo, on amazon.com. We'll keep you posted on the availability of his upcoming, Under Low Skies. Ed also writes a monthly column for the Caribbean Compass.