This month, we return to the theme of mental flexibility and adaptability being not just desirable but essential traits for developing the required broad skill set to successfully work and endure for the long haul in the towing industry.
In 1990, at the beginning of my career on tugs, the economy was tough. All of the companies were struggling to survive, which meant that tug crews wound up doing whatever additional work could be found outside of their company’s core business. My New York Harbor-based company was a semi-specialist in oil that also did general towing. For the most part, everyone else did too, whether they were more of a ship-docking outfit, a petroleum-mover, or something else.
So, in addition to or replacement of petroleum, there was sand and stone (aggregate) work, ship-assists, derrick barges for construction projects, dredging projects, container barges, cement barges, garbage barges, scrap metals, etc. One-off jobs like dead-ship tows and fireworks displays from barges could come up. It was whatever, whenever, wherever, however, and it was never boring. These jobs also proved invaluable.
The circumstances required and rewarded personnel in all positions possessing, or with the ability to very rapidly develop, a diverse skill set, and for the operators to also have broad but detailed geographic knowledge. It was simply an operational necessity, and it quickly weeded out the overly rigid, unadaptable people.
In the decades since, technology has advanced in all sectors, and most companies are now more specialized than ever before. Even with conventional tugs, operations have generally narrowed as ATBs have come to dominate petroleum transportation, and there’s less of everything else to go around.
To sum it up, over-specialization, whether at a company or at the individual level, leaves you vulnerable to a change of economic or business conditions or circumstances, you might even call it habitat, that renders your particular specialty in decline or even worthless. A highly competent generalist, unfazed by those changing conditions, circumstances and job requirements, will easily and gracefully adapt, get the job done right, and find themselves able to find work even when work is scarce.
