Pros
- I never got to, but supposedly you get good port time at interesting ports - Unreps are pretty cool to be part of - You’ll save a lot of money since you don’t get a chance to spend it often and you should have very little in the way of bills (compensation relative to commitment is poor though) - Government benefits, retirement, etc - You probably won’t ever be fired (not a pro to me, but others might feel differently)
Cons
- You CANNOT work here if you have any relationships you actually care about. Spouses/significant others will not last long. - Hitches of unlimited length with only a month off afterward. - LITERAL inability to ever commit to a single other thing in your life and actually expect to be able to follow through on it. - No internet on ships, which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the endless hitches. - No communication with loved ones. - Poor morale and working relationships aboard ships and crew that mostly want to do as little as possible and get paid for it. - Dangerous line of business. People get hurt all the time and occasionally killed. - Reliefs repeatedly fall off if it becomes common knowledge that your ship is undesirable. Relief is always considerably late, but it gets much worse once word gets around and people have doctors declare them unfit if they’re assigned to a bad ship.