The Catering Officer Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Catering officer
Once upon a time, I was a seaman; I began as a galley boy
and after six months was promoted to the second cook,
What dizzying height. At home, I went to a catering school for cooks
and later on, a course to become a chief steward.
For three years I slaved as a chief cook on ships it was
hard and boring and then I was promoted to Chief steward
they use "chief" a lot in the merchant navy, this to make you feel
important, but in the end, you are a fucking slave.
My job was that of a purser doing the books buying what was needed
as cheap as possible and see to it the cook was reasonable sober.
This new job gave ample opportunity to read I wore a white shirt
with three silver stripes on which caused me endless embarrassment
as I dislike uniforms in civilian life. The first ships I was on had a selected crew,
proper people saving up to buy a house with a big garage when
I was dreaming of going ashore and meet exciting people.
This entire nicety unnerved me, and I tended to be rude one can
say I didn`t fit in, so my next ship was less posh and from
there it was downhill all the way till I ended up on rust buckets
that birthed at small ports in South America, and I loved it.
Gone was the uniform, but I used a blazer over my T-shirt when
the officials came onboard, served them whisky till they
staggered smiles and handshakes ashore.
But it didn`t last the old ships were replaced with container ships
which is nothing but floating barges, so I jumped ship
swam to the Algarve in Portugal and stayed.