A "Typical Day"

January 26, 2012


Although my work day averages a span of 15 hours, it doesn’t begin particularly early. I generally awaken between 7 and 7:30am, and get ready for work. There is not a lot of wasted motion as my ‘home’ is only 17 by 8 feet, so it is a very quick trip from bed to bathroom to wardrobe to door. Always great to have a way to save some time. For those wondering if I have a porthole, the answer is ‘no.’ Though I live in a ‘high rent’ district, between the Food and Beverage Manager and the Cruise Director, my room is the filler between their suites. Still my accommodations are far above most on the crew, so I’m not complaining. The crew mess is below me four decks. However, I enter and transit guest corridors to make my way back into crew areas, so I must generally be in the uniform of the day within ten steps of my room. The Crew Mess is cafeteria style, with a predictable . . . oh so predictable . . . assortment of foods. I normally eat a quick meal of eggs and fruit or cereal, yogurt, and fruit, and ensuring my traveling coffee mug is full to the brim, head down the I-95 to my office. At that time of the morning it is rush hour, resulting in my exchanging greetings with easily a hundred people in this three minute walk.

Remember the Genie’s line from Disney’s Aladdin, “Great cosmic power . . . itty, bitty living space?” The same can be said for the T&D Manager’s office. Thank God for modular furniture, for I’m wondering if a traditional manager’s desk would even fit into the entire room. One does not roll their chair back to sit, but rather rotates the chair 90 degrees to sit and then swivels it into position. The good thing about this office is that almost everything is in reach! The start of the morning is the typical email, to do lists, and paperwork incumbent with any job. Before the beginning of each cruise, I put together a twelve day training schedule, mostly the same with only minor variations, that is offered to the constantly changing crew. Generally once in the morning and once in the afternoon, I head three decks down (yes, below the waterline) to my training room to teach a one to two hour course. The training room is actually very nice, seating 45 in comfortable padded chairs with writing tables attached. We can fit another 15 in folding chairs if needs be. The room is outfitted with high end video and audio which makes presentations quiet easy. Most of my storage of materials is in this room, which is good as it would never fit in my office.

Our team normally breaks for lunch between 12:30pm and 1:00pm. We try to eat together most days, normally after a number of phone calls to determine when we can all get free at the same moment. Two-thirds of the time we eat in the Crew Mess, although in the middle of each cruise we try to break free from our offices to eat either in the Ocean View Café, the guest equivalent of what we have below, or at one of the quick specialty restaurants such as The Porch (panninis in the open air), or Le Bistro (a creperie inside on Deck 5). We return to work in 30-45 minutes, and continue to crunch desk work and handle drop-in requests until mid-afternoon.

A cruise ship’s crew tends to try to respect an international siesta period. The mid afternoon is when the guests’ requirements of us are at their lowest point, so most crew try to take a couple hours off for personal time. For most it is an actual nap. Generally, I will grab a ‘poor man’s mocha’ (mix hot chocolate mix with coffee), take a quick 5-10 minute walk on the top deck (longer if guests want to talk), and then head to my cabin to write, exercise, or take care of personal tasks. By 5:30pm, or so, I change into my evening dress uniform and return to my office to work until dinner.

Occasionally, either around lunch time or at 6pm, I am scheduled to attend a Captain’s Elite reception with our return guests. This requires me to be charming with strangers, which is a stretch, I know. But somehow I pull it off. Planning and preparing for my next day, “day ahead,” and next cruise fills the time until we can grab dinner sometime between 8 and 9pm. Mostly it is at the Ocean View, but every few days we pay the uplift and eat at one of the specialty restaurants. We need to, of course, so we can honestly recommend them to guests . . . and we are sticking to that story. The Tuscan Grille, Italian country fare, is generally our favorite. Qsine, a highly creative, high tech restaurant that you need to experience to appreciate is also very fun. Sometime either before or after dinner, Laura and I do a ‘walk around’ of the primary guest areas making ourselves available for conversation, which seems to be the highlight of many guests’ experience.

Yep, more office work still awaits normally running from 9:30pm until 11pm, or so. Our team tends to start emailing and calling each other as we each get tired, trying to convince the others they should go to bed. It is a brilliant perversion of the old Walton’s ‘good night, John boy.’ Some nights Laura and I have volunteered for some late night guest event such as Dancing With the Stripes or Guest/Officer Slots. If not, we try to drop in on one of the crew events that Dwight schedules almost every night of the cruise.

Crew events rarely start before 11pm. The reason is obvious. If we are taking care of guests, most of us are working until at least that late. So we may poke our heads into a crew wine and cheese, nacho and karaoke night, Latin dance night, etc, etc, etc. Most nights I’m not back into my room until midnight, with just enough time to spin down just a little before collapsing into the gently rocking arms of my bed (we are always at sea at night), so that I can start it all over the next day.

Rinse and repeat . . . seven days a week. About once a cruise, I am learning to use my mid-day break to go into a port for a couple of hours. A welcome break from the routine.

I haven’t mentioned that I’m also the manager of the Crew Laundry . . . but that’s a story for another day. Time for lights out. Turnaround Day in Bayonne, tomorrow. 96 off and 106 on. Very full day.

And the adventure continues . . .