The Master’s Quarterly

March 14, 2012

First let me ensure that you don’t make the same mistake my limited naval vocabulary led me to. There is a difference between a Master’s Hearing and the Master’s Quarterly. A Master’s Hearing is a bad thing . . . a very bad thing. If you have committed a major infraction or have a long list of minor ones it is possible that you will be called before the Captain, the ultimate authority on the ship. Nobody wants a Master’s Hearing. If it doesn’t go well, and at that point it usually doesn’t, you will be soon walking down the gangway for the very last time.

A Master’s Quarterly, on the other hand, should be considered a good thing. Once a quarter the ‘Master,’ the official title for the Captain (think of the movie “Master and Commander”), holds a meeting with the entire ship. Okay, it is never the entire ship as we still need to serve our guests, but we hope to get 70-80% of the crew in attendance. It is not a long meeting, ideally a half an hour, but it is a chance for the Captain to address his crew about important ship business and to thank them for their service. It is held in the Silhouette Theater, as that is the one venue large enough on our ship for the entire crew. So, it must be informative, engaging, and with a reason for the crew to attend other than simply compliance. With this captain and this crew, that is not a problem.

If Dimitrios Kafetzis was not a ship’s captain, I think he would probably be a Vegas performer. When he addresses the guests he does so with a wry sense of humor and charming demeanor. He likes to put on a show. So that was put to good use as he entered the theater that day. There was no simple introduction with the Captain striding to the stage. Not with Captain Kafetzis.

As the music began to swell and we recognized the James Bond theme smoke began to rise from the trap door in the center of the stage that was opening.Moments later a vision appeared to rise above the fog. On either side were ‘Bond girls,’ actually two of our female security guards in dark glasses, and in the middle was the man himself, arms folded with all the machismo he could bring, our Master and Commander. The crew roared its appreciation appreciating the note of fun with which we began. As the Captain bid adieu to his escorts and strode to the microphone a video began to play on the giant screen behind the stage of crew members giving their filmed responses to what it means to bring the STAR Service philosophy to our guests. Some were serious, some cute, and some quite sweet, but the funniest part was the ‘outtakes’ at the end as those interviewed fumbled and stumbled or vamped for the camera. The energy was certainly high.

Yet, we needed to get down to business. The Captain needed to give a talk as we entered into Spring Break season on how to protect yourself and the ship from serious accusations of sexual assault. Something of which I have only recently become aware is there are some disreputable people who will come on cruise ships and try to seduce crew members so that they can then claim sexual assault and collect a large settlement from the company. This is a critical topic to cover clearly and well and I had been asked to draft the presentation for the Captain, as each word must be exact. Our Captain, of course, needed to put his own spin on it which had me holding my breath for the next ten minutes. At the end of the day he got the message across although I felt kinship with Toby and Sam from the West Wing television series. (If you don’t know the series, you will just have to watch a season and figure it out.)

After that serious topic he continued by thanking the crew for our great ratings and the amazing job that was done when USPH came on board to review our Turnaround Barrier cleaning when we were fighting the norovirus. We were told by them that we should be the standard by which all other cruise ships are judged and that was a major kudo for the crew. To complete the crew rewards we then conducted a raffle for both a free laptop and an $800 airline ticket credit, communications and travel being the two most important needs on board ship. (In case you are wondering I personally created the 1232 strips of paper that were put into that raffle box.)

And just that quickly this key event in ships life for which we had been planning for two weeks was over. But the entire crew had seen and laughed with their Captain and left the theater ‘feeling the love.’ It had been a full day for Laura and me as I had started the day with an Ethics training class followed by the aforementioned Boat Drill. But our day wasn't even beginning to slow down.

And the adventure continues . . .