Don't You Care?

April 15, 2012

Having worked in ‘corporate’ offices before, I know the feeling that divisions often project toward them. As a result I try to be understanding when Corporate makes what I consider an unreasonable request. But this one really annoyed me.

There is a wonderful program on all Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruise ships called Care Team Associates. These are specially trained crew members who are tasked with assisting a guest or crew member who faces a serious crisis while at sea. For those of you who have worked in care ministries on shore, think of Stephen Ministries offered at many churches. I quickly became a trained Care Associate and have offered both sections of the two part certification training onboard Silhouette. We currently have a dozen crew members so trained.

So I was more than a little annoyed when I received an email from the program coordinator shoreside that said he would be coming onboard ship in our last St. Maarten in order to train all associates in the CARE #2 module. First, I felt this was unnecessary as all associates were already trained. Second, while he said that a ship our size should have 20 trained associates; I felt that a dozen were sufficient, especially since we hadn’t been called upon to serve in my almost four months onboard. Finally, though, he was asking to do the training during our last port visit to St. Maarten, one of the favorite crew places to go ashore. So not only did I view this as unnecessary, it was a damned sight inconvenient.

With Tim’s permission, I pushed back on his email, telling him we did not need the training and it was bad timing for our crew getting ready to cross to Europe. I thought I made my case beautifully but he responded as if he hadn’t read it. He would be coming and it would be in St. Maarten. I was ticked. I looped back one more time but received the same unwavering answer. Now, I was beyond annoyed. I felt that this was a corporate ‘boondoggle’ to have someone stay in beautiful St. Maarten for a week and spend two hours on each ship as we rotated through. Yet, each time I replied he seemed to respond with even more conviction despite my impassioned pleas. With no options, I informed the 12 crew members of our anticipated guest and their required attendance.

The response was swift and predictable. All but four of the crew members requested dispensation so that they wouldn’t have to attend. Didn’t I realize, they reasoned, that they were already trained and, after all, this was their last St. Maarten???? Of course I understood, but now it was time to call in personal favors. I asked each of them, as a favor to me, to please show up at this training and defer their trip ashore by two hours.

I met our trainer at the gangway and while polite was still not enthralled with his presence. However, employing the mantra of ‘fake it till you make it,’ I determined to be an excellent host. We proceeded to SKY B where coffee and pastries were set out for our training. (The art of bribery by food is as alive and well at sea as it is on shore.) The training got off to a slow start, but as it continued I was impressed with our presenter and found a few nuggets in place that would benefit even our previously trained team. The two hours passed reasonably quickly and definitely added value. Despite my desire to head ashore after dismissing my crew, I offered to have lunch with our guest before he left the ship.

That’s when he told me how annoyed he was getting with me during our emails for the push back I was providing. He understood completely my points but was receiving even greater pressure from his management to ensure the training took place. As I felt caught in the middle between him and my crew, he felt in the same position between his management and me. We laughed recognizing that we each were simply playing the role assigned to each of us in the grander scheme of things. Neither one of us were the bad guy, we just both had conflicting objectives we needed to fulfill. As I walked him back down the gangway I felt I had made a valuable new associate.

And I still had time to make it into St. Maarten. But that’s a story for another day.

And the adventure continues . . .