The Cruise Ship came into town today and sat announcing its massive presence.
I’ve never seen a cruise ship up close because I’ve never been on one. On TV commercials they look big but still they are far away. If you stand gazing up into the height of one of these beasts they possess a grandeur that’s hard to define. This particular cruise it’s on it’s second to last stop (in Ketchikan) and the passengers are on tour for 104 days to the tune of $36,000 per passengers! Can you imagine? Well I cannot. I collect the tickets to our day excursion.
Day 4, Saturday May 30:
Morning Four was the hardest to get out of bed. I still wasn’t able to fall asleep before midnight and the office coffee that morning was not as good as what’s served on board. Matters worsened when I sat next to someone smacking gum all morning. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed as much had I not been notified of it’s annoyance by other crew members before I even met the lady. At 8am with crap coffee and rain, it was annoying. We watched cruise ship advertisements on Youtube, “Come Back New” or “Feel Free.” Listening to Jess did reinforce my appreciation for her: very warm, resilient and the right amount of bubbly. Before you know it, I am sitting around a table with Vickie (60-something), Suzanne (70-something) and Jess (with co-dock rep Kristi) learning the lay of the land. As you may imagine, it felt very chatty, slow-paced and belabored. At 12:18 I said “I’m ready for lunch!” and they gave us a 3 hour break until the phone call training at 4! Ask and ye shall find!
I learned the call on the radios: If I’m calling Jess, I would say “Jess Jess Natalie” and she would say “Go ahead Natalie.” If I am using the radio for the dock reps, I say “St. John St. John Dock” (because we, dock reps, are “dock”, and the boat crew is called the name of the boat). So I learned about that. 75 year old Suzanne has been doing this for 9 years so she has it down to a science. I hope I don’t get under her skin with all of my questions, but it all feels detailed and the stakes seem high. That’s my gut check at the moment so it makes it hard to unwind even on days when I’m only working the morning. It’s healthy to have some responsibility, it will all work out.
Day 5, Today:
As it was my first day seeing my responsibilities in action, it was like a deluge of information and rain, both steady and unrelenting but manageable. I think I caught most things but I absorb information slowly like a paper towel on a puddle. I like the whole picture. This training process has reinforced with resounding clarity that I AM a visual learner. The trickle down of information about my job, the company, and crew responsibilities was out of focus for the first three days of training, but now the blur is becoming granular. I finally got to come up for air by being released at 11:45am. We had already been there for 4 hours. I shadowed precious Suzanne collect tickets and radio the boat. We got the green light from the Shore Ex (Shore Excursions Manager). I went through the process of totaling the tickets, getting the signature from Shore Ex (in the POURING RAIN), stamp/faxing said document, scanning to headquarters and filing it away. We updated the board with tomorrow’s departures/returns and prepared our clipboards for that. I will be with Suzanne again tomorrow, and I will be the one collecting tickets! Pressure is on!
THEN I actually get to experience my first Misty Fjords boat tour, and Colleen is the naturalist! Double excitement.
As she says, the sun never sets on a badass.