Working in Alaska.
Imagine me in galoshes gripping a coffee cup steaming up to my rose-colored cheeks against a backdrop of blue sky and whales breaking the surface of the Pacific ocean to greet me. I smile as tourists walk by and give them directives on where to find the best cup of coffee, when their cruise ship will depart the next day, and where to spot the William Seward totem pole in historic Totem Row.
In reality:
It’s pouring rain as I dodge construction to find the office, greet my coworker whose 30 years my senior, and try to help her customize excel spreadsheets. The house I woke in is eerie: no baseboards or outlet covers on any switches, low lighting and not enough lamps, maybe they just moved in before they left for their trip. It’s cold in every room except where I sleep, which has a strange sectional wall heater I switch on around 9pm. The bathroom has heat lamps which I’m grateful for. The couches are all empty, even when I’m there. I think there are ghosts here (friendly ghosts who like low-lighting). I’m in this quiet home in this quiet town except for the cascade of rain arriving in sheets and the sound of the mail car speeding up and slowing down every day to make its deposits.
At the office, I sit down with a stream-of-consciousness talker we’ll call Mabel. She brings her dog in the office, Honey, whose leash runs from one side of the desk, under my chair and to Honey’s collar who sits to my right as Mabel unravels every thought she’s ever had related to the task ahead of us. What task you ask? Honestly, I’m not sure. I know I assist her with the cruises that come in about 20 days out of the summer. But beyond that, I am in the dark as she flashes sheet before sheet in front of me and talks about them while scratching notes on each of them and I don’t know what applies to me and what applies to last summer and what applies to the rental car company who we meet when we have more guests than room in the company van (I think). Honey the Dog is the antidote to Mabel: She is young but she sits still and only speaks as necessary.
Mabel starts with: “I’m not very good with computers but I did figure out mail merge this year- do you know mail merge- I would not have been able to do that last year because everything was too crazy but now I’ve learned that so we will be on that. Do you know Resco? It’s the software we use to gather the information about the passengers. I don’t know what Resco means. The cruise ships send us this information and it is always changing so you have to go back and check. Go to Destination “Disk File” and I don’t know why it is that way but it is.
Mabel continues: “Southbound means it is coming to us always and Northbound meaning it’s leaving us always. That doesn’t make sense to me because we are at the bottom edge of Alaska, where could they be going after us- perhaps Vancouver. The forms are in Word and Excel format and there are probably 12 different forms, detailing details like what hotel and how much luggage and there are details that aren’t written, like “This hotel will pick them up,” “This one won’t” “This company has Carol, Peggy or Sam picking up, all of which are great but occasionally they get people who have no idea what’s going on. But usually they are good.”
“This form here is The Yellow Lines Form” (because it has yellow lines). “We will give them their orange free ferry ride tickets that they lost, but they’ve never lost them before. They should rip off the blue luggage tags and keep the other half. Group 2 ONLY gets the blue tags. The captain should know that, it took him all Summer to figure it out last year. Sometimes the name of the passengers will be their legal name, not what they go by. Sometimes they get really mad and I say “Oh what is it?” with a smile, I don’t apologize profusely I say sorry once that’s all you get. Amanda was really good last year. Now of course I’m bold so if I only have 4 of the 6 passengers I am to pick up then I will go around and ask ‘Smiths, are you the Smiths?’ because the ferry runs every half hour but don’t wait around for an hour.” ‘Pax’ stands for passengers, I gathered.
In the midst of this information shower that mightily resembled javascript, my mind left this discussion and traveled to the Arctic Bar. Charismatic Colleen with the company couple Danielle and Matt and Colleen’s brilliant and shy girlfriend, Julie, they are all Naturalists. Do you know what Naturalists do? They are the leading ladies, the spokesmen, the MVPs of each crew. They introduce the tourists to Alaska with personality and panache and wait for it, they get tips.
I spent 2.5 years as a shadow of a person making coffee for rich people and transferring their phone calls. I booked their travel, sat in the frigid front room with no one to talk to but the candy bowl and waved at the middle-aged suits who walked by for their semi-hourly bathroom, nay, “bio breaks” (office speak). And I left that job to travel Europe, moved home temporarily for my sisters wedding, and paid an arm, a leg and the rest of my body parts to move to Alaska to sort the luggage of rich people and stare at their travel details on excel spreadsheets. The “Naturalists” look pretty and point out whales for enchanted tourists with big pockets. Not only that, but I will be cleaning toilets on our vessels.
SONUVABITCH. I’VE BEEN DEMOTED.
I walked to my loner truck, drove home in the rain and ate Safeway brand strawberry cake.