A very long story...
Door: Linda
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Linda
16 Juli 2015 | Nederland, Almere-Buiten
Oops, I just realized I haven’t written you guys a story since May…
So get ready for this one, because a lot has happened between then and today!!
So those two weeks with Isabel went pretty well. When people told me about her the first time, I thought we were going to have a pretty hard time with her, but in the end she was really nice and very easy to work with. Even with this high water situation everything went well. Fortunately the second week she was with us, everything went back to normal.
Then after her two weeks we had Jerome for two weeks. He was the only CRD out of our list that I have worked with before, in France last year and he is really nice.
The first weekend he came to our ship was when we were in Amsterdam, at the end of May. I was really glad we were finally able to make it back to Amsterdam, because I had invited my grandma and my dad to come to the ship on Sunday May 24th and I can’t keep her waiting of course!
The ship is always docked near the Central Station, so to walk from there to the ship is about 10 minutes. I knew they were going to be there around noon, kept one eye on the door of course, but just when I turned around to ask Jerome a question, there they were!
My dad had brought me some stuff from home, books and some workout clothes, which I brought to my room first.
Then we had some coffee in the Lounge, the Chef came to get it fo us. When I had told him that my grandma was coming, he wanted to make her/us something special for lunch. So my grandma, my dad and me were having salmon with mashed potatoes and spinach for lunch that afternoon! She loved it and the Chef too, because salmon is her favorite!
Then I gave my grandma a tour through the ship, I showed her the back lounge, the restaurant, fitness and my room. I introduced her to some of the crewmembers we came across and she tried to speak to them in English, hating the fact that she didn’t know how and that she didn’t understand them when they spoke to her. But they all loved her, because people keep asking me when she’s going to come and see me again!!
She had a great time!! Now that she has seen where I work and who I work with, everything I tell her is more real. She really proud!
Meanwhile I’m on the ship for about 3 months, almost 4 already and I’m trying to work with very different people.
My roommate Terez, is the Housekeeper on the ship and she has been working for Avalon for 9 years already. So she has some experience also with different Hotelmanagers. She’s kind of warned me already that you can’t say everything to them, because they will use it against you someday.
Now she keeps her distance from most people, including me, but fortunately I’m pretty good at making her laugh and she does tell me things. So maybe she’s not that distand after all.
Anyway, the way I work with Detlef, our HM, is in my eyes a good working relationship. I know I may be a little naïve at times, hoping that everyone still has some good in themselves. But then again, why do I have to assume the worst of everyone? It is hard work and I think it takes a lot of energy. Ok, yes this probably means that I someone will take this for granted some day, but I’ll know it when that happens.
So after Terez’s warning I talked about it with Detlef and I told him that I hope we have an open working relationship, where if I do something wrong he’ll tell me to my face, instead of me having to find that out from someone else. In other words, that I hope we can be honest with eachother and he feels the same way. I’m glad I cleared that up, I didn’t feel very happy about Terez’s warning, although I understand after she told me some of her experiences with other HM’s.
Then all of a sudden we got a message from our HQ that there was a new rule in France, that foreigners couldn’t work in France for longer than 3 months…which meant that for our ships we had to move some people around, because we have 4 ships in France at the moment.
I really don’t understand where this is coming from, last year we didn’t have anything like this, everyone worked on that ship the entire season. Ok yes the French authorities did come on the ship to check if we really only worked 6 days a week instead of 7…but that was it.
What wasn’t clear was wether it was only for people from Asia or also from Europe, but we have had some people from Asia as well as Europe transferred to France and back. We thought that it would take all of June to change people around and that we would get more people, but so far it was only a couple of people. We have no idea what will happen or when and who is going to be transferred next. Very frustrating and I think it really sucks! We’ve had to tell some people that they couldn’t buy a ticket for their vacation, because they were going to be transferred, but they never told us when or where to. It is July now and we still don’t know!
Anyway, we’ve had some pretty different people on the ship. Either very nice ones, like this old lady who came onto the ship with her husband and he was the only one going on all the excursions…which I thought was weird! Ok, she walked with a cane and she wasn’t very fast, but still. So one time she was in her cabin, when another ship docked right next to us, the so-called double docking, and she called me to complain about it. Not really complain, but she wanted to let me know she wasn’t happy with it. I completely understand, because I don’t like it either! Later that evening she walked by the desk and apologized to me for giving me an earful about that other ship…she felt genuinely bad about it, but I told her it was nothing, I’ve had people giving me a real earful, so no harm done.
And then you have people who first tell you everything is ok and next thing you know he’s coming to the desk to ask you or tell you something every day! This guy was really weird, his wife came to the desk to ask me about having laundry done, wether or not things would get ironed…
I told her that the laundry paper has two separate columns to fill out, you either want things to be washed and pressed or pressed only. So when you’re sending something to the laundry you really don’t want to have pressed, just write it on the paper.
Next day the husband comes to double check…because he thought it was weird that he had to pay the same amount for things he only wanted to have pressed and he wanted to make sure that the laundry lady wasn’t going to press his underwear and socks…HUH?? Ok, so how many of you every iron their underwear and socks??? Anyway, Terez came by the desk after he talked to me about it, so I send her over to him, so he could tell her also.
Then the next day I heard that he didn’t have to pay his laundry bill, because he had complained about his tv not working all week…which to my knowledge he had never told me about it before, but the HM told him he didn’t have to pay for it as compensation. Lucky guy!’
And guess what?? When this couple was gone, we were missing the hairdryer in that room…..Some people!!
And so far most if not all of the cruises I’ve had people on board that were on the Creativity with me last year!! Really, deja-vu almost every week!
So every two weeks we get a new cruise director and at the beginning of June we got Nancy back. She was with us for the Christening Cruise, which was about 8 weeks before. In that time she was working at home and on another ship.
When she was with us for the Christening Cruise she was very chaotic, which we thought was because for all of us that cruise wasn’t as normal cruises. Turned out that she was just a chaotic person, no matter what cruise she’s working on!!
So that first week with her was just ….unbelievable!! Really, we’ve had a fair number of cruise directors before her and none of them was any trouble to us or we to them at all, it was always very nice to work with these people.
For instance, we have our receivers color coded, so people know which guide they have to follow for their excursions. The colored dot on the receivers matches the colored ribbon on the boxes they are in.
Then for some reason, she wanted to have an Active group, a gentle walkers group and 2 normal walkers group. Then she took some receivers out of the red box and put them in the green box, without changing the dots on the receivers. But for her that wasn’t a problem, people would just have to look at the color of the box…..
That was a complete disaster! No one understood the Active group, everyone took a receiver from the normal walkers group and they were all wondering why there were red receivers in the green box… so we had to explain to everyone the active group and Nancy told everyone to just look at the color of the box, she didn’t know why those colored dots were on the receivers.
I’m sorry, but that pissed me off no end!!! Right in front of all the guests she was basically saying that the confusion was our fault. So that evening I suggested to take the dots of all the receivers, so people would really just have to look at the color of the box…o no, that wasn’t necessary at all, no the dots on the receivers was a great system…Really??
The week after that I decided to just let it go, to just let her do her thing and I would do mine. And it worked, no more drama. We had some pretty good discussions, she even told me to go and work for an American company called American Tours International, to become a local guide Nancy said I was more American then she was and that I definitely have to work for them. (she said they would arrange a visa and a place to stay, so I’m definitely going to apply!)
Then she made me a business proposition. When she had written her daily newsletter or any other paper that had to go to the rooms, she would ask me to read it first and I would take out the mistakes. One day she gave me something to read and when I gave it back, she was surprised to see that I had found so many mistakes, it was a paper she had used before, but no one had told her about the mistakes before…
Because of that she told me that she had to write some articles for Avalon and she would pay me to edit those articles for her. She wanted to have that done by the end of the week, because she would not come back as CRD with us anymore.
I bugged her about those articles every day and she didn’t give me anything. Then on the day she was leaving us, she gave me 20 euro’s telling me that she had to send me the articles that weekend, because it was due for printing that Monday!
All that happened that next week, I never got those articles. Then a week later I send her an email to ask her about it. I had given her my private email address and I thought that maybe she had already send me something that I didn’t get. And I wanted to give her back her money, I mean I love to get some extra money, but I didn’t do anything to earn it yet.
The next day I got an email that she still needed my help and that the deadline had been moved to the 3rd of July….a week had already gone by when she told me this. So I kept a look out for an email from her, but nothing came. Then on the 4th f July my vacation started, last time I checked my email was on Sunday the 5th in the morning…it wasn’t until last Friday in the evening that I found out she had finally send me something to read…on Sunday the 5th in the afternoon…
So I have read and edited the articles, so far I haven’t gotten a response, but I hope it was alright. If it was too late to get to the printers, then that wasn’t my fault.
So we’ve had 2 long weeks with her! In the end it was ok, she told me she was a diabetic and she had a hard time keeping it under control, which is what caused me to just let it go, because this is what caused those mood swings. And in the end she was just tired of this job and she wanted to go home and do something else.
Then the last 2 weeks before my vacation started we got Erik-Jan as CRD, he was a Dutch guy. Very intimidating person and to be honest I was scared of working with this guy. So I told my HM that I needed help in dealing with him, when people are dominating I tend to not be able to say anything, feel very small.
But that morning of his first week with us, he came in and started demanding things already. Of course my HM was nowhere to be found, until he was already gone. Nancy told me to not let him get the better of me, she saw what happened.
That afternoon he came back to check the microphone and when he came in he apologized to me for that morning. He tends to be short with people when he’s in a hurry. Which gave me the opportunity to tell him that if this was the way we were going to start our two weeks of working together, they would be very long indeed….and after that things got back to normal!
Yes he was a pain in the ass with wanting things done his way, but on the other hand he also had some good suggestions and things that made sense. I was able to make fun of him a couple of times and it all went pretty well…
Until the Tuesday of his last week with us. We were sailing to Mannheim to pick up the guests who went on the Heidelberg excursion with us.
Erik and I were working and talking about different things, when all of a sudden he was wondering how I got to be Senior after only one season and ended up on this ship, this schedule. So I told him I just did a good job last year and I was supposed to go to the South of France, but that didn’t happen, don’t know why.
Then he told me that he thought I was my HM’s partner….so I told him I was single and didn’t need a relationship with a HM to get a Senior position. He said he thought I was his partner based on the way he introduced me as being the strong woman behind a strong man…which I am, because he needs my help in doing his job too.
Anyway, I wasn’t very happy with his assumption, if he thought about it this way, then other people might think the same thing. Turned out that there was already a rumor going on about us on another ship. But I don’t care, the way I work with my HM is my business, we have the same type of humor and we almost think alike. So I want to be myself as much as I can, if anyone wants to know the truth they just have to ask me about it!
The next day we were having a meeting with all heads of Department and Erik asked us if he could join us. At the end we always have a questions and answers session and the HM asked Erik if he had something to say as well. When he started saying that he didn’t know about the relationships between crew members, I already knew what he was going to say and yes, he actually mentioned that he didn’t know until the day before that I was not the HM’s partner…that he had gotten that impression from the way he introduced me...he really had to say that in front of the Maitre and the Chef…
Asshole!! If looks could kill, he would have been dead on the spot!!
When we went back to our desks he asked me if I was angry, in Dutch, so no one would understand what he said. The day before we were joking about how I could finally get rid of him at the end of the week and kick him off the ship. When he asked me if I was angry, I told him he definitely deserved that kick in the ass!!!! He said he thought the HM needed to know about it, so I told him that I would have liked to talk to him about it myself. That he understood and then he apologized, but man, I was ready to kill him!!
So like I said I have to be able to deal with a lot of different people!!
But relief was due to come in the form of a much deserved two week vacation, which is for another story!!
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