Two more weeks to go

Thursday October 15th 2015
Well, a lot of things happen last Friday, but I didn’t get that phonecall from Limassol!
I was at the library at 5 after 12pm already, to make sure I was off of the ship, so no one would know. Writing and waiting. I was there until 2:30pm and I never got a call.
But the afternoon was well spend, because my aunt and uncle from Diemen came to visit me! We met at the library to have some coffee first, to catch up on life and afterwards I gave them a tour of the ship. We had a lot of fun, it was good to see them again!
That evening I send an email to Limassol to check and see wether I got the date and the time wrong. I got an answer that it had been a crazy day for them, they would call me on Monday…
Ok, so Saturday rolled around, busy day as usual with one group saying goodbye and a new group coming in the afternoon.
That day Christian let me punch in all the numbers from the last cruise in his cashbook as part of the HM training. While I was doing that, he casually told me that he was leaving the next Saturday! I thought he was joking at first, but no he was serious. In the 2 months that he has been with us, he has had a couple of run-ins with the Chef. The last time that happened he had some corporates come to the ship to talk about that. But all that came out of that was a pat on the head of all of them and that he should let the Chef go his own way….which he really did not appreciate. Chef is an ex-boxing champion with a dubious past so to speak and when he gets angry, he really does get angry. So I understand Christian when he says he doesn’t want to have anything to do with that anymore.
But I didn’t really like it, I can tell you that! With only 3 weeks to go till the end of the season, we get another Hotel Manager, our 3rd!
On Sunday the 11th of October my dad and my grandma came to see me on the ship in Amsterdam again! My dad told me that my grandma had said she could hear me laughing outside when she came up to the door! She could have been right, I was laughing at our crd, he was getting ready for a cold cruise, he was already wearing his gloves!
Anyway, we had some coffee first, caught up on everything that had happened. Chef had made me and my grandma some salmon for lunch and my dad got a steak. It was soo funny! My grandma always says that she doesn’t really eats all that much, but this afternoon, boy o boy!! First she had the salmon with fries and spinach, then she said she was still hungry, so I got her some dessert. That didn’t really fill up, so I gave her a bowl of soup and some bread. Then Chef came up to ask us if we were alright or if we would like some dessert…guess what grandma said?! Of course, so we all got some dessert!! Haha
Christian really liked my grandma, he even came up to sit with her and tell her about what a beautiful, smart grandchild she had! She told him that she knew and that she was very proud…blush, blush, blush…
Unfortunately we were leaving early again to go to Cologne, so they couldn’t stay that long. But it was very good to see them again and to introduce them to Christian!!
Anyway, even though I wasn’t all too happy with Christian leaving, he was still here for another week, so we were making the most of that. He showed me some more things I for my HM training, so that was good.
Of course he hadn’t told anyone else about this yet, asked me also not to do so. Then our dear Anna from HR called the ship to ask me if I knew wether or not she needed to order a uniform for the new HM. I told her I didn’t know, but from what I understood he wasn’t new to the company, so I don’t understand why she asked me in the first place. Anyway, half an hour later she calls again about this and she gets Csilla on the phone, because I was on a break. Of course she didn’t know anything about this and asked me all about it….
That’s when I asked Christian to tell everyone and give them a better reason then “for personal reasons” without getting into details. It would be better than last time, where I was the one telling everyone for personal reasons, which no one believed!
In the end no one from HR called me that Monday. Then Tuesday I saw that they had send me an email on my private address to ask me when would be a good time to call me that day. It was 11:30am when I saw that message, I can’t check my email all day long, but I answered them right away that they could call me in about an hour, because that would be my break. I was in my cabin, but didn’t have a good reception on my cell phone. So I came up to Christian’s office again….where I waited until 1:30 pm…and didn’t get a call….again!!!!
Meanwhile it is Thursday now and I still haven’t heard anything from them. No phone call or email asking me when they could call me or set another date, so for me they can just keep their job…Christian told me that I should work there to organize things, but the way they are handling things, there is no organizing that anymore!!! I don’t feel like cleaning up that mess!
Sunday October 25th 2015
Sorry, a little jump through time so to speak, but I haven’t felt like writing a lot the last couple of days.
So the last week that Christian was here, he showed me some stuff I would need to know as HM, which was good. Then another Saturday rolled around. That morning the new HM came, he handed everything over, said his goodbyes and around 11:30am he was on his way home. Before he left he said he was going to miss me, likewise, but I told him he would soon get enough of me after reading my stories about Australia!! He asked me if they were really bad, but that’s not the case, they just tend to become long….as you all very well know! He gave me a big hug and thanked me for everything and then it was over as they say….
Well, our new HM is Zsolt from Hungary, álso from Hungary half the crew is from Hungary, I’m surrounded by Hungarians now!!
He never really let anyone know that he was here. We just saw a suitcase standing outside, thinking it was from one of our guests and they had forgotten it!! But no, it was his and instead of coming in and saying hi, he went up to the wheelhouse to see the captain first.
I was counting the tip money for the crew and what we usually do is take out 1 euro each for breakage, you know cups and plates and that sort of things break every now and then. Every month there’s a check and then the service team and the utility guys have to pay for it. Which in our eyes wasn’t fair, because there’s more people handling it. But according to this HM we were not allowed to do that, people had discussed this long and hard and here we were changing what they had come up with, which wasn’t right…so for this last cruise it was ok, but all other cruises with him I couldn’t take it out anymore….
So that’s how we started with this guy…and it only got worse! Christian had already told me that I had been doing jobs that a HM would have to do, but he never specifically told me which jobs they were, basically he let me work the way I had been working before he came. Not this one!!! No the first couple of days all I heard was that he was going to do it, because it was a Hotel Managers duty! It was unbelievable, I had been working like this for almost 8 months and all of a sudden, things were taken out of my hands!
He told me he would do all of those things, otherwise they would be wondering at the office if he was still doing his job. He had been doing it this way all the time, so why would he change his style…so I told him that this meant I had to change my style and he just laughed at that.
Besides this he is one of those irritating assholes who talk through you when you are trying to explain something. It started when we were talking about the rating of Christian’s last cruise, a cruise he hadn’t been working on yet, didn’t know anything about. I wanted to explain to him a certain point that came up and he just talked right through me, didn’t even listen. Then I was trying to explain to him how we were doing our crewshow and again, it was like talking to a wall. Then he started talking to our Housekeeper who told him, what I had tried to tell him before. I told him that with the other HM’s I alternated in hosting the show, they would do it one week, I would do it the next week. But no, I couldn’t do it with this HM, he was going to do the hosting, because he had lots of jokes and otherwise people wouldn’t know who he was….
Fine it that’s the way you want it. He asked me if I was in any of the skits, well, no, if I’m not doing the hosting you can just go to…..!!! He can do the hosting every week, it gives me a night off. He also wanted to start earlier, at 9pm instead of 9:15pm. The first night he did it, Terez was back in the room around 9:30pm already! She said they were done, sang the song and everything!! So the whole show didn’t last longer than half an hour…..
The best thing of all was that the next day on Thursday, the CRD had his disembarkation talk, in which he also thanked the HM and he also told everyone that he was the guy hosting and joking in the crew show the night before. Later that evening I was talking to the Crd when the HM came to him and asked him if he wanted to participate in our farewell parade that evening. So the Crd told him that he would rather not do that, that he had already thanked him in his talk and told everyone he was the one hosting the show “otherwise people wouldn’t know who he was” because he wasn’t wearing his uniform or his nametag. The HM was very happy with this and thanked him kindly. Meanwhile I was laughing my ass off, wasn’t the whole point of him doing to crew show the fact that people wouldn’t know who he was if he wasn’t doing it and now the Crd felt the need to explain it to everyone!!! hahaha
Anyway, meanwhile it is hard to believe we only have 2 more weeks to go, I would rather jump on a train to go home right now, with the way things are going at the moment!!
I did confront the HM and told him that I wasn’t happy with the fact that he seemed to think I have been doing it all on my own, without approval from the previous HM’s, I made it clear to him that that was definitely not the case. And with the fact that I didn’t like it when he talked while I was still in the middle of explaining something to him. Don’t know if he is going to do anything with this information, but it was off of my chest, so that was good.
Meanwhile I have really had it with this guy! He is so afraid of his good name it is unbelievable!! Terez asked him if he could send an email to HR to ask them when we would have the days of the kick off meeting in February paid out. They had told us about it, but we haven’t seen anything of it yet and she just wanted to make sure to remind them about it. He told her he couldn’t send that question, because it would look bad for him if he asked it. So he wanted to send it in her name. I don’t know how he wrote the email, but they had asked him who had asked him to send it and he of course immediately told them she asked them…It is a perfectly normal question, according to him we should see it on our salary slips, but so far there is no information about this on it. But no, what would they think of him for asking this question, unbelievable!!!
This morning we had another thing with him…Every week we hand out questionnaires for the ratings. In it there’s a line that says: “number of questionnaires received” in which we count how many we have actually had returned to us. But according to this idiot, we should count how many people actually filled out the questionnaires….Ok, his English is better than mine (yeah right!!) and he said he was smarter than the corporates, so he knew better!!!! Fine, we’ll leave it open for him to count them all and fill it out!
I have been able to flee earlier and run to the library. I had some time to write, read and eat. But there was no internet, so I didn’t get that much done. And we were leaving earlier again, so I had to be back on time!
Monday October 26th 2015
Today…I have really had it with this guy!!!! If it weren’t for my sense of loyalty and responsibility I would have packed up by bag and left already!!
Around 11am we always have crew lunch, usually an hour before the guests have their lunch. Csilla and I are usually both behind the desk at that time, so I asked the HM if he could hold the fort for a minute so we could grab a quick bite for lunch. He just went off about how if we were both here we had to take care of it ourselves, he would only cover the desk in an emergency. As if this asshole was soo very busy that he couldn’t take over for a minute!
So Csilla went down first and I went down when she came back up. I went straight to the cabin after that to blow off some steam! Terez was there and I asked her where the best place would be to hide a body, she told me the laundry so I told her to get ready, because I was about to kill someone!
I told her what had happened and then she offered to sit behind the desk until I came back…someone who doesn’t even work in my department!
So when I came back upstairs he proceeded to tell us that he wasn’t going to do our jobs, just as he was not going to ask us to do his job for him, right behind the desk so everyone could see. I told him that the only reason we ask this is, because by the time the second person goes downstairs there usually isn’t any more food left, plus you’re eating by yourself, because everyone is done already. I told him that I was glad our previous HM’s were “collaborative” enough to help us out with this, he said that had nothing to do with it…..
The good part is that the week before on Friday it was very busy all of a sudden around the time that we were having our crew dinner. And in no way did I get any help from this guy to be able to go down and eat!! He actually said that he didn’t want to sit behind the desk, because he wouldn’t know how to answer the questions from the guests!!! So I had to go and have dinner outside….So I don’t have to expect any help from him!
And this is what they call a Hotel Manager, a leader?????
It really is unbelievable, it is going to be a very, very long two weeks, I can tell you that!! I’m trying not to get upset by this, he’s not worth the energy. So I just say good morning and talk to him when he asks me a direct question, no more than that or I will go nuts!
Last night I send an email to HR to let them know that I am no longer interested in the HR Travel Coordinator job. The last email they send me was on the 13th of October to ask me when would be a good time to call me that day and I never heard anything, nor did I get an answer to that email.
I understand completely that they are very busy at the moment, it is the end of the season, they have to arrange the transfers for all the crew to go home. But it would have been nice to at least get some message on the progress of things, beside a phone call doesn’t have to take that long.
I wished them all the best and thanked them for the conversations we did have.
And surprise, surprise I already got an answer the next day! They thanked me for my email and respected my decision. But in fact they had tried to call me 2 times, once there was no answer and the second time my phone was off…which means he’s putting the blame on me. Anyway, it was BS, because I never got any messages on my phone that I had missed a call, if I would’ve gotten that, I would’ve called them back. Unbelievable this company!
It’s sad really, they could’ve contacted me on the ship, like that did in the beginning or they could’ve answered my email, but they never did and I don’t like to work for a company who treats people that way.
Anyway, it’s time to look around me again and keep my options open! I will definitely take my resume to Australia!!!!

Love
Linda