Personal experience: work on a cruise ship

Фото: Depositphotos

“The decision to work on a cruise ship came absolutely spontaneously. I wanted to change the situation, make money and see other countries. ” Belarusian Maria left for seven months to work on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean, returned home and told why life on the ship is, in fact, a prison. Edition Kyky tells how to live without seeing the sun in the portholes, planting fake families and serving people who decided to die on the ship in order not to pay for their funerals.

“You are not a man - you are a figure. Your ID is 502111 »

Absolutely everyone can work on a ship. Even English does not need to be known at a high level - it’s enough to link a few words. Cruise workers are sorely lacking, because they pay little, and they have to work a lot. Two companies are engaged in employment on cruises in Minsk: "Ismira" and TravelGroup. In "Ysmir" I was refused because of the tattoos on my body. AT TravelGroup They took it without any problems, because they knew that tattoos just needed to be covered, and in fact, nobody cares.

For Belarusians, the choice of professions there is small. They offered the work of a photographer, assistant waiter, seller and Floor supervisor. I got a supervisor. Responsibilities included following the stewards (maids in hotels), checking their work, as well as being responsible for every whim of the guests. At the end of the day, be sure to write reports about everything that happened during the day.

The most important thing is to make friends with the stewards, otherwise your work will turn into hell. There are still a lot of different bosses over you, and other bosses over them, each requires a different order and work, although in fact everyone doesn’t care what happens. The main thing - to cover up your own ass. Stewards are mainly Asians, they have been working on this ship for 20 years. And you are a new person for them, especially a girl, so to make your life on the ship unbearable becomes very easy for them. If something happens on the floor or in the guest's room, you will be guilty of this, because you had to follow. A steward always get out.

Фото: Depositphotos

Unfortunately, I got on a ship with the cheapest cruise, which lasted only four days, and its path ran from the port of Canaveral to the Bahamas and back. Therefore, to see the world, except this resort, did not work. I just learned what work on the liner is, I felt on myself what it is, when every day is a reflection of the previous, and tomorrow will be exactly the same. You do not even see the sun for several days, because in your cabin, (however, as in the cabins of all workers) there is no window - at first you wake up and don’t understand whether it is day or night.

My cabin mate told me that many girls slept with officers only in order to wake up in their rooms and see the morning sun in the porthole.

I realized that the ship is a kind of game. Dollhouse. You were placed in an artificial microenvironment and everyone was given their role. You have only two options: either submit to circumstances, lose yourself as a person, or realize that this is all unreal and will end one day. Otherwise you will break down from overload or go crazy. This really happened - workers were sent home due to psychological conditions. It happened that people committed suicide. Here you live at work and work at home - this is your reality for seven months. The ship is a kind of prison, an absolute reservation - you can survive there if you don’t take it all seriously.

Фото: Depositphotos

However, when you get on the ship, for the first couple of weeks you are being hounded by propaganda in the style: “You finally got a normal job, where you are loved and appreciated. They show a motivational video, sing songs about the benefits of working on a cruise. Now it is disgusting to remember all this agitation. And then there will be a training from the category "You must talkOr “how to become an ideal rat”, where you will be told for four hours how important it is to report everything that happens. And half of the new employees will lead.

When you work on a ship, you are not a man - you are a figure. My ID - 502111, from it you can understand what I account for an employee in the company. You have tasks, a schedule has been drawn up for you, you are a number and should follow this. Only your ID is important. Even if you come to medical center, the doctor first looks at the history of your visits by number, and only then asks questions about how you feel. By the way, “getting sick” is one of the ways to get some rest from regular work. An interesting fact is that with a real cold you will not be given time off, but if you come and pretend that you have a GI, that is, an infection of the gastrointestinal tract, you will be given proper attention. They will give a day off and they will even bring food to the cabin. Circus. But what is your name, how old are you, and what feelings do you have - do not care.

The main workers on cruises are people from Asia, Latin America, the Philippines and Eastern Europe. They work on ships of twenty years and more. At first they do it for the sake of money, and then - simply because it turns into an addiction. You see, life on a ship is arranged in such a way that you, apart from work, do not have to worry about anything else. Food, housing - everything is there. You do not need to buy food, pay for transport and rental housing, prepare food. Returning after a long trip home, you look at everything with surprise - even on cars that drive on the roads. Once I asked a very old man why he still works on the liner. After all, he has definitely collected enough money for his life. He replied that the ship was his family. Although there, on land, he has a wife, children, grandchildren, but he sees them only three months a year, he spends the rest of the time on the voyage, and the ship and his crew became his home.

Фото: Depositphotos

Most of the employees on the ship give birth to ship families. Not only because you want sex. There, in principle, it is very difficult to be alone. Your routine is sleep and work. When you have a couple, you spend your leisure time with this person, and he can support you at a difficult moment, and such minutes on the ship occur constantly.

Many real families are aware of the existence of ship families, and the only thing they require from their husbands and wives from a ship is a health certificate.

Ship families have common children, and, for example, the real husband of a woman who works on the ship may not understand that this child is not from him. And many know, and for them it is normal. A real family knows that mom or dad earn big money by providing relatives. They are the main earners, all relatives are grateful to them.

Фото: Depositphotos

Stewards, for example, can earn 40 thousand dollars a year, barmen 50-60 thousand. On cruises, not counting the top echelon (officers and captain of the ship), they get the most. But in order to become a steward you need to go through five years of hell - to work hotel steward - the usual cleaner who scrubs decks, public toilets, corridors. Mostly Indonesians and Filipinos work as stewards - they are very hardy and you can’t stop marveling at how fast they can clean a room, make beds, take out the garbage. After all, after disembarking tourists there are only three hours to clean the ship before receiving new holidaymakers. One steward has approximately 28 numbers to be removed. But the mentality is very strange, it is better for them to die during these two hours, when it is necessary to remove the entire ship between the “shifts”, than to work the whole cruise, thereby facilitating your work when changing tourists.

Ethnic Mafia liner personnel

On the ship the so-called strong paisano businessIn Russian, we will call it the mafia - when workers of each ethnic group unite into clans, thereby supporting “their own”. The most powerful mafias are Filipino, Indonesian, Latin and Hindu. Belarusians can pretend that they do not speak your language, everything in Russian is up to the lantern, Ukrainians and Balkans also try to keep to “theirs”. Watching them hold on to each other is very cool. For example, a newcomer will arrive at the ship, for example, a Serb. During the day, a hundred Serbs, Bosnians would fall down on it - and let him drink, feed, treat him home-made wine with the words: “Here, drink wine, my grandfather, who lives in the mountains, brewed it. We will now tell you everything, show you who to be friends with, and who you shouldn't. ” It really helps to adapt to life on the ship.

Belarusians are cosmopolitan and try to be friends with everyone. Laughing, I say that I had a “roof” in every mafia.

I had access to delicious food, I repaired everything that broke, got the necessary things, such as hair dye, made free places on expensive excursions for guests, and my stewards often worked as barbers, so the issue of a haircut also disappeared.

Food on the ship is not very tasty due to the fact that the cooks on the ship are mostly Hindus. And they prepare for 70 percent of workers - and this is Asians. It is spicy, unusual in our kitchen. If they cooked fish heads, that's all, there is no other fish. Asians have a holiday, the Europeans have grief. Asians eat fish heads, and they are delicious. For them, this is a delicacy. But there is always rice, soups, salad bar, french fries. I, by virtue of my position, had privileges, and I could eat food for guests, which was located on open deсk. And most of these privileges do not. Just imagine, a man plows for nine months, and he has no moral right to go and eat on the open deck. Atrocity. This describes the whole ship life. Creating a system of inequality, suppression and development of the system of squealing.

"For an American to defecate in the pool - the usual thing"

Americans are terrible pigs, frankly. Often, they slander Russians like that, but this is just a stereotype. Americans are terribly full and they have a real food cult. The first questions they ask, stepping on the liner - this is where the food, where the booze, and who to complain. Americans are a sample of this drama queen. They need to create drama from scratch. They are fixated on complaints and compensation - they have a very developed system. Our cruise was one of the cheapest - 300 dollars, and you can pay it all year without interest, on credit.

Фото: Depositphotos

There were people who came to the ship without shoes with a package in their hands. On the ship you pay for the cruise, the cabin and at the end of the trip must pay a premium to the people who served you. Therefore, for any school, the slightest defect, an American will complain and demand monetary reward or gifts. For example, black American women like strong makeup, without washing it away, they go to bed. In the morning, finding traces of cosmetics on a pillow, they immediately begin to complain that no one immediately changed their pillow cases. For them, a cruise ship holiday is manna from heaven. They come off in these four days, as the last time. Eat, drink, swim in the pool. Awful trash.

An American can throw a cocktail or ice cream on the way in the corridor or directly on the deck. 90 percent of guests behave this way. For them to pry or defecate into the pool is a common thing. They do it everywhere. It is called vomit incident. The American will also notify the manager and will require medical assistance. Tons of garbage, tons of grub - all this is recycled into garbage room around the clock, and part is thrown into the sea, and something in the port. Therefore, in America the topic of ecology is strong - how to recycle all this endless garbage, if the system of society is based on consumption.

Some Americans buy cruises to die on the ship. If you die on a cruise itinerary, the company pays for your burial, which is too expensive for an unsecured American.

A lot of people who are literally on the verge of death. In wheelchairs, in oxygen masks. There is a special room with medical equipment for such tourists. It has everything: special chairs, preparations for dialysis, drugs for ventilation of the lungs. Many go from cruise to cruise, hoping to die on the ship. Morgue on the ship, respectively, is available.

Americans are terribly lazy. They rent wheelchairs, scooters, because they are too lazy to move around the ship on their own. They ask if there is a horizontal elevator on the ship! But on the ship there is even a prison for very violent clients. I had a case where my husband severely beat his wife, while smashing the whole room into pieces. I had to twist it and send it in conclusion until the end of the trip. His wife was given a new cabin. And he was billed for the damage.

If the ship starts to sink, the guests will die and the staff will not

Sometimes tourists jump overboard. This may be a suicide or just a drunken trick. Usually jumps end in death. After all, it is the same as jumping from the roof of a nine-story building, plus the ship is moving at high speed. On my cruise this happened. Husband jumped overboard in front of his wife. At four o'clock in the morning the alarm sounded. Announced: man overboard. Strange in this situation that you wake up and first look at your emergency duties. This is such a set of rules and actions in case of a catastrophe. In my emergency duties "in case of real emergency"Included the organization of the work of the crew in the lifeboat passengers with special needs, that is, the disabled, pregnant, drunk and so on. So funny, in the USA drunk is a person with special needs.

Фото: Depositphotos

We all have cards where it is written what you should do for all occasions: a ship is sinking, a fire, a nuclear attack or a sinking passenger. By the way, once a week, regardless of what shift you worked for, you have no free hours or you are called to drillwhere the scenario of personnel behavior in case of a shipwreck is being worked out. The thing is absolutely useless, because everyone understands and knows: if a catastrophe happens and the ship starts to sink, no one will follow these idealistic scenarios, but panic will begin. And no crowd management skills won't save you. An interesting fact is that if the ship really starts to sink, the guests will die and the staff will not, because with a certain degree of heel life boat for guests you can’t let go life raft for cru - easily.

And so your first thought after waking up is not about the fact that somewhere now a man has died, but “I have emergency duties or can I sleep? ”You look at the card -“ oh, it’s not written in me, and I cann’t get out of bed. ”

And then - "stop, are you so wrong, there is a man died!" And run to the deck. The ship begins to make circles, lights turn on, which shine through the water and look for the body, if it is night time of the day. Plus, other ships are connected that help to find the tourist who fell overboard. In the afternoon, helicopters and the coastal service are already connected. The search must go on for 72 hours. But the guests of the ship begin to resent and complain accordingly that they cannot continue their cruise due to the death of some person. I remember one tourist walked past me and said: “If they don’t return my money to me, then I will sue them”. On the death of a person they absolutely do not care. Therefore, responsibility is quickly removed from the ship, and the search is transferred to the coast guard. Unfortunately, the dead are often not found.

Instead of deducing

Ship life - This is a huge cesspool. A little death, a little love - where the service personnel grows into these walls, gets used to the people who push it into this large organism, tourists - drink until they lose consciousness, constantly eat, defecate anywhere, and sometimes die.

But plunging there, especially if you can think and analyze, acquire several invaluable skills. For example, my emotional background has leveled off - after a collapsed ceiling, either two embarkation days a week, to bring me to rage is now very difficult. I stopped condemning. Condemn human choice, human actions, emotions, behaviors. Just by watching, I began to absorb experience and knowledge, it became easier for me to understand people, and my collection of human oddities was replenished. I became easier to tolerate separation and separation from people, with places. Perhaps the friends I acquired for the contract will remain for a long time - I do not guess, time will tell. On the ship, you learn to organize your time. There, if it appears and you scatter it, rather than sending it in the right direction, in five months you can find yourself in a situation of the wildest stress. Recall films on the topic of Groundhog Day. And on the ship, the groundhog day lasts for months.

Read also on ForumDaily:

What you need to know before you go on a cruise

Personal experience: 10 tips for those who are going on a cruise

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