St. Patrick’s Day, American?
17th March 2012
It’s turn around day again and the cruise we are just finishing has been a great one! We smashed our target by $14,000. We have an overall green streak through our targets, GTP, photo and retail. This usually doesn’t happen. If GTPs (images on CD) are high, photo sales tend to be low and vice versa.
Unfortunately, I missed my folio target by 8. Selling folios was a bit more tricky this cruise as I've been in the lab for a couple of evenings. Although I was pushing, no one was biting. Maybe it just wasn’t my cruise. I’m also going to try and blame having cold-like symptoms for the past couple of days, too!
Ani has been removed from our embarkation team and replaced with Cintia. This is so each embarkation team doesn’t have too many new hires. We've now got an equal amount.
The date meant nothing to me, until I started seeing a sea of green coming flooding towards us. It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Kate and I, lost in our ship bubble, couldn’t believe it was St. Patrick’s Day already. Some of the outfits worn by the guests were classic! Green wings, false ginger beards, flashing four leaf clover antennas and so on.
Kate was originally smudging as I was still feeling ill and my voice was still weak. She soon got bored and wanted to switch. I can do a better smudging job than Kate because of the way we had to smudge on Mariner of the Seas in Europe, where you almost had to force people to get their photo taken. Having said that, she needed to learn how to do the job, whether she liked it or not. How else were you going to learn?
Changing over, I was holding up the line, asking a mental list of question. One girl, who must have been my age, was decked out all in green, glitter and four leaf clovers. She was American, but I know many have a mix of English, Irish and Scottish in them, so I asked “Do you have Irish in you?” “No why?” she replied. “Because St. Patrick’s Day is an Irish holiday.” She looked confused before adding “oh is it? I thought St. Patrick’s Day was American”. Needless to say, I shuffled her off to a studio as quick as possible. Somewhere along the line, the girl has to have Irish in her somewhere after such a comment!
Embarkation, as a whole, went as smoothly as sailing through rough sea on a small dingy! We were plagued
with problems from the start. First off, Kate packed the wrong camera for Inna. Her personal camera is a Nikon D300S which can only be used for Ressi. For embarkation she needs to use someone else’s camera, a Nikon D300 which is compatible with the pentabs we use. For the entire session she shot on her memory card, meaning we didn’t get any card swipes for the kiosk. It’ll make the photos harder, for us and the guests, to find.
Before beginning embarkation, Inna and I posed as a couple in front of Cintia’s backdrop. It's her first embarkation so we needed to show her the cropping, what to do and most importantly, what not to do. Kate was taking the photos of Inna and I, before showing Cindita the cropping we needed and how not to crop off the “2012” on the backdrop.
Getting on my knees I posed as a child. As there is a huge height difference between the child and "2012" on the backdrop, we told Cinita, it’s the only time she can crop it out. She was to zoom in and take the photo of the kid. Kate took a photo as an example. Any questions, we told her to ask either Kate or myself.
Getting on my knees I posed as a child. As there is a huge height difference between the child and "2012" on the backdrop, we told Cinita, it’s the only time she can crop it out. She was to zoom in and take the photo of the kid. Kate took a photo as an example. Any questions, we told her to ask either Kate or myself.
Kate, while she was smudging hurried me along with “Chop, chop, shoot faster”. This aggravated me ever so slightly, as I know for sure that I’m the fastest shooter on this embarkation team. Ressi wise, I’m one of the fastest shooters along with Carolee. Replying, I smiled “now you know how I feel when I’m smudging, holding a huge line!”
When we’d swapped, I got a tap on the back from someone in the terminal. She asked us if we could stop splitting the families (we shoot one family and then one of the children). The queue was backing up too much and another 1,200 guests would be arriving soon. Signalling to Kate, she started snapping family pictures only. Going over to Inna, I told her the same. Confused, she did as she was told. Upon seeing how long the queue was, Inna realized we didn’t have the time to split, If we carried on we’d risk losing a huge chunk of the guests, irritated and tired from travelling and standing in line for so long.
Telling Cintia wasn’t so easy. “Shoot one photo of the family and then move them on.” “Ok, but I have to take a photo of the children too.” “No, one photo of the family. No splitting. The line is too long and we aren’t shooting quick enough for the amount of people coming through”. “OK. So I will just take one photo of the family and no splitting”. Yes! Cintia is a bit of a parrot and always has to repeat what you’ve just told her. Standing by her for two shots, she took one photo of each family before moving on.
Back at the line, I turned around to send another family over to Cintia’s backdrop only to find that she’d gone back to splitting families as soon as I’d left her studio. Going back over again, my patience was wearing thin, in fact, everyone’s was.
“Cintia, what did I say about splitting families?” I wanted to make sure she’d actually understood me and my English accent. “You told me not to split the families and to take only one photo.” “So why are you splitting the families?” She stared at me blankly for a couple of seconds before adding “So you don’t want me to split the families?” “No! Just shoot one photo of the entire family. The queue is too long!” “Okay, then I will do just that. I will only…”
Looking over my shoulder, a huge crowd had got sick and tired of waiting and walked straight through, by passing us and onto the ship. Once one family goes, others follow and it becomes a struggle to get it back into a pattern.
Cutting Cintia off, “Look, less talking, more shooting.” As she began to repeat what I’d just told her, I had to snap again “Just shoot!” before running back to stop the line of people and getting things back under control. I felt rude and disgusted at myself for snapping at Cintia. It's frustrating when a new hire doesn’t do what you ask them to do, or more to the point, what we have to do. Repeating everything you say doesn't help, either.
Back at the line, I turned around to send another family over to Cintia’s backdrop only to find that she’d gone back to splitting families as soon as I’d left her studio. Going back over again, my patience was wearing thin, in fact, everyone’s was.
“Cintia, what did I say about splitting families?” I wanted to make sure she’d actually understood me and my English accent. “You told me not to split the families and to take only one photo.” “So why are you splitting the families?” She stared at me blankly for a couple of seconds before adding “So you don’t want me to split the families?” “No! Just shoot one photo of the entire family. The queue is too long!” “Okay, then I will do just that. I will only…”
Looking over my shoulder, a huge crowd had got sick and tired of waiting and walked straight through, by passing us and onto the ship. Once one family goes, others follow and it becomes a struggle to get it back into a pattern.
Cutting Cintia off, “Look, less talking, more shooting.” As she began to repeat what I’d just told her, I had to snap again “Just shoot!” before running back to stop the line of people and getting things back under control. I felt rude and disgusted at myself for snapping at Cintia. It's frustrating when a new hire doesn’t do what you ask them to do, or more to the point, what we have to do. Repeating everything you say doesn't help, either.
Finishing at 14.30 I got on the laptop and started typing up some blog entries and just unwinding. Still, I felt bad for having to tell Cintia to talk less and shoot more. It was needed. You always have to tell Cintia things three times, as well as her repeating everything back to you three times! Going online, the photos from the Mariner of the Seas days put a smile on my face. They were great times and always a brilliant way to cheer me up!
Before going to Shutters at 18.30, I popped into the lab to get some more embarkation prints. Diva called me over. Sitting down she said she needed me to take control and become the leader on embarkation as I am the most senior photographer. The problem with Inna’s camera shouldn’t have happened but that was Kate’s fault as she packed the embarkation bags, I was told. Diva also said, either Kate or I should have come down to the lab on our break, if either of us had one. It was Kate with a break, so she should have reported it to Diva. If only we had a phone for embarkation in case anything like this happened.
Next came the subject of Cintia. I was asked why we didn’t show her how to crop or shoot embarkation. This nearly knocked me off out of my chair. Explaining, I told her how Inna and I were posing as a couple and then on our knees as children. Kate took the sample photos and showed Cintia the cropping. Later Kate stood in front of the backdrop and told Cintia to take a test photo so she could see her cropping. According to Kate, her cropping was fine.
Looking at the photos, all Cintia’s were terrible. The adults for the most of them were fine. She hadn’t allowed for children though and a few of them had been cropped at the neck!! Some looked like passport style photos, their bodies have been cut off at the upper chest. Plus, a huge amount of her children photos were out of focus and deemed un-displayable. In short, everything was a complete disaster and as the senior photographer within this embarkation team, I was there answering the questions.
Looking at the photos, all Cintia’s were terrible. The adults for the most of them were fine. She hadn’t allowed for children though and a few of them had been cropped at the neck!! Some looked like passport style photos, their bodies have been cut off at the upper chest. Plus, a huge amount of her children photos were out of focus and deemed un-displayable. In short, everything was a complete disaster and as the senior photographer within this embarkation team, I was there answering the questions.
Upstairs in Shutters, Carolee also told me she’d taken Cintia through the embarkation photos in the lab the night before. She should have had a rough idea of how to shoot embarkation based on the samples Carolee showed her. Plus, we took her through it on the actual day. Why were there so many fuck ups?
If she doesn’t understand what someone says, even though her English is brilliant, to say something. Ask. We are sure she understands what we say, but doesn’t actually listen to a word of it. This cruise, another spring break week, had the potential to be a money earner, if such events carry on taking place, then we won’t be hitting target and therefore our wage packets could be one to two hundred dollars short!
If she doesn’t understand what someone says, even though her English is brilliant, to say something. Ask. We are sure she understands what we say, but doesn’t actually listen to a word of it. This cruise, another spring break week, had the potential to be a money earner, if such events carry on taking place, then we won’t be hitting target and therefore our wage packets could be one to two hundred dollars short!
Finishing up in Shutters at 22.30, I went to my cabin to change clothes and grab my memory cards. I wanted to use Photoshop and edit some of my photos for a while.
Last embarkation day, a week ago, I had to change cabins and move out from Cookie’s. It was a sad day leaving Cookie’s cabin as I got on with her like a house on fire. Now my cabin is on Deck 6, a crew cabin stuck on the end of a guest’s corridor. It’s a huge cabin so I’m not complaining!
Last embarkation day, a week ago, I had to change cabins and move out from Cookie’s. It was a sad day leaving Cookie’s cabin as I got on with her like a house on fire. Now my cabin is on Deck 6, a crew cabin stuck on the end of a guest’s corridor. It’s a huge cabin so I’m not complaining!
Opposite my cabin door was a guest sitting on the floor, cuddling a blanket. Walking past, I asked if she was alright. The woman looked out of place. “There’s a funny odour in my room and I can’t sleep. No one’s coming to help me. I can’t sleep in there, I can’t stay in there.” Crying like a kid, cuddling her blanket as if it was a soother, she looked a sad sight sitting on the corridor floor. I didn’t know what to make of it all.
Asking what the cabin smelt like, she told me to go inside. I can’t go into guest cabins, so I opened the door and stuck my head in. It was the air freshener the cabin attendants had used while cleaning and fumigating. Bursting into tears again, the guest wailed that she had a sensitive nose and hasn’t gone for dinner or even unpacked because she can’t go into the cabin. “I nearly fainted when I tried to unpack, the odour is so bad”.
It was a real over reaction. Crying and sitting on the floor wasn’t going to help, that’s for sure. Plus, people were sleeping and I’m sure they didn’t want a crying lady in the corridor keeping them awake. My cabin mate was sleeping too and waking early every morning, I’m sure she didn’t want to be disturbed either.
Asking what the cabin smelt like, she told me to go inside. I can’t go into guest cabins, so I opened the door and stuck my head in. It was the air freshener the cabin attendants had used while cleaning and fumigating. Bursting into tears again, the guest wailed that she had a sensitive nose and hasn’t gone for dinner or even unpacked because she can’t go into the cabin. “I nearly fainted when I tried to unpack, the odour is so bad”.
It was a real over reaction. Crying and sitting on the floor wasn’t going to help, that’s for sure. Plus, people were sleeping and I’m sure they didn’t want a crying lady in the corridor keeping them awake. My cabin mate was sleeping too and waking early every morning, I’m sure she didn’t want to be disturbed either.
Walking down to corridor, I grabbed a cabin attendant and told him. He radioed in to find out what was going on. I walked back to my cabin and got changed for the meeting, leaving the lady sitting on the floor…
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