Out of Action

Out of Action

19^th April 2012

It’s the start of something new today. Unloading the guests from the ship and ending our seven day Western and Eastern Caribbean cruises, we embarked on a semi-new itinerary. Disney Magic is now into the five and four night Bahamian cruises. I say “semi-new” itinerary, as we’ll still be docking at Key West and Castaway Cay (obviously). The only new port we’ll be docking in is Nassau, in the Bahamas. Our first cruise is planned as: Port Canaveral, Key West, Sea Day, Nassau and Castaway Cay.

Maryna was transferred at the last minute to Disney Wonder. In many ways, Ani and I are incredibly jealous. Although the photographers on Disney Wonder will work the same amount as us and, as we’ve heard, earn less, the itinerary is amazing. It was the ship I was supposed to be assigned to before plans changed and I was signing on to Disney Magic.

Disney Wonder didn’t do the same route for long so Maryna could be seeing many, many ports and cities. I say “could” because Maryna hardly ever gets off the ship, which is a bit of a needle in the side for most of us.

When we arrive in New York, we’ll have long Port Canaveral days for guests to visit the Walt Disney Parks. Maryna wasn’t interested in going to any of the parks or NASA station. Instead, she was over the moon at the prospect of being able to sleep more than three hours. Asked why she doesn’t want to do anything, her response was “I don’t like these ports and I just want to sleep. What’s wrong with that?” It seemed a waste.

Although Maryna’s leaving was fairly good news, we all had our fingers crossed for a faster, more experienced photographer to replace her. Those prayers came crashing down when we were informed we were getting a new hire from Macedonia called Toni. “Not another one” went through the experienced photographer’s heads. Kate, Carolee, Ani and I were left to drag along a lazy team and now train a new hire while doing five day cruises.

The things we say may seem harsh and unfair but, we do have reason for it. The longer the cruises, the more spread out and slower paced things are. The shorter the cruise, the less time off and things are faster paced. Imagine, you have set up scheduled to take one hour. It can easily be done in thirty to forty-five minutes, if everyone pulls their weight. If only a few pull their weight and you have a new hires who doesn’t know what they are doing or slow movers, it’ll take over an hour. Every minute that goes over that hour set up is part of your break. When you only get the odd hour here and there for a break, each minute becomes very precious!

Getting off the ship as quickly as my stumpy legs would take me, I was off to meet Lee and Zoran from Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas. I thought I was late and cursing myself for not wiping down (removing photos from the last cruise) faster than I did. Lee jumped on the shuttle bus, a relief as he was just as late as I was. Happy days! Looking behind Lee, Zoran wasn’t there.

I always give Lee a massive hug every time I see him. Probably because on ships, you never know what’s going to happen. I might not see him again next week, or the week after and so on. Although the world of ships is small, it’s also very large. It turns out Zoran had to work this morning on embarkation, as the day off was given to someone else. It’s always sad to know you’re so close to a friend you once worked with, yet so far away that you can’t ever seem to get a chance to see them!

There were a few things that we both needed to do, so our first stop was Walmart. Lee nipped into the hairdressers for a trim. Before leaving he told me “I’m a real poof about getting my hair done - I’ll be about an hour”. Typical Lee!

Lee, strangely enough, had asked me to pick up a tub of Vaseline for Chet. Chet is one of the photographers I went to Miami training with and is now on his second contract on board Monarch of the Seas. Why did Chet need Vaseline? I’m not going to say… but you can make your own assumptions!

Lee soon caught up with me, walking around the shops. “Excuse me Miss… have you seen a blonde, very sarcastic English girl, about this high (waist height apparently)?” Again, typical Lee. I missed working with and being around people like Lee. Finishing off the shopping, we jumped in a cab to the Mall.

I had a massive envelope on me, which needed to be sent to the parents in Uruguay. It wasn’t much, mainly photos from the trip which Mom always enjoys seeing. As she’s up and down with the chemotherapy, I thought it’d cheer her up a bit. One word of warning though: Never EVER mail anything from the European Corner. It’ll cost you a freaking arm, leg and a couple of toes! My knees went weak when the guy told me it’d cost $20 to send an envelope full of paper from Florida to Punta del Este! Being so eager to get the things in the post for my mom, I paid it and walked out quickly, in case I changed my mind.

Non-Mess food was on the top of our list of things to do. Leaving the Mall, we set out to the best place to eat in Port Canaveral – Hooters! Don’t sneer. The food is decent, reasonably priced and great service, especially from a man’s point of view!

Hooters food was the first “proper” meal I’d had in days. The Mess food has made me feel ill a couple of times and the stench as you walk inside makes mine and many other’s stomach turn. Someone even retched the other day. It’s a putrid smell of rotting food and drains that sometimes lingers in the air or at times, punches you in the face as soon as you walk in.

Sitting back, we talked about everything. Lee’s one of these people that you can talk non-stop to (not that I need a helping hand in that department) but our weird and wonderful conversations just flow. As I have on many occasions, I asked Lee for some advice on the new hires. Not all of them are “new hires” but they act like it.

Three of the Photog 2’s don’t know how to set up a backdrop correctly, one even collapsed on Pirate Night. Imagine if someone had been standing there, having their photo taken. It could have killed a child and done an adult serious damage. Lee pointed the finger at management - they needed to step in. He wasn’t wrong, but management weren’t stepping in. It was left to the more experienced photographers to step in and do something about it. It weighed us down and in reality, we were waiting for an accident to happen.

Lee joked about some of the new hires he has meet recently, describing them as “dense as Forrest Gump” and he wasn’t wrong. There seems to be a lack of common sense or will power to work and learn with the latest recruits. Image Photo Services are now recruiting heavily throughout the Eastern European countries and have halted completely in the Philippines. Apparently, it’s too expensive to fly Filipinos to ships. What baffled me more about the decision is that the Filipinos are the ones who work like their lives depend on it and stick around the longest. The money we earn in their country will enable them to live like kings. For the rest of us in Europe, we’ll live like tramps, the money won’t go far. So far, out of all the Eastern Europeans I’ve worked with, only three have been the hard working, fun loving type, Ani, Bjanka and Zoran.

Sadly, it was time for us to go back to our ships. It’s always a bum note saying bye to Lee, even if I will probably see him next week in Port Canaveral. I smiled at the thought that Monarch of the Seas, a very fast paced ship, doing three and four day cruises had just received a new hire. I’d requested to be transferred to the ship. Instead of getting a nearly photog 3, they got a new hire instead. While speaking to Lee, I don’t think Csaba even sent the transfer request. Ship life is shit life, as we say.

Back on board the Disney Magic, I was in an upbeat mood after seeing Lee. Lee, if you’re reading this, don’t think you’re special or anything and get big headed! Changing into my day uniform, I headed into the lab to sort out the stores.

Eventually we found our two pallets containing sixty boxes of rolls of darkroom/printing paper. Surrounding them were numerous pallets and huge boxes with bright pink paper attached to them “Do Not Touch. Do Not Move Without Permission From Staff Captain”.

Speaking to Mike, we had to just get on with the job and pass the boxes over to the next person and get stores done any way possible. Cintia and Inna were looking at the mountain of paper in agog. Grabbing the scissors and ripping the plastic film off, I proceeded to pass boxes over to them. It was frustrating. Yes, it was a heavy job but it could have been done relatively quicker than we did it.

How many new hires does it take to push a trolley of paper to the lab? Two. I’d pulled off a box, turned around to pass it to Inna to find no one was behind me. Looking around I saw Cintia pushing the trolley and Inna walking along beside her, almost trying to guide her. A sorry sight indeed.

Towards the end of the boxes my wrist was starting to ache. I’m not surprised after the amount we’d been lifting, passing over our heads or climbing onto stacks of pallets to reach more boxes.

“Excuse me?” I turned around. It was one of the Filipinos in a yellow jump suit.
“Is that heavy?” he asked, motioning to the box I was half holding, half resting against the “Do Not Touch” boxes.
“A little bit, why?” I replied. I thought he was coming over to help for a split second.
“Do you know how much the stuff inside these boxes is worth?” he asked, pointing to the “Do Not Touch” boxes.
My good mood slipped and along came the sarcasm “I don’t know what’s even in the boxes, so of course, I don’t know the value”.
“It’s fire fighting equipment and each pallet costs around $200,000”. Staring at the man, I was far from impressed about being told the value of “Do Not Touch” pallets.
“Good to know then” I smiled before rolling my eyes and continuing what I was doing.
He wasn’t finished there though “So don’t touch the boxes okay?”. He had his smug smile on his face that irritated the hell out of me!
“Would you like to help us shift this load then? It’ll make sure we don’t touch your valuable boxes.”
"No, no” he laughed and waltzed off.

Ten minutes after the job was complete, my wrist was not only aching but swollen like a balloon. It’d clicked and ached during stores but now, it was getting much worst. Giving in, I went to Csaba and asked to go to the medical. My right wrist had been playing for up weeks now. Every time I shot Ressi or portraits I had to have my wrist strapped up in a support. Now, it looked like things had progressed and worsened. Why!?

Medical said that my wrist was spraining and gave me a brace to wear. Unfortunately, I was signed off as “unfit for duty” for twelve hours. Although it would be nice to have a rest, I didn’t like the idea of not working when there were things to be done.

Back in the lab, I passed on my medical papers to Csaba who wasn’t impressed but pleased that I’d still be able to shoot at the Princesses Gathering tomorrow morning.

I met the new hire Toni, a Macedonian. Toni said he’s worked with children before, taking portraits at his local nursery and as a photojournalist. He also boasted about being the best new hire in his training group.
 Something told me that things weren’t going to get easier. At the same time I tried to tell myself not to judge people so early, even though you start to get a good idea as to what someone will be like by their first impressions.

Bumping into Ani and Carolee, I asked for their opinions, they sadly, felt the same as I did. Lee’s Forrest Gump comment came to mind. I hoped and wished upon a star, Disney Style that this wouldn’t be another one of those cases. Only time would tell.