Guilty

Guilty

10^th February 2012

The last day of the cruise is always chaos. Huge surges of people come running into Shutters to purchase photos and/or reprints. As usual we were trying to get through the lines as quickly as possible and sell as many folios as we could. My target for the cruise is 15 folios. By the end of the night I had surpassed my target with 22 folios. For that, Rama is giving Kate and I two stars. Aren't we lucky girls?

Before on the Mariner of the Seas, you got a signature for good work, good name comments and surpassing your target by a long shot. Here we get stars. My signatures were transferred over to Disney so I’m entitled to a day off. Unfortunately, that day off can’t be in Cozumel because it’s Pirate Night. I’m thinking about having Key West off so I can explore the port more and get plenty of photographs. The star system does make us feel as though we are in pre-school but what the hell? If it gives me a day off, I don’t care!

Towards the end of the night, a huge family I’d sold a GTP package to, came into Shutters to collect their package. I told them the CD would be delivered to their cabin later on during the night. Not a problem. Then the lady asked to take the photos. I was confused, I’d told her the package was for the CD but somewhere along the lines she’d assumed the prints were included, which they aren't. All the photographers got on really well with his particular family. They’d even offered to buy me a beer on the beach of Castaway Cay. Obviously I had to refuse the beer as we cannot socialise with guests. Either way, it made me feel incredibly guilty for not being able to allow them to take the massive stack of photos.

Personally, I don’t think I’d miss-sold the package, but they said that two years ago, on Disney Magic they bought the same package and didn’t get a CD, just all the prints. They’d automatically expected to get all the prints, too. Asking what to do next, Kate came over to help me but Rama, the AMS, had to step in.

In between talking to Rama and calls to Dave the BM, Kate and I had to count through all the photographs and convert them into packages. Twenty five 8x10 photos can be counted as a 50 credit package which costs $298.95 and saves the buyer $200. Calling Dave about the total cost of the packages, it came to $2,400 worth of prints. That’s excluding the 6x8 photos which was neatly piled in a stack next to them. Dave informed Rama to give them one 50 credit package for free bringing the price down to $2,200.

Obviously the guests refused to pay, especially after spending $500 on CD packages. We were extremely lucky that the guests were calm and friendly to us all. Most people would be red in the face and screaming blue murder!

The lady told us how her Dad had been sick recently, in hospital and they originally thought they wouldn’t be attending the cruise to make way for his funeral. As such horrifying events took place, they wanted to get as many photos as possible of the family, as memories of the good times. Having a mom with cancer, I completely understood where they were coming from and felt so guilty because I was the one who sold the package. If I was in their situation and had professional photographers around, I’d be getting photos of the family left, right and centre!

By the end of the night, Dave wouldn’t let the guests walk away with their photos unless they paid $2,200, not even in exchange for the CDs. All they wanted were the prints, sod the CDs. Instead, they’d have to contact Image head office in Miami and arrange something with them. Until then, we are to keep their photos in the back office. 

As Kate pointed out, we should just let them pay an extra couple of hundred dollars, which would be $700 in total, and let them take the prints. After all, they were stumping up serious cash for photos and all we are going to do is burn them.

Sitting down with Kate in the Mess at midnight, we were both feeling down about the entire episode. We were shattered and had to be at immigration tomorrow at 6am. Going back to my cabin, I slumped into bed upset and still feeling guilty.

Normally, I don’t care. Guests are guests, they come and go. Rarely do I find people that I’d actually like to spend time with and whom I see as normal people, rather than just guests. While working on the Mariner of the Seas, I found a way of seeing guests as guests, or a way to make ends meet. It was almost like a defence mechanism. So far, on Disney Magic, I’ve met three families who I generally enjoyed chatting to. The Corley family from last cruise were excellent and I still miss the Little Monsters popping into my studios just to say "hi".

Maybe I need to harden myself up again? Maybe it is just the nature of the beast? But I still can’t help but feel terrible about it as a whole… and there’s nothing I can personally do to make anything right. The family did give me their postal address (scribbled down on a sick-bag) and told me to give them a shout if I’m ever in Ohio. As a nice gesture, I'll send them a postcard. It won’t right any wrongs, but it’s better than nothing, right?

Summer has Arrived!

Summer has Arrived

It’s the 1^st June and the temperatures are certainly rising. 

As I fell asleep at Stu’s I woke up late (no alarm clock or phone). Darting back to my cabin I chucked my uniform on and grabbed my camera before running up to the pool decks on deck 11. I was shooting pool decks and the rock wall (deck 12). 

Later on in the day is the Make a Wish mile long walk which is to raise money for terminally ill children. I wasn’t going to be photographing the Make a Wish walk, Stu would be up later with Fede and do the honours.

At 9.30am there wasn’t a huge amount of people around and those that were there didn’t want their photo taken. The rock wall was different. When you are up on a climbing wall, 20 metres about the deck, you don’t have a lot of choice but to look and have your photo taken. 

By 11am I only had 56 shots which is pure pants, if I’m honest. Fede had just arrived, did a lap around the deck and came back with 4 images. At least I wasn’t the only one having troubles getting people to have their photo taken.

My number one Canadian fan, Daniel, kept walking past, doing a few rounds of the pool deck – strange. Doesn’t that guy ever sit down? He’s always on the go! 

Later on I bumped into Luci in the Staff Mess, she said the Canadian guy had been talking to her and his parents are from Portugal. Therefore speaks fluent Portuguese. She said he was lovely and even though I’m not interested in any way, shape or form, Luci reminded me that there is a zero tolerance policy about relationships between guests and crew. Cheers Luci!

Tonight is the last formal night for this cruise – thank God! We have another sea day after Chania, Crete tomorrow. My day today is completely choca-blocked! Apart from 9.30 to 11.00 at the pool decks I’m working at 14.00-15.30 then again at 16.00 all the way through to 01.00 – no breaks. It’s going to be tough one. Mind you, I’m doing a stint in the gallery first so Paco might let me go for a quick 15 minute break for a drink. Apart from that it’s all systems go!!

**UPDATE**

During the break a few (Zoran, Jeni, Newman, Stu and I) went up to the staff mess for coffee/hot chocolate and cereals. 

Stu asked me about what happened on tour yesterday with the Italian couple, so I repeated the story for the group. No one could believe it! Stu gave me some advice on what to do if it ever happened again. 

Previously, Stu got annoyed with a table in the dining room when a man started raising his voice to him about not wanting his photo taken. He’d said “I’m sorry Sir, but it’s my job to come over and ask whether or not you want your photo taken. If you don’t, just say no thanks and I’ll move on but there’s no need to shout at me and be rude.” He then asked if anyone else on the table wanted their photo taken and one couple did. 

Next time someone is rude I can either call security, tell my BM and explain it’s my job and that I don’t have to take their shit! 

After I told them all about another Italian couple in the Jacuzzi. I called the couple and motioned to them to move closer together. They moved together and just as I put the camera to my eye the lady said, loud enough for me to hear, “fucking photographers”. What can you do? I walked off with my tongue clamped in between my teeth!!! I didn’t trust myself!

While working in the gallery I got a phone call from the office. It was Reuben asking me to go and see him. He called me "Lou" so I knew I wasn’t in trouble for anything I may or may not have done. When I walked in he gave me his hand, shook mine before saying “congratulations you are one step closer to becoming a Photo2” and handed me my checklist. He explained roughly what I’ve got to do which is show Paco and/or Ritesh that I can do everything on the checklist which is 4 pages long!! 

Some questions are ridiculous like how do you insert a memory card into a camera. Others aren’t so straight forward. It’s going to be hard to show Paco or Ritesh that I can do things like smudge or how I work on the gangway when they are never there. Normally they are busy doing something else, even if they are gangway manager, they don’t bother coming out to see what’s going on.

There was one major cock up for the night which got blamed on me. In the morning I was shooting decks and Fede who is the lab assistant took my memory card to print. I had one out of two of my memory cards. Ritesh called me before I opened my studio and said the card was empty and to show him the photos. He even asked “did you even check your photos while shooting?” My reply “No, course not? Why would I check my photos? Of course I checked my photos, I had to keep checking the exposure of the shots, didn’t I?” Sometimes he talks to you as if you are an idiot! It’s not just me either.

Later on, I went into the office to pick up my memory cards to shoot Ressi. Neither were there, Ritesh hadn’t bought them up from the lab. I rang him and he said he only had one of my cards which he was formatting and that I should have the other. I explained that one was from Decks and the other from the Haifa tour from the previous day. He was adamant he didn’t have it. All of a sudden he said “oh, wait. I have the other card here, it was on the (lab) desk”. 

I was late enough as it was for Ressi and couldn't run down to the lab. Ritesh wouldn't bring my card up. Instead he suggested I go into the dining room, find another photographer and see if they have a spare card I could borrow! This of course meant a photographer would be a memory card short for second session in the studios.

Running into Ressi I ran over to Hernan and borrowed a memory card. He asked me not to give it to Ritesh as he has personal photos on the camera. Ritesh always formats the memory cards once he’s done printing so if you have any personal photos on there, they’ll get deleted.

Paco and Reuben came over to me in the gallery afterwards and asked me what had happened and why I wasn’t prepared for ressi. I explained why, and Reuben for once saw my point of view, telling me he’d fix it before walking off.

A little while later Ritesh came over with both my cards and asked for Hernan's, which he wasn’t getting. I’d downloaded all the photos from Ressi to the drop zone for printing so he didn’t need it.

My studio (Moon backdrop) was situated nearby Stu’s LSP. At one point he shouted over to me. He asked if a couple were the Italian’s that were rude to me on tour. It wasn’t. As the couple were walking past LSP, Stu said hello and asked whether they'd like their photo taken. The guy had done the exact same thing the other Italian did while I was on tour, sticking his fingers up at him.

Stu walked over to me and just one look at him, you could see he was highly pissed off! He reminded me that if anyone does it to me, to not take any shit (but be polite) and if needs be, call security. With a quick arm around the shoulder hug, he disappeared back to his studio. Previously he was fuming when I told him what had happened on tour, now he was just being protective and reminding me what I had to do.

Normally this sort of thing doesn’t happen to Stu. His height is intimidating enough (6’7) so people tend to do what he asks. I guess being a guy helps too – not that you find many 6’7 females! With me and Jeni, the two shortest, we tend to get a lot more shit. Jeni gets away with a bit more as English isn’t her first language. For me, it always seems a little harder.

Other than that incident, the night went well. I closed my studio before everyone else on Reuben’s request and started breaking down. By the time everyone was finished shooting I joined them in breaking down their studios. It speeded up the process. 

We also had to move everything down from the store room on Deck 4 onto Deck 3 – Captain’s orders. The store room on Deck 3 is far too small for all our studio equipment so it’s going to make set up and break down much harder and time consuming. 

There were too many of us aimless milling around the store room as we couldn’t get close to pass things to Stu who was inside the store room. Because of that, Hernan and I headed up to the Promenade Café kitchen to grab the pizzas and sandwiches. 

By the time we were finished it was 1.30am. A few of us headed up to SOB for a drink… we needed to wind down. Nowadays we are too tired to go to SOB so it made a nice change, even if we were knackered.

Do You Speak English?

Do you speak English?

20^th May 2011

It’s the night I love to hate… formal night! The only good thing about the night is that it does tend to go quickly – if all goes well.

Tonight I wasn’t supposed to be shooting in the dining room. We are trying to keep a studio open for the last minute arrivers who want their portrait taken just as we are going into Ressi. Luci was signed off sick and I’ve been feeling rough all day. I think I’m starting to catch whatever she has. I was to take Luci’s place in the dining room and shoot her section.

My first two stints in the studio were shooting the Titanic backdrop which went pretty well. Again, I wasn’t exactly the fastest but the quality of my work is getting much stronger. At the moment I’d prefer quality over quantity. When the quality is up to standards I’ll concentrate more on getting my shoots up to speed.

Even though they are effectively my bread and butter, a handful of Americans are starting to get on my nerves. Some are a great laugh and I enjoy speaking to them but last night took the biscuit. A group of Americans were standing behind me, watching and talking to me in between shoots, fine. Not a problem. There were a few couples who apparently couldn’t understand my accent or phrases. For example, I asked one couple to stand side by side and link arms. So the stood in front of each other and muddled their arms up into some weird entanglement that didn’t look human. More Mr. Tickle spaghetti arms that anything else. The American guy I’d been speaking to came forward when he saw I was getting frustrated and said “Guy, look” and he held out his arm for me and we linked arms. Two seconds and the couple I was photographing were in position. The lady, however, was amazed “oooh, you mean link arms. I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” What do you say to that? Clean your ears out love? They blamed it on my English accent – I’m talking “properly” and formally. I’m sure they hear my accent and decide they don’t understand. It’s either that, or they don’t listen. I even do actions but they still don’t get the idea. I don’t know what to do, I’m going to have to talk to Stuart for some help.

Later on I had another American couple who really upset me. More than I ever thought possible. I was posing them, speaking loudly and clearly as well as doing the actions. The man looked totally bewildered and disgusted! It was like I was asking him to put his wife into some sordid erotic position that's illegal in most countries!! He looked at me and loudly, over pronouncing every word “I’m sorry but I just don’t understand you”. He then looked at his wife and asked “Does she speak English?” then up at me again and asked, somewhat frustrated yet amazed, the same question. Do I speak English? That was it! Gritting my teeth, I walked over to the guy and and plastered a massive smile on my face and overly cheerful told him “Of course I speak English and on top of that my English comes from the Mother Land - England”. Not only did he understand perfectly but his face dropped like a tonne of bricks!! Picture perfect. Now that was a real Kodak Moment! It’s no wonder he wasn’t smiling in any of the photos. 

I didn’t necessarily mean to be rude or more to the point sarcastic but I was rapidly losing my temper over people who were just refusing to listen or being ignorant. Last night it was like they were pushing and pushing until I got to my limit. I have no problem understanding the Americans, Scottish, Irish, Australians and people who speak English as a second language and they don’t have a problem understanding me. It’s just the Americans. Why?

There are three lovely Australian girls on the cruise. While Stu and I were breaking down LSP one of the girls came over to speak to Stu. She said “I don’t know if you have a girlfriend but could I give you my email address please?” She told me before that she really liked him and asked if he’d go to Dragon’s Lair (the ship's night club) with her on the last night of the cruise to party. I was hiding my face, getting on with breaking down and trying not to let out a giggle. The poor guy didn’t have the heart to say anything along the lines of girlfriends and simply muttered “yeah, sure” and took her email address. Once she’d walked away, Stu came over and told me what happened, I was in fits of giggles ribbing him “Awww Stu, you’ve got an Aussie fan.” “Wow, you’d better keep in touch with your Aussie girlfriend – email daily so you don’t let her down”. Watching him go all embarrassed mixed with utter confusion only made me laugh more. Jeni joined us; we told her what had happened and she joined me making jokes. If Stu was the type the blush, he’d have been as red as a lobster with sunburn!!!

Later when all work was done I retold the "Do You Speak English?" story to everyone including my BM. Every single one of the team burst out laughing. Reuben went bright red in the face. I never thought it was possible to see an Indian go red - it only made me crease up more. 

Stu had to give his opinion on the matter and said even he finds it hard to understand me sometimes especially when I speak “my English” which is when I don’t speak “properly”. If I speak to an English member of the crew from Kent/London and go ten to the dozen, he doesn’t understand. That again, annoyed the hell out me. There were my chances of asking for his help out the window. A few things were said and I gave up speaking properly and reverted to “my English” and what did I get back? Afrikaans from Stu and David. Before losing my temper I walked out the office. 

Not long after, Stu called me back because my pentab had been left in the office. Hernan had been the last to use it and hadn’t bothered packing away my equipment. My temper was reaching boiling point. Stu took my case off me and opened it to pack everything away "properly". He saw the radio slave still attached to the camera and told me not to do it. Another Stu lecture. Again, I pointed out I hadn’t been the last to use it. Turns out the antenna was bent and could have been completely put out of use. This made me fly into one. My temper had reached boiling point! Rather than say anything in English I said all I had to say in Spanish, they didn’t understand but they knew I wasn’t a happy bunny. Reuben told me not to worry as I wasn’t the last person to use the equipment (we are responsible for our own equipment but have to let other people use it if they are shooting in our studio – go figure!)

Later on Stu knocked on my cabin. Now it was his turn to be pissed off. He’s made a bit of a cock up that could cost him his job but a few things had been said about his shooting. Stu is by far the best at thinking outside the box. Or, as he puts it “thinking outside the box that the box is in”. He’s the best shooter on LSP and comes up with the best poses featuring a number of different props including people perching on upside down chairs – sounds strange but the results are great! 

The mangers reckon he’s getting slack and maybe the compliments he gets are just them being nice. What the hell?! His cock up was trying to help a crew member and get some money in for Image, for our team. The lad had a huge amount of images to print but had forgotten his crew card. Stu just punched the lad’s name into the computer but got the surname wrong so he refunded the money. According to Stuart, he was going to wait until the next time when the lad came to pick up his photos with his crew card and then charge him. Rueben had spotted it on the system and pulled Stu up about it. Even though Stu came clean and apologise Reuben wasn’t happy. 

There was a joke made to Stu about him losing his job which obviously didn’t go down to well. Stu always takes his job seriously and does the best he possible can. For someone to say that to him, it was far from a joke. There was no way Stu would have seen the funny side of it all. Stu hung about speaking to me for a bit but he was really down which isn’t like him at all. It worried me a bit. Soon Stu was out the cabin and searching for the crewmember to get his Crew ID. I was to call Stu the next morning for the Crew ID code and make the charge. At least that way it’d get done straight away, first thing in the morning. Until then, I hope Stu doesn’t let it get him down too much. I know it will though.