Today I’m in St. Thomas, and as is usual on the Serenade, there are no other ships in port (on Explorer we were usually in port with at least 1-2 other ships). St. Thomas without 10K+ cruise ship passengers is a very quiet place, with long lines of taxis hoping for passengers when there are a limited number to go around.
Just 6 more days for me on Serenade of the Seas, need to start packing again soon. It’s been a great (albeit short) time on Serenade for me. I have had my own cabin so far (although probably my replacement will join me tomorrow in San Juan until I leave in St. Maarten), the stage staff team is quite good, and I actually ended up with a light tech I can work quite well with in the theatre (to help me work towards my long-desired promotion to a light tech position). Light techs are an interesting breed, there are many of them who will not provide opportunities for others because they feel it is a very specialized profession and nobody else should be allowed in. Over my time with Royal Caribbean, I haven’t encountered many of those (thank goodness) but I did have some trouble getting some of them to trust me doing lighting-related work, or sometimes appearing disdainful towards me when I came to a solution to a problem faster than they did. The fact is, I know I have the knowledge to excel in lighting, but the process of proving myself to others in the field gets very tedious in the cruise ship industry when people change places so regularly. As I said, the light tech on Serenade (Eric) has been great about giving me opportunities to use my skills and knowledge and seems to respect my opinion. Hopefully on Voyager I can find a similar person to work with.
It has also been tough proving myself even as a stage staff. We have to adapt to the ways of whatever ship we are assigned to and on top of that, we can be assigned to either the theatre or studio B. In addition, Production Managers have shorter contracts than other production staff such as myself and therefore we have to adapt quite a bit to suit each manager’s style. Unfortunately, some of them don’t realize this gap in working styles where we may need a bit of time and instruction to catch up, and therefore when we make a simple mistake, according to their preferences, they start talking down to us like we are working in theatre for the first time. It isn’t that I don’t KNOW what my job is, or HOW to do it. The biggest problem seems to be the way I express what I know or the way I do what I know how to do. Even very minor differences in work processes can make a big difference to some people, and this can lead to some big problems if we aren’t on top of changes at all times.
I don’t mean to sounds like I hate my job, because I do enjoy my work, there are just some obstacles along the way. On the positive side, I am going to be in Europe for a while which will be a great change from being in the Caribbean for 8 months. Also, a different ship means different people and you never know what you are going to get. I am hoping for the best and I have heard for the most part that Voyager’s black shirts (tech team) are great. At the very least, I know I’ll be going back to Studio B which means I’ll get slightly better work hours and fewer late nights.
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