Almost Home

I haven’t written in months…I’m pretty sure. I guess I got distracted. My blog no longer became a priority.

I leave my second ship in three weeks. I cant believe its already time to go.

A lot’s happened to me this contract. I learned more, when I thought I had this ship thing figured out. I thought I had me figured out. I thought I had life figured out, or at least was gaining some ground on how to go about things. I’ve found that there is no consistent…or pattern….or certain way to go about things. The same situation can happen and you can do every step the same to try to avoid anything bad from happening, you take the same steps….everything goes wrong, and turns out drastically different.

There is no “one way.”

This contract I have been extremely happy and extremely miserable. I hated my job one day, than loved what I did for a living the next. I hated when I had a shitty manager, I hated how things piled up on me. But I was happy to get to do all these fun tours. I was happy that I had fun friendships. Its all been up and down. I hated how everything work wise changed week to week.

You have to learn how to adapt….and quickly. I think that’s the one thing that really got drilled into my head.

Ship life sucks sometimes…But I always said to myself, “It could be worse.”
Even with everyone’s mood swings, drunken whores, giant egos, tedious policies, and the hundreds of hours that gets spent working hard on a product that no one really wants to buy. (something is obviously going wrong)

I got a comment on my last blog about “oh your life is so bad cause you work in the Caribbean,” Obviously you sense the sarcasm. The comment was definitely warranted. My first instinct was to get upset when I saw that. I than quickly thought….”hey, dude’s right. My life is not that bad.” I know this. Yeah my job got harder with the whole wedding policy. I guess when a big change comes the idea of change is harder to accept, than the thing that actually is changing. Doing the weddings isn’t that much of a hassle. Us videographers were just pissed that a big change came our way…again.

I thought working on ships would expand who I was, or open my mind a lil more. Yes, I get to work around people from different countries, and I get to meet people from the Caribbean, and see and do things I never would have had I not had this job. I am extremely grateful for that. I really am. I feel like I’m becoming a worse person from ships though. Drinking, smoking, lying, partying, gossiping, over eating, back stabbing, tempers, laziness, and stepping on or sleeping with whoever you can to get promoted are all things I don’t want to indulge myself in. I feel like that’s all ship life is about.

I notice more than I did my last contract. Like for example, favors don’t happen unless you happen to be from the same country, or sexual orientation. How much you have to stroke the egos of these people with such high ranks is insane. I also noticed most people on ships…if they’ve been doing nothing but ships straight out of college or high school, they do not know how to efficiently manage people(no effective managerial training on princess), or get the best work out of the people that work under them. They use threats, yelling, insulting first before anything…most of the time. When you encounter a good manager, thank them. I miss my one senior Marek. I really appreciate him. My one manager now is great, Chris from my last ship was also very good. Those types that are sharp, no BS, no chip on the shoulder, and know how to treat you professionally when things go wrong and keep the personal stuff aside, they are hard to come by, just be grateful if you are working for someone you have respect for.

There were some great things that happened this contract. Some very bad. Like my last contract there were the laughs and the tears as always. Love and hate.

My next contract …..(sigh) I don’t know. I just don’t know. My rebellious attitude got me into a bit of a tiff once again. But this time my senior decided to truly screw me as much a possible, all the way to head office. It doesn’t look like I’ll be senior, or promoted to VDO3. Its okay though. Nothing I can do about it. All I can do is learn from all of this. I just hate all the unfair shit that goes down on ships. Certain people just get away with any and everything. And that will never change. I know that some of you will say “well the same thing happens on land jobs” of course they do, but ships…the best example I have is that its like a reeeeeeally small town, and there is no way out once shit goes wrong. You’re just fucked.

There is so much more I could write, but I feel like the more I write the more all of this stupid ship stuff doesn’t matter. I’m going home to my family soon. I have someone I’m madly in love with, and I have a career plan in action. I can say this was an experience, and learned a few more things this time around, but there are things that matter to me more than this ship life. Ship life isn’t all I have. In fact it is a very small part of my life. I can say that very happily.

Until next time. Or not. But I will be starting my own Photography business, in the process now actually, so this wont be the last of my online blogging. I will have my website up soon enough. I just hope I don’t have to blog about the ship life that leaves me so torn.

Wish me luck. :-)

-Amber