Hap Working The World

The ship I work on is 6 stars. The company believes we offer more than 5 stars due to the great importance we give to offering a personalised service; a great example of this is that all team members are expected to learn the 132 passengers names.

But to me, 6 star service has a different meaning. Basically 6 stars just takes something that is in theory and practice very simple and makes it extremely complicated and difficult. For example let’s take serving a bowl of soup, in theory you go to the table, place the soup in front of the guest. With 6 stars, a bowl is not sufficient to eat soup, the bowl requires 3 additional plates for the soup to be placed on, I kid you not, the soup bowl is placed on a saucer, the saucer is placed on a slightly wider under liner plate, and the under liner plate is placed on a slightly wider show plate! God help you if you forget a plate!

Another example, we have sugar bowls that contain sachets of white and brown sugar and three other kinds of sweetener sachets etc. Don’t for a minute think you just refill the sugar containers when they are getting low on sachets. After a 10 minute meeting and checking of each sugar container we were reprimanded for not following guidelines. The guidelines stipulate that all containers will be filled with 16 white, 15 brown and 6 each of the sweetener (The above is an example of how not to refill the sugar container). But my question is, “what do we do when stores are running low on brown sugar as they currently are? Do we go with a 18, 13, 6 , 6 ,6 formation? Is there a contingency plan? EMERGENCY!

Ahhh, 6 star service, don’t think that washing and drying the cutlery, plates, glasses, bowls etc is sufficient. For the 132 guests, EVERYTHING that is placed on the table has to be individually polished, for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner! And dinner consists of multiple courses; appetizer, intermezzo (soup, salad, pasta), sorbet (like the soup drama above this requires 3 plates), main course, cheese, dessert and tea and coffee – that’s a lot of polishing!

One of my nemisis’s when I started in the 6 star service game was the serving of bread. You don’t just place the bread basket in the middle of the table for the guests to help themselves, oh no that would be way too practical and easy. Instead we squeeze the bread into a tightly folded napkin which sits in a basket. Then very smoothly and elegantly using a spoon and knife with one hand like a claw, you pick up the bread roll that the guest has chosen and place it on their plate. My first couple of weeks doing this was an absolute nightmare. I had the elegance and finesses of a drunken Mongolian butcher whose missing an opposable thumb! I had guests awkwardly sitting there waiting as I fumbled to try and pick up the rolls as if they were ice cubes. Guests would kindly say “how about I just get that”, and I come back with my get out of jail free card “looks like my fingers are still frozen from the polar plunge” and then an awkward haha, smile smile smile.

Before starting the job I thought I would get annoyed by the passengers, but I would have to say the passengers on the most part have been great, they are the part of the job that I love. We get two types of passengers, the passengers that are down to earth and are on a once and life time dream vacation to Antarctica and the most of every opportunity, and other guests that are on just another cruise and expect 6 star service, and fair enough as they have paid for it.

The worst guest experience I had, well not really the worst, but more comical, I felt embarrassed for the gentleman at how anal and childish he was. He came up to the desert buffet and asked me “where’s the creme brulee?”, “My apologies sir, it has been very popular today, we currently don’t have any but if you like I can ask the chef if we can get some more for you”, “what do you mean there isn’t any, they should of made more, it’s not good enough, I’m not moving until I get some!”, with this statement and the mannerisms of a stereotypical extroverted gay man (he was not gay, but this totally sums up his character) he crossed his arms and turns his head away with his nose in the air and stood his ground – I kid you not! After 5-10 minutes of him standing there like a spoiled 5 year old the crème brulee arrived, he rudely snatched it out of the runners hands and turned on his heels, nose in the air and victoriously marches off – ohhh what I would of done to slip some laxatives in there!

So folks, to wrap this up, 6 star service is where you take something that is simple and make it complicated!

6 star assistant waiter starring Hap as Mark Cameron!

With this job it feels as though I’m acting. There is no Hap, there is only Mark.

At times I look in the mirror and think I’m going to take off the clean shaven short haired Mark mask and see dreadlocked bearded Hap looking back at me. Here’s the photos of the before and after shots some of you were wanting – enjoy your laugh Barnz.

When I see photos of my former self I get pangs of jealousy and remember back to what it felt like to look as though I could enter a R16 movie and not be denied entry. But in reality, when I was in Ushuaia looking for work, I would have done anything to be where I am now. If a cruise ship had of been looking for a transsexual belly dancer I would have got the chop and signed up for belly dancing lessons, it was that simple. Let’s face it, I did get the chop, the dreadlocks went and that to me shows I would have done anything.

Not only have I had a physical make over, but I have also had a verbal make over. These days I am like one of those futuristic terminator like robots that has been programmed to save the world, the only difference is that I’m programmed to give 6 star service. Gone are the days of hey bro, G’day mate, hows it going. I automatically greet people with Good Morning Sir could I offer you any assistance? And whatever they say I reply with “Certainly. My pleasure”. Check out the verbal protocol below that we have to follow – Lets just say it took me a while to reprogramme my “How ya doing” and “yeah, no worries”.

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My current job has many similarities to when I worked on the oil and gas rigs in Canada. The only difference is that the four lettered F and C words (mother I did not use these words, only my co-workers) have been replaced with Yes sir, no sir and the carrying of pipes, hammering, painting, cleaning equipment have been replaced with carrying trays of food and polishing glasses.

OK folks…………oppps, I’m not allowed to say folks, it’s against verbal protocol, lets try that again. OK ladies and gentlemen, it’s show time, the lunch buffet stage is calling, until next time.

video

Howdy folks,

Well after my last post I wrote, I actually got off the ship, I finished work at 2am and decided to get off the ship for a couple of hours before 6am, and I’m actually off again now as got 1pm to 3pm off to catch some sleep but I opted once again to get some land time in.

But before I get into my posts about my job and my lifestyle, which may come across negative, I just want you all to know how lucky I feel and that I would have this no other way.

Above is a video (not too sure if the sound came through when I uploaded it) I just remembered I had of my first Antartic landing, my victory speech if you will. The video and all the photos in this post are kindly taken by Richard Sidey (pictured below), check out his website for some amazing photos www.richardsidey.com or his blog www.sichonice.com.

I still can’t believe how much luck I had on my side getting this job, obviously I put a lot of effort, persistance, went all out, dedicated my life to getting to Antarctica. But the more people I talk to onboard, the luckier I realise that I’m actually here. I remember when I was back in Paraguay and decided to go to Ushuaia to “try” and find work, I said I had a 5% chance of actually getting work, and from what I hear that was probably a generous guess. As you all know I literally exhausted every option of getting to the continent.

Firstly, I was lucky I had met Sich who is a friend of a friend Hazel who when she was visiting us in Paraguay and I was applying for the Scott Base volunteer job, she showed me Sich’s blog and told me to get in touch with him. When I arrived in Ushuaia we briefly met up when his ship was in port, and then a couple of weeks later he gave me the heads up that the ships dining room crew were short staffed. Then he personally handed my CV in, and not to mention tried everything to get hold of me at the hostel when he heard there may be a vacancy.

The HR ladies that did all my paper work, weren’t too sure on how to go about my situation as they said it never happens, ie they just don’t randomly pick people up from ports, the usual procedure is that people go through the recruitment process in their home countries, ie medicals, paperwork etc and then they are flown out to the port usually to start a 7 month contract. Plus majority of the crew are Filipino, for example 95% of the dining room staff are Filipino, I’m the only native English speaker, although I still get hassled every time I say egg, “what did you say, igg, what’s an igg”.

All my co-workers ask me if I have all these sea going qualifications, seamens book etc and are a little stunned when I don’t have them. Not too mention I have no cruise ship or waitering experience, the people I work with have studied hospitality, have been in the cruise ship industry for years. The company I am with is known as being the crème de crème of the cruise ship industry, hence the 6 star rating. I have met people in my time in Ushuaia who had also been looking for Antarctic work. I was told the only reason I got on was because the person who was meant to be coming had visa troubles, and they were short staffed.

Even though at times I feel like a slave in a floating prision, I try to remember how lucky and fortunate I am to be here, for so long this was all I wanted. My Antarctic dream consumed my thoughts and ruled my life for so long, and now I’m living it, Thank you everybody who helped and supported me along the way.

Now that you know how lucky I feel to be here, in the following posts I want to share with you what life is like on board.

The coming posts are going to be more directed at my job and lifestyle on the ship as opposed to Antarctica.

Yep, forget about me being in Antarctica, forget about all the great amazing photos of ice bergs and penguins and me saying “living the dream” (funnily enough my next post is going to be titled that). If I look solely at the job I am doing and forget about Antarctica, it is hands down the worst job I have ever done!

It may sound glamorous working on a 6 star cruise ship, but life is far from glamorous and this is what I want to portray in my coming posts and let you be the judge. This is only relevant to my position as part of the dining room team and is only relevant to Antarctic Expedition cruise ships that usually have around 100 or so passengers compared to the Carnival cruise ships that have 5000 plus passengers and a couple of thousand crew and have regular stops at many different ports.

So worst job, that’s a pretty big statement, well put it one way, I have just been offered to have my contract extended and go with the boat from Antarctica up into Europe and if I wanted I would be able to continue up for the Arctic season and could probably get Mandy work onboard as well, but not a chance

I was going to wait another week before coming out with this post and writing about the job, but at the moment I’m in the mood for writing a post like this. Why am I in this mood, I should be happy, yesterday I had my first sleep in after 1 month on the ship, I was lucky enough to start at midday (although still worked through to midnight).

Tonight we arrive in Ushuaia, and although I have lived there for a month, it is great to get back to civilisation to get some free time off the floating cage, some personal space. Considering last time, 16 days ago I didn’t get off during the day in Ushuaia due to loading, I was really eager to go and set up in a café with wi-fi and start chipping away at my to do list and have a nice meal and a coffee and just be by myself.

But the dining room team just received the great news that we won’t get any time off the ship in Ushuaia, as tonight after we finish serving dinner we will go straight to loading cargo until 2am, then we will get 4 hours off before starting again at 6am and work another full day loading again and then be back serving dinner tomorrow night with our new guests and off to Antarctica again.

That news is soul destroying, when you spend every waking hour in the restaurant working and every sleeping hour in your coffin sized bunk, a couple of hours ashore seems like gold! You’re all probably thinking, well at least I’ll make lots on overtime. OK, I’m not doing this job for the money, but let me share this with you anyway. I’m contracted for $1500 a month for 70 hour weeks, which works out to be $7.50 an hour, although bear in mind that I have no expenses (except internet which for me is about $150 a month). Anyway back to my over time, which by the way there is a lot of overtime, a 70 hour week is a myth. My over time rate is $2.64 an hour! I’m not joking, so for tomorrow I’m looking at doing a 14 hour day, so that’s 4 hours over time that should come out to around $10. Oh yeah, but I get a lot in tips…………………yeah I probably would if the company didn’t have a no tipping policy, haha, you just have to have a laugh, as somebody definitely is.

OK, that’s my gripe, I’m off to grab an hours sleep before starting back at work, back I stay posted as I start documenting life on board.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, I wanted this soooo much and I would of still done it knowing what it entailed, and I’m sooo lucky that I have this position (my next post is on this). I’m although thankful as before this job people always would ask me “what’s been your worst job?”, well now I can answer it. Also, it’s a great experience as you learn a lot more about yourself in testing times than you do in comfortable times.

Nuthing but love, Hap living the dream!

Whilst in South Georgia I made the landing at Grytviken, which is the resting place of British explorer Ernest Shackleton. This site was where Shackleton organised his famous rescue operation to bring home his stranded team members after his ship the Endurance had been sunk by pack ice – this truly is a great story of bravery, leadership and persistent. I won’t go into it as I wouldn’t want to misinform.

Gryviken as well as being home to Shackleton is also the home to an old whaling station. There is also a great museum there. I thoroughly enjoyed walking around the whaling station and reading all about it, trying to relive the days of yesteryear. Imagining the men working in freezing conditions covered in whale blubber!

Gryviken also has its fare share of seals and penguins. It was quite funny, on grassy flats where I’m use to seeing sheep and cows there were seals laying about that reminded of the giant slugs slithering over lettuce leaves. It was hard not to laugh, the noises that come from the seals it’s like when you hear someone fart when its all quiet, you know it’s childish but you just can’t help but have a little snigger. Well the seals seemed to continually make sounds like this; you’re constantly waiting for them to excuse themselves.

As well as the seals there were also the penguins. It was a little strange the contrast of Mother Nature’s little children against the industrial remnants of the rusted whaling station,

Happy new year everybody!

Well for me it was a good start to the New Year, well in the sense that I woke up to a beautiful bright blue skied Antarctic day, ice bergs and whales (sorry for the average whale photo) passing the restaurant window as I served the customers at the breakfast buffet.

But for me, I wasn’t as bright as the beautiful day. The started with me putting on my shoes and socks and then realising that I was still standing in my boxers and hadn’t put my trousers on – lucky I realised this before going to work. I had a couple of ibuprofen for breakfast and ran down the corridor buttoning up my jacket to make it to work on time.

My voice was very raspy, it sounded like I had been partying all night! The most common question of the morning was, “are you feeling OK Mark, do you have a sore throat”? With my Spanish guests I went to tell them “I have a frog in my throat”, but in my fragile state the Spanish word for frog escaped me and I ended up saying “I have a duck in my throat”. And then I thought about it, idioms never translate anyway.

My New Years Eve was spent serving the guests, which as far as work goes it was a great way to work New Years Eve, it’s definitely more glamorous being on a 6 star cruise ship than in a Canadian night club toilet! Plus we have a good bunch of guests on board, so I joined in with the champagne and toasting before nipping back to work to wrap things up and then head to the crew party that involved a few celebratory beverages and dancing.

Just a quick blog post to wish you all a happy new year!