The Hours

There’s a game we like to play on the cruise ship, and I call this game The Hours.  Waiters working at sea play by a completely different set of rules than those do on land.  When I waited tables in Pittsburgh, the only money I earned was from tips, but money is rarely exchanged on the cruise ship in the complimentary dining rooms.  The passengers don’t tip like they would at home, and this drastically alters one’s strategy to maximize profit.  This is precisely why we play the hours.  I could easily equate this game to milking the clock, but this operation is more complex than secretly stealing company time.  To understand how waiters at sea capitalize on their earnings, I should first explain the dynamics of a typical establishment.

If you are a server in a normal restaurant in America that does not float on water, your income depends largely on the number of people who sit in your section and the tipping habits of those particular individuals.  The rest of your money depends on luck and your performance.  When I worked at the Melting Pot in Pittsburgh, there were many factors out of my control that directly affected my nightly profits.  If the weather was inclement or the Steelers were playing a home game, then fewer people were coming into the restaurant.  The effectiveness of my manager’s marketing strategy determined if new customers would try the restaurant, and the service in general determined if old customers would return. 

The location of our restaurant in Pittsburgh, historically a working-class town, and the accompanying demographics also played a huge role with tipping.  Would I get some 10%ers in my section?  Or would I get a classy two-top with proper etiquette?  So much of the stress involved in this business is due to the unpredictability of your night.  You never know how many people are going to walk through those doors, and you don’t know what type of person is going to sit in your section.  In order to hedge your bets, you hustle, smile, put on a show, and turn the tables as quickly as you can.  The more tables you get in one night, the more money you walk home with.  I made $2.83 per hour when I worked in Pittsburgh, and my meager wage usually covered my taxes.  My entire income was dependent upon tips from strangers.  You could never count on a steady paycheck because there are too many variables. 

The opposite is true on the cruise ships.  Hawaii has always been a popular destination that requires little advertisement to entice people all over the world to seek a superior climate.  Each week, roughly 2,000 passengers spend their vacation onboard the vessel.  Usually we sail around dinner time, so there is nowhere for our clientele to go.  We have them trapped on our ship, and inevitably they flood our restaurants.

On a normal night, 700 to 1,000 guests could dine at Skyline.  If I start work at five o’clock, my section is going to fill up fast.  Usually I have four tables with a capacity for sixteen to twenty guests.  It was quite normal for me to walk into work and be greeted with a full section.  Some guests would already have set their menus aside, indicating they’ve made their decisions before I had a chance to tie my apron.  There is no warm-up, just an abrupt wake-up call.  When the ship is packed, there is no stopping until the doors close at 9:30, but there is no choice but to keep moving. 

So you run back and forth from the galley to the dining room several times to get those people out of your restaurant as quickly as possible.  They finish up their cheesecakes and Key lime pies, and then they shuffle away to catch the 7:00 show.  As soon as you reset your tables, another twenty hungry guests sit down and ask you the same questions the previous guests just finished asking. 

The race begins again.  You retrieve the spring rolls.  You search two dish-pits for a single ramekin so some stranger can pour ranch dressing on his salad.  You burn your hands on the plate of NY steak.  You search for lids that aren’t cracked or riddled with heat bubbles.  You stack up the rest of the entrees, and count them.  OK, you’ve got all eighteen of them. You get slightly self-conscious, and you hope you don’t fall because not only would that be embarrassing but it would be a huge pain in the ass to round up those entrees again.  You know the steak guy isn’t going to be very happy with you if you have to ask for two well-dones on the fly.  Sweat accumulates at the small of your back and also forms puddles under your arms.  But you land the tray safely at your side-stand.  The hard part is over. 

You consult your waiter’s order pad and disperse all the entrees, ladies first, and pray that the meat retained its heat.  Everything is dropped and you realize you’re thirsty and you’re starting to yawn.  You check your watch and realize it’s only 7:30, and you might not get to slink into your bed for another three hours.  The dining room is cacophonous with scattered conversations, and you haven’t had a day off in ninety four days, and you forget what it’s like to hear silence.

I worked at least sixteen cruises as an assistant waiter, and I often asked myself why I felt compelled to work with a sense of urgency. I was accustomed to the rules of restaurants on land.  I wanted to hustle, so I could get more money. I followed all the proper steps and often invited guests to return the next night to dine with me and my front waiter, but I only received two envelopes of cash tips my entire contract. 

During my first month, a family continuously requested my front waiter, and at the end of the week they gave us $80 to split.  A few weeks later, I worked with a different front waiter, and two friendly couples dined with us all week.  Before they left, they tipped us each $100.  Aside from those instances, I pocketed a few five dollar bills and the occasional twenty, but seeing cash on the table was rare.  So rare, in fact, that I began to question if all the extra effort was worth the minor possibility of a tip.

With two months left on my contract, I was overexerting myself.  The guests were relentless.  There was no end to their demands, and there would be no break until I went on vacation.  To avoid further fatigue, I would always rush through my sidework, so I could clock out early and head to bed.  But then I realized I was employing the wrong strategy.  What does it matter if I get those entrees out a little faster?  The guests aren’t tipping even when I quicken my pace.  Why should I rush through my sidework?  The linen isn’t going to complain if I take my time. 

I vowed that I wouldn’t concern myself about the hours.  I would just show up on time and do my job as quickly as possible.  Work was just something I put up with to see Hawaii.  Even when I was at work I didn’t want to talk about work.  Meanwhile, my coworkers would boast when their hours were high and complain when their hours were low.  I heard people getting angry when they didn’t get sixty hours per week.

“If I’m going to be here on the ship,” many people would say, “Then I am here to work as much as I can.” 

I jokingly responded that I would be content with thirty hours, and then that retort backfired.  One week I worked barely over forty hours, which would be normal in the real world, but normality takes on a new definition when you step onboard the ship.  My paycheck was a joke.    

The numbers, I soon realized, were everything.  As an assistant waiter, my base rate is $8.50 per hour plus a percentage of the service charge paid by the guests, and we also get a percentage of alcohol sales.  When I hit overtime, I can make over $12 per hour.  Overtime is where you make your money, but it’s not that easy to gobble up those extra hours.  The manager is ruthless when it comes to cutting hours because reducing labor costs is, after all, her job.  The trick to getting more money, then, has nothing to do with the guests.  It’s all about time management.  You compete with your coworkers.  The manager is the villain.  You have to learn how to play the game.

In order to understand how to cheat the system, you must understand how the schedule works.  I worked in Skyline for breakfast and dinner from Sunday to Thursday.  On Fridays and Saturdays I would work an additional lunch shift.  The time you start your shift is dependent upon how many hours you’ve already racked up during the week.  If you have fewer hours than most of your coworkers, you’ll start earlier than them, and you’ll most likely have time-consuming sidework to finish after all your tables have been reset.  If you have more hours than most of your coworkers, you’ll go in later and possibly be cut early. The manager staggers the starting times and assigns sidework in such a way to balance everyone’s hours.  Her prerogative is eliminate as many overtime hours as possible without reducing the quality of the service.  The company is trying to save money, and you are trying to take it from them without them noticing.    

The trick in the beginning is to have low hours.  On Sundays I would usually report for duty at 7:30 A.M.  We close the doors around 9:00 A.M., and usually most guests finish up and get off the ship within a half an hour.  So I start the week off with two hours, while some of my coworkers who showed up earlier and stayed later to complete sidework may rack up four hours.  The manager notices who has high hours early in the week, and she’ll give them a morning off. 

You may be thinking that a morning off is exactly what a normal person would want, but you have to strategize when to get these days off.  If you get a morning off early in the week, this will allow your coworkers to surpass you in this race.  What this means is that you’ll end up vacuuming the floor three days in a row because you’re the farthest away from overtime. The person who vacuums must wait until every guest has left the dining room, and this can take a while.  Your manager knows this, and that’s precisely why she appointed you to suck up the crumbs.  Your labor is cheapest at this point.

After breakfast service is over, I check the dinner schedule.  I go in at 5:30.  I think I can stretch at least five hours especially if I get assigned sidework.  Now it’s time to catch up to the middle of the pack.  I want my hours to match the majority of my coworkers because I’m shooting to get Thursday night or Saturday afternoon off.  It’s optimal to get Thursday night off because we have an overnight on the island of Kaua’i.  There’s no point in having a night off when the ship is at sea because you can’t go anywhere.  On Saturday, we’re in Honolulu, and nobody wants to work a lunch shift anyway because the service is so inefficient it’s likely to give everyone a headache.

I report for my dinner shift on time, or maybe even five minutes early.  The company allows that.  Some people try to clock in fifteen minutes before they’re scheduled to start.  Those are the professionals.  They’ve been playing the hours for years, and they’ve mastered the game.  I calculated that if I were to clock in early five minutes and clock out late five minutes for every shift in a five month contract, you could make at least an extra $200 with very little effort.  My fellow coworkers are well aware how to squeeze every last cent out of this company, so they try to bend the rules a bit. 

The ship is a rather large vessel, and there are too many crew members to monitor.  There’s only one manager, and her vision is poor.  I’ve heard tales of crew members punching in for work and then eating dinner in the mess for thirty minutes before heading upstairs to actually work.  A friend told me in confidence that he used to clock in for his provisions shift and then return to his room and sleep for three hours.  I’ve heard of people taking an hour to separate napkins from tablecloths, a chore that should only take fifteen minutes maximum.    

My coworkers were lollygagging while I was running back and forth from the table to the galley, and we were both getting paid the same amount.  My paycheck did not differ greatly no matter how many times I turned my tables.  In fact, my paycheck hardly differed if I had any tables at all.  Working hard was working against me in this situation.  I needed to change my philosophy and adapt.  My diligence dissolved as I grew tired of laboring my days away.  All I wanted to do was survive and have enough energy to explore the islands in between shifts.  I justified my newfound apathy by admitting to myself I wasn't put on this earth to toil my only life away. 

Between clocking in and clocking out, there is little I can do to significantly alter my income.  Even if I sell a thousand dollars’ worth of alcohol, I’m not suddenly going to elevate my status above the middle class.  This is not my passion, so I can forgive myself for slacking off from time to time.  I have my pride, but I also need my sanity.  All I must do is give the illusion that I’m working and watch the hours pass by.