Home Away From Home

I'm standing on stage under the bright lights of the Hollywood Theater with a small army of assistant waiters decked out in our mustard yellow uniforms. Hundreds of cruisers in the crowd applaud our efforts for the week. They clap for us--for all the miles we walked from the galley to their table, for all the coffees we've refilled, for all of the questions we've answered time after time. Everyone is clapping rhythmically, even the captain.

I clap along so that I don't appear anymore out of place than I already feel. I'm not a dancer or a singer, so why am I here, slapping my sweaty palms together? I'd prefer to stop because my skin has become so dried and cracked due to excessive handwashing.

The cruise director wears a purple lei and holds a microphone. She introduces each department so the cruisers understand why these non-performers momentarily share the spotlight with the metrosexual entertainers with their gelled hair and sculpted bodies.

"Give it up for your restaurant department!" the cruise director beams.

This little charade is called Home Away from Home, and it happens every Friday, the last night of the cruise. The singers perform sentimental numbers and hop around like members of an overzealous boy band. The songs are designed to flood the cruisers with overwhelmingly positive emotions. The performers give the illusion that this week's cruisers are our family members, and they'll always have a home away from home. 

We say that to everyone, but these staterooms are not a second home. Yet the singers bray, "Wherever you go, you'll find a home inside our memories." 

This sappy goodbye has an extremely capitalist undertone. If you listen to the words closely enough, you'll hear the message:  Come spend your money here again! 

I stare out at the crowd and wonder if the cruisers really know the truth behind all these performances. They're applauding us for all our hard work to provide them with the vacation of a lifetime, but do they know what goes on behind the scenes? Do they understand all the scavenger hunts we must embark upon to find the necessary supplies so that the cruisers can simply sit down on a crumbless chair and read a menu with options that correlate with the food being cooked? I wonder.

On a Friday evening like any other, a few hours before I went onstage, I found myself in Skyline Restaurant serving strangers who were staring out the windows and gazing at the Napoli Coast of Kaua'i. The seas are especially turbulent in this area, and the ship is frequently jostled by the rough swells. The floor leans unexpectedly, and the occasional bump disorients my sense of balance and leaves me with a queasy stomach and an aching head. The threat of vomiting was quite persistent that day.

As I refilled waters and dropped desserts, I imagined the embarassment that would ensue should my body choose at this most inconvenient moment to regurgitate my own dinner onto the dining room floor. Or even worse should my roaring projectile land onto this gentle octogenarian enjoying his cheesecake. 

Everyone would stop and stare at me, at which point I would have no choice but to apologize profusely. The disturbance would likely make me extremely anxious, which would reignite another violent spew. Then, like an innocent toddler who has peed the bed in the middle of the night, I would explain to my superior that I simply lost control of my bodily functions. My manager would shake her head in disgust, as if to say "What is wrong with you?" for which I could provide no explanation that could make this problem disappear. Before the clean-up crew arrived, I would say goodbye to all of my friends, and then I would promptly run away, hide in my room, and never emerge except to inform HR of my immediate resignation.

Visions of this debacle caused me to ask my manager if I could change out the menus. This request led me to a cramped, two by four closet with no windows and poor ventilation. Changing out the menus is a tedious and rather time-consuming task, but when work is slow I always volunteer for this job because of the privacy and the opportunity to smuggle in spring rolls.

I sit down on a chair pilfered from the dining room and remove the left insert from each menu cover. On this sheet of paper, Friday's special appetizers and entrees are listed. I place that into the bin labeled Friday and then insert Saturday's sheet into each menu. I repeated this process roughly 100 times until I realized that the bile rising in my throat was not going to subside.

I took a few deep breaths as a last attempt to fight the insurgence, but I knew my efforts were futile, so I sprang out of the miniature closet and raced downstairs to the nearest crew bathroom. I locked the door and opened the stall. I got down on my knees on that filthy floor and hurled my guts into a dirty toilet. 

After an encore outburst through my esophagus, I washed my face in the sink and calmly left the bathroom as though nothing unordinarily painful just occurred. A friend stopped me in the hallway and during our brief conversation the subject of unburdening my intestines was never mentioned. I tried to keep my mouth shut so that no foul odor would escape. My friend walked away, and I went to my bedroom to brush my teeth.

Upon determining that my breath smelled of mint rather than stomach acid, I promptly returned to my voluntary exile in the menu closet. After two more hours of switching around pages with different words on them, I finished the task. Now the new cruisers boarding on Saturday will be able to deliberate between various dining options. 

On that stage in the Hollywood Theater, the memory of my seasickness was still ripe. Nonetheless, I wore a neutral expression and clapped along with the audience, but I clapped for different reasons. As the liaison with the general public, we workers give the impression we cater to people's needs because we genuinely care about them, but this is rarely the case. I don't believe anyone flat out hates the guests, but we certainly didn't apply for this job so that we could selflessly pamper retirees and newlyweds. This is not something people volunteer for wholeheartedly.  

When a guest sits down at my table, I'm not really curious about what kind of day they have been having. These introductory questions are mere formalities, and the words that fill the silence give the impression that I care. I'm not apathetic about these people.  More specifically, their life outside the dinner service is completely detached from mine, and I will likely never see them again after dessert. 

Nonetheless, I inquire about their current state of being, since this practice has become so solidified throughout history as to be considered polite behavior. My ancestors before me established the etiquette for human interaction; I merely follow the rules they've created. 

So I ask these strangers about their day in hope that their previous hours sucking oxygen on this green planet have been pleasant. If the guests are in high spirits, this makes my life easier because I won't have to try as hard to please them. 

Happy people are more likely than angry people to give away their money. The guest's mood is directly correlated to my well-being. Therefore, I give good service so I can rest fully at night, buy food to prevent my organs from failing, and to avoid painful episodes such as the one which occurred in a certain crew bathroom on a particular Friday night. When I serve with a smile, I'm not flattering anyone. I'm not being nice. I am staying out of trouble. I am surviving.

We are finished on the stage now, so we proceed to a red-carpeted hallway with walls painted with photographers snapping pictures with the flash on. The Hollywood theme is designed to make cruisers feel like they're celebrities. In this luxurious corridor, assistant waiters, executive sous chefs, entertainers, hostesses, and guest service attendants line up along the walls. 

All of us cheer on the cruisers as they exit the theater. My coworkers clap wildly, and many of them yell out, "Thank you for being here." The cruisers file between us like foreign diplomats being sent off in a royal parade.

"Na na na na," someone chants spontaneously until the mob catches on. "Hey hey hey... Goodbye."

Mostly the guests smile, and some of them tear up while they hug staff members with whom they've become attached during this brief encounter. I stand there with the corners of my lips turned slightly upward to hide my impatience. 

The truth is:  I'm here because my manager tells me I need more hours. In other words, my coworkers have more overtime than me, so my labor is cheaper. My front waiter makes $11 an hour, and I only make $8.50. I am

a body filling up space and making background noise with my palms. I am the anonymous man who changes out the menus.

Sometimes I am flattered when a guest thanks me for working so hard, but I never say you're welcome. Instead I fall prey to the American habit saying, "Thank you," when someone thanks me. I realize that my paycheck is dependent upon the guest's spending habits, but like so many transactions in this country money is rarely discussed out in the open. Instead, we put on a show to conceal our hustle. 

Cash is stuffed in envelopes or check presenters. Waiters hide while guests fill out their credit card slips, and the total is rarely revealed until the customer has left the building. As soon as the guests pass me in the hallway, their concerns are no longer mine. Our paths that have briefly crossed are disconnected once more. Now I can eat my midnight snack and go to bed to dream my own dreams.

Exceptional Days: Drill!

"Attention all crew. Attention all crew," says a man over the loud speaker. "This is a drill. This is a drill. This is a drill."

The sound of his voice generally means that it's Tuesday somewhere between nine and ten o'clock in the morning when we practice general emergencies and report to our abandon ship stations.

"Code Bravo for exercise. Deck one, zone one," the voice rings out.

Like the military, cruise ships have their own lingo for such hindrances as a leak in the hull or an explosion in the engine room. Rather than screaming, "Fire!" and causing the guests to panic, we speak in code. 

After the announcement, the fire team stops what they're doing. Drill is usually planned when the majority of meal service is over so the eggs are not abandoned on the griddle. They dash toward their lockers to don their protective gear and to wield their hoses and then report to the designated zone. 

With the exception of commanders, the fire team is composed of volunteer shipmates. We've all been trained how to operate multiple extinguishers on all types of fires. Captains often prefer to use an onboard team over a band of professionals on shore because the shipmates can better navigate the vessel's labyrinthine corridors. The same goes for the medical team, who receive in-house training and respond mostly to fallen senior citizens.

As for me, I wait for the general emergency alarm:  six short blasts and one long. Generally there is about a ten to fifteen minute lag between the initial message and the alarm, but that is not always the case. If I'm at work when I hear the first announcement, I continue working, but I try not to begin any time-consuming task because the bell could ring at any moment. I could wait five minutes or an hour. 

If I'm in my room at the time, I slip into my blue jumpsuit, tie my shoes, and stash my sunglasses in my shirt pocket. Then I read at my desk until the deafening beeps interrupt the silence. I make my way to the mid-ship staircases where I find my lazy shipmates waiting for the elevator. We're supposed to be practicing for the unlikely event of an emergency, but not everyone takes this seriously. 

Since when did this attitude become accepted as cool? I never seem able to adopt the popular mindset at the same time as my peers. I would much rather goof off during the dinner service, which, perversely enough, my shipmates conduct themselves more seriously than they do while training for a crisis.

I climb up to deck six and cross a fancy wine bar to reach the promenade track that encircles the ship. Once outside, I head toward my locker room. Bulbous, orange lifeboats are parked above my head. Workers in blue jumpsuits climb ladders to reach them on the upper deck. 

I pass by a herd of newcomers standing stiffly at the assembly station. Their necks are squeezed by puffy life vests. I remember what it was like to stand there in silence mere weeks ago. My only responsibility was to yell out my safety number when the team leader read it from her sheet. I watched everyone zip by me with their automatic, Tuesday-ingrained movements to their preordained spots. I was a confused baby lamb corralled in a cramped pen. If the ship were to start sinking, someone would come to rescue me.

But now I walk past them with my own mechanized movements to perform my duty that is designed to prevent the newbies from drowning. I put on my harness like a hiker's backpack and fasten the straps around each of my thighs. I approach a large crane and open the gate nearby and hook my carabiner around a vertical pole. Behind me there is no railing to separate me from the sea six stories below. The first time I found myself near the precipice I hoped I would get to rappel down the side of the ship, but the harness was not designed for enjoyment. Its purpose is to prevent me from falling overboard.

My partner files into our tiny pocket and latches himself to the other side of the fence.  My partner is a broadcast technician responsible for filming material and maintaining the network channeled into crew TVs. He's been a journalist in the States and has worked on another cruise ship in the Caribbean. Even though his job is much cooler than mine, drill unifies us all. Life-threatening situations have a tendency to reduce even the most technologically savvy individuals to bare limbs and muscles capable of the simple dexterity and strength to get out of harm's way.

Between my partner and me lies a cylindrical container with a hard plastic shell. Inside lies a shriveled-up life raft capable of expanding to hold 35 people. Ten more of these shells stand behind my partner, and there are several of these stations on deck each equipped with their own crane.

A stout man named Hector is the team leader who operates the crane and yells out the instructions. He wears Ray Ban shades and lifting gloves to protect his hands from the grease on the lever. He told me he wants to go on vacation in Thailand to get shredded. At first I was intimidated by his size and by the tone of his voice. He would ask me questions about the life raft as though he were giving me a pop quiz.

"What does the container line do?"

"How long is the painter line?"

"What is the secondary means of inflation?"

I was new, and I had never seen this monster unleashed from its cage. During drill we simulate inflating the raft by hoisting a giant dumbbell overboard, and I pretend to inflate the metallic object by pulling on an invisible line. So far, drill was all about pretending. The painter line was however long I imagined it to be. As I stared out at the snow-tipped peak of Mauna Loa from the port of Hilo, I tried to envision myself amidst a violent storm, smothered in salty spray, swathed in darkness as I squinted in the moonlight to read the instructions and corresponding pictograms on how to inflate the life raft. The task seemed similar to assembling a complicated IKEA futon while skydiving. 

I didn't have a complete understanding of my duty until the Coast Guard came onboard for an inspection. The safety officer, let's call him Paul, arranged a training for all the life raft teams in preparation for Coast Guard's arrival. 

Paul's head is shaved and his cheeks are coated with a thick beard. Usually he walks around the ship in a white jumpsuit and a pair of Nike running shoes. Each time he passes me, he mumbles, "What's up?" in such a dry tone that gives me the impression that he generally despises most people but has accepted the fact he must interact with them. His casual use of profanity combined with his neon-tipped footwear often makes me forget that he is a three-striped officer.

Assistant managers have one stripe; GMs have two. Department directors and the captain have three stripes on their epaulettes. It is a strange phenomenon to witness how symbolic shoulder decorations can alter a person's psychology. All the striped officers wear white shirts and white pants, a vivid outfit that clearly distinguishes them from the laborers. When I see stripes I often double check that I'm not breaking any rules, and I do my best to appear innocent and obedient. 

The white uniforms have a Pavlovian effect on me that makes me slightly tense and more alert. I begin to associate officers and managers with their uniforms as though they are tattoos unable to be removed. I have difficulty imagining these people in civilian clothes, living ordinary lives, shopping for deodorant, taking out the trash, or eating at a restaurant they don't manage. When I chance upon a casually dressed manager, I often do not recognize him. 

Whoever created this uniform system understood the division of labor and its subsequent mental side effects. However, when I see Paul in the hallways I often try to envision his personal life, and I wonder how he got here. He is very friendly with many of my coworkers in a mocking way. He strikes me as a former frat boy who half-jokingly bullied guys with inferior practical skills associated with masculinity such as leaning under the hood of a car and vaguely pointing to indistinguishable parts of an engine and giving highly unspecific directions about what to do to get the motor running. 

When Paul is in his element, however, he knows how to run the show, and he demands respect. He is a man you do not want to see angry, especially if you are the source of his anger.

During the drill, Paul gives the go-ahead to Hector who stands ready at the crane with his gloved hands and his dreams of bulking up in Southeast Asia.

"Prepare the raft," Hector yells.

I'm not involved in the deployment of the real raft since I'm new. An experienced team is performing the real procedure. The man in my position hands a shackle to his partner who aligns the ring into the crevice of the hook. Using two small rods that look like lipstick cases, the two men attach the pieces together, and now the shell is connected to the crane.

Hector raises the shell by rotating a lever. At this point, Paul playfully undermines Hector's strength and mocks all those protein shakes and daily lunches of quinoa. This mocking is typical of hyper masculine men who harbor deep fears of revealing their feminine qualities, so they make sure to emphasize these exact qualities in other equally hyper masculine men.

Because of the jokes, Hector pumps the lever faster so as to convince his audience of his beastly fortitude. Then he slews the raft outward as the other men hold the left and right lines to stabilize the shell. Once the shell is completely off the deck, the man in my position hands the left line to Hector and pulls on the painter line. One hundred feet of cord gradually emerges from a tiny crevice in the container. 

The man gives the line a final tug, the shell bursts open like an air bag in a car crash and dangles below a tangled ball of orange and black. Compressed air canisters hiss. The life raft inflates as it hangs suspended above the water and level with the ship.  The bottom of the raft is thick and black, and an orange roof sits atop the base like a tipi. The lip of the raft is only a step away from the ship's edge.

I wanted to board the raft and then get in the water. I wondered if there were saltine crackers stashed inside a pouch somewhere. I tried to imagine drifting out to sea in this tiny float. What if I encountered a real emergency? What would I bring with me? How would I handle surviving at sea with people I barely know? 

As soon as I asked myself these questions, I realized this pretend scenario is not so different from surviving on a cruise ship that isn't sinking. Oftentimes there are no instructions of how to act in any given situation. You merely react instinctively to escape pain and and flee toward comfort. 

This is what we are all trying to accomplish in life, but in the real world away from the ship we do not practice fleeing in such mechanized ways. On the ship, we prepare ourselves to elude death, while telling ourselves an accident will never happen to us. We prepare to abandon our jobs, our routines, our possessions. We practice how to move on with this life and seek temporary relief. In this manner, every day is a drill for the next.

Exceptional Days: Provisions

Each day of the week has a distinct feel. I only know life on Maui on Sundays and Mondays. On Wednesdays the ship floats in the bay, and tender boats shuttle guests and crew to shore and back.  Most of the crew rides the early tender boat to have lunch in the tourist friendly Kona, so I take advantage of their absence by doing my laundry, a chore that requires me to handle the undergarments of strangers as I transfer their soggy load into the dryer to free up the washer for my soiled accoutrements. A dry batch of pleasant smelling clothes with no missing socks is a cause for celebration.

I look forward to Thursdays like the rest of the world anticipates the weekend. The majority of guests attend the luau and the accompanying feast of local cuisine on Kauai. A lucky few get the night off while the rest of us show up to an empty-ish restaurant in our flower-patterned Hawaiian shirts. Wearing short sleeves makes me feel lighter as though customers expect less of me as less of my body is covered. 

Although a fair portion of my coworkers often gripe about enduring the same shit on a different day, not every day is an exact replica of the one before. There are days of exception, days in which I feel more like a sailor rather than a regular guy who happens to work in a restaurant that happens to be floating on the sea.

On Saturdays we dock in Honolulu, where we dump off passengers and refill with a new batch of pot-bellied senior citizens prone to possessing zero self-awareness amidst high traffic areas as well as a dangerously apathetic stance toward their diet. In addition to amassing another small town population, we get most of our provisions delivered on Saturday.

The provisions department is the epitome of manual labor. In order to secure a job in this field, one does not need to possess impressive cognitive abilities. Sharp minds are in short supply, and so are bodies. Thus, restaurant workers are required, every now and then, to lend our hands.

I slip into my blue jumpsuit that looks like a cross between kiddie pajamas and a mechanic's uniform. I don a pair of gloves and proceed to the second deck. A grimy elevator delivers a pallet stacked high with boxes filled with an assortment of food and beverages. JoAnne, a middle-aged black woman with sculpted forearms and a permanent scowl, operates the fork lift and drives the pallet into the refrigerated cavern called the fruit box. Here I stand with a thirty-ish Korean-American named James who possesses a penchant for mumbling and a strong desire to avoid teamwork.

JoAnne drops off the load as James and I stare at the massive pile of boxes before us. Each box contains six watermelons that accumulatively weigh sixty pounds. As the assistant storekeeper, it is James' responsibility to organize the giant cooler into neat columns of fruit. The old produce is to remain accessible so they can be used first, and the new stock is pushed to the back. 

The fruit box is probably fifteen by thirty feet. The floor is silver and has those crisscross marks you find in the bed of a pick-up truck that transports a lot of heavy machinery. Shelves on one side of the room house Granny Smith apples and grapes of both colors. Boxes of Dole pineapple are stacked next to the papaya. This job is like playing Tetris in real life as we attempt to fit a week's worth of essential nutrients into a tiny chamber.

The task is simple:  I lift the heavy watermelons onto a steel platform and then proceed to stack five more boxes on top. You may be wondering where the challenge arises, and superior minds would realize there is none, but superior minds do not often work in provisions, so problems frequently ensue. We finish with the watermelon, then James is stumped with the arrival of honeydew.

"Shit," James says, "Where am I gonna put this?"

I recall from an earlier conversation that James has worked here for two years and has expressed a lack of interest in performing the same actions over and over again for two round-trips around the sun.

"Don't you arrange the fruit the same way  each week?" I ask.

"The shipments are different each week," he says, and I begin to wonder how much variation one can find inside such a cramped refrigerator. James freezes, lost in deliberation. I try to imagine the inner workings of his mind as he calculates the benefits of his limited possibilities.

"Fuck it," he says, "We'll get another pallet and put the honeydew next to the watermelon." A brilliant idea, I assure him, as that particular location is better than leaving the fruit to rot in the  hallways that already smell faintly of overly ripe bananas.

After solving the honeydew puzzle, I am needed in the dry goods store, where many of my fellow waiters stand around a bag of Lays Ruffles and a jar of herb cheese dip freshly pilfered from cardboard boxes. Managers are rarely around, so the workers often steal a few incoming treats:  a grape here, a sleeve of Oreos there.  The greatest benefit of working in provisions, however, is that one gets to escape the guests for one shift.  For roughly five hours, I don't have to wait on impatient, short-haired women with calves that resemble a series of marshmallows impaled on a stick.

I approach my coworkers, take off my gloves and grab a handful of chips. A skinny Puerto Rican fellow says that his muscles are growing. A dainty Filipino laughs at this while a tall Romanian guy takes his break away from this eclectic duo. A corn-rowed black woman with tattooed forearms and thick biceps walks past the door and into the bread storage.

Everyone is required to wear a name tag that also includes the city from which we were hired. Minor research has led me to conclude that the company recruits inner city workers from areas with weak economies. Many dishwashers are from suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, and a vast majority of waiters come from Florida, the state that played a huge role in the 2008 economic collapse. Tent cities were popping up everywhere in the Sunshine State because of all the foreclosures of cookie-cutter neighborhoods built and then sold overnight to attract a new flock of snowbirds and recent retirees with poor credit histories.

Since the company is based out of Miami, it is easy for them to suck up all the Floridians desperate for jobs. I searched for two months and found nothing in St. Petersburg before I landed an interview at the Hilton in downtown Tampa. Now here I am lifting heavy boxes like a stevedore for a wage just above minimum alongside immigrants from poorer nations and the young American working class from areas of little economic promise.

When I look around in provisions, I often find that I am the only white American around. It is difficult to avoid treading in racist waters when I realize that members of my particular pigmentation are not often employed in these environs. Rather, almost all the department heads, major officers, and corporate hotshots are white; they are not the ones straining under the weight of sixty pounds of watermelon. 

I don't want to feel like I shouldn't be here as though I am merely visiting and can come and go whenever I please. It is true:  I am fortunate that I do not absolutely need this job unlike many of the international employees who have few choices but to stay here because this job is more reliable than the available options at home. I have observed the popular sentiment that certain individuals feel they are above such a line of work, but I find dignity in the type of labor that results in sweat stains under my arms.

JoAnne delivers another pallet consisting of strawberry preserves, corn starch, and various shapes of pasta. The waiters finish their chips and put their gloves back on. We dismantle another pallet in what seems like an endless series. We ask where each box should go, and JoAnne points a gloved finger and says, "Over there," until eventually we know exactly where everything belongs.

The Average Day

I'm dreaming about work again. I'm in the weeds running around frantically with a tray of food in my hand when I notice my section is getting bigger and more guests are sitting down. I stop what I'm doing and realize the restaurant is actually expanding. The walls are receding. The carpet is elongating. Tables and chairs are suddenly appearing. 

A feeling of apprehension grips me. This emotion, a conglomeration of anxiety and apathy, is normal in the restaurant industry. It dawns on me I will have to perform several tasks simultaneously in a very short period of time in order to please a tiny population of strangers. Part of me says I will be just fine. I've done this before, and I can do it again. But the rest of me asks why. Why don't you do something else for money? Why don't you save yourself from the perils of the dinner rush? Why not just walk away?  

My alarm chirps, and I awake to a pitch black room. A heaviness settles on my brain as though something is sitting on top of it that shouldn't be. The half of me that is still asleep thinks I'm at work. My hands think they should be removing dishes. I slide open my curtain and turn on the lights in my windowless quarters. Harry Potter had more space in his broom closet. At least he only had Hedwig as a roommate. I have two, and they are larger than owls.

I shower merely to prevent a bad hair day and to remove the crusty boogers from my eyes. I trudge up to the mess for my habitual breakfast of oatmeal, cereal, yogurt, three pineapple chunks, and a carton of TruMoo chocolate milk. I search  for a small table away from people making too much noise in the morning. I find a seat near the wall away from my friends. They think I want to sit with them but I don't. I don't want to hear about their jobs. Yesterday's struggles are the same as those thirty seven days ago.   My friends think I'm weird since I prefer to sit by myself as though my preference for solitude is a mental deficiency.

I open my book and hide behind it. I hope no one notices me, but inevitably someone sits down across from me. 

"What's going on?" this person says. I try  to word my response politely but cannot make my current situation more obvious.

"I'm reading," I say, which really means:  Go away.

This person still doesn't detect the social cues. Only people who don't read interrupt those who do. Fellow readers understand our mutual desire to be left alone. I've met non-readers who scoff at this hobby and attempt to sabotage me from further sharpening my mind.

I try not to be rude to anyone on the ship because we all live and work together. There is no escaping anyone. Sure, there are places to hide, but people always manage to find me in the only place we are allowed to eat, especially when I don't want to be found. I'm the kind of person who would rather ask how you are doing once a week, or even once a month. Moods around the ship rarely change. Most people are gloomy, and I avoid spending time under their dark clouds. A precious few are upbeat and sunny.

When I'm seated next to someone who isn't a scintillating conversationalist, I try to eat my meal as quickly as possible, so I can get out of there. An empty plate is a socially acceptable reason to part company. An empty plate signals that I'm finished. This discussion is over. Goodbye. 

Usually I wouldn't be so curt, but I don't have time to waste. I only have four to five hours of free time each day, and I intend to use them wisely. I don't want to discuss aching body parts, chopping vegetables, and inconvenient schedules. I've heard that all before, and now I avoid it at all costs. I want to be elevated and transported to a different world outside these walls.

I sort my trash and my dirty plates near the dish pit and head upstairs for work. I clock in, and the machine reads my thumbprint. My manager greets me and tells me my duty for the day. The task stays the same all week.

"You're on plates and bowls," my manager says.

I walk to the back of the kitchen and find a cart composed of drink racks piled on top of each other. I load plates and bowls onto the flat surface and cruise around the old-timers scoping out the buffet options. I restock the diminishing piles of plates as hundreds of overfed passengers continue to get their fill. It takes me roughly five minutes to replenish the entire restaurant of clean wares, but I stretch this out into three hours. 

I don't mind the monotony in such small doses. Brainless work clears the mind, so I fill in the blanks. I plan future excursions on the islands.  I chat with the dishwashers while waiting for plates. 

I chat with Mark, who is busy trying to look busy at the sandwich station. Mark is a fiftyish nomad full of energy and passion. He has taught English in Spain, explored South America, lived in New York City, and worked in the Grand Canyon. Ever since I met him at Piney Point during our basic safety training, he has been my main man who has saved me and my mind from dropping into a dark abyss of pessimism. We lift each other up with our mutual dreams.

When you restock plates continuously for three hours every day for a week or more, dreams not only keep you afloat, they keep you sane. I envision my bank account growing. I anticipate taking three months off without worrying about money. I haven't spent a single dollar in nearly a month. Everything I earn, I save. Despite the hardships and the boredom, I see how my shipmates can get addicted to this lifestyle. If I did this for two more years, I could pay off my student loans, a significant five figure debt, but my hair would turn gray and my heart would turn black. The constant toil and sleep deprivation is known to destroy kindness. 

I consult my watch:  only ninety minutes more of restocking plates before I can get off the ship. All the plates are stocked, and there's nothing to do. Rather than be scolded for standing around or be given a ridiculous assignment to take full advantage of my labor, I hide in the bathroom. Or I'll get a drink in the crew mess, seven decks below. I'll take the stairs, one at a time, because that takes longer. When your race is five months long, slow and steady wins every time. 

When a catchy song erupts from the speakers of the buffet, I linger in the dining room and avoid talking to anyone to better soak up the sweet sounds. The average song is three minutes, I say to myself. I just need thirty more of those, and I'll be set. When the song ends, I avoid the managers by taking the back way to the Linai, where I stare at the ocean and fill my lungs with real air. I take the long way back to the buffet and sneak into the sports bar to check the score of the game. Before I know it, I'm clocking out, changing into my civilian clothes, and slicing through the breeze on my fold-up bike. 

The bike collapses compactly enough to fit in my closet. When I get off work in the morning, I transform the metal origami into a rideable machine. Before setting out, I apply sunscreen even on cloudy days and then consult my watch. I like to be back on the ship at least an hour before my shift so I can shower and eat dinner. I have three hours to roam. I step off the gangway and pick a direction:  left or right. I explore for an hour and a half, then turn around. It's nearly impossible to get lost on an island, especially the circular ones.

My explorations envigorate me and remind me why I came here. I restock plates to hike in the lava fields and fly down winding switchbacks and to see what's around the next bend. 

When I return to the old ball and chain, it's chicken and rice for dinner again. Unlike breakfast, I usually sit with my comrades and tell them tales of my recent expedition.

I button the top button of my mustard yellow shirt, and I'm ready for the dinner shift. I check in with my manager and find my front waiter. The average age for our cruisers is 62, so nearly everyone likes to eat early. The dining room fills. My front waiter takes orders from eighteen hungry guests. She hands me the ticket. I run to the kitchen and round up spring rolls, salads, salmon tartare, and soup. Then I fetch entrees.

I look the cook in the eyes and wait until he returns my gaze, signaling that it's ok to order. 

"Two Skyline salmon, please," I say.

Then I wait until he plates them. When they're up in the window under the heat of the salamander, I top them with lids and stack them on my tray. Now I need five chef specials, but there are eight people in front of me, all waiting for the same dish. Sometimes I'm stuck in line fifteen minutes waiting for one dish.

If I have to wait in multiple lines, I can be trapped in the kitchen for forty-five minutes, especially when the guy cooking the steaks has a row of tickets twenty feet long. He once cooked 160 steaks nonstop for two hours straight, and he has another dish to make on top of his NY Strip duty. I used to get impatient waiting for the food and I would drum on my tray to amuse myself, but now I am accustomed to the chaos. When you have twenty people cooking dinner for a thousand, somebody's going to have to wait. 

Some customers must think I'm dipping around in the back with my thumb up my ass. There are people who do that, but not during the dinner rush. A woman once complained that her entrees took forty-five minutes. She was observing the tables around her who received their food  before she did. 

"We were here before them, and we finally got our entrees," she bickered. 

I didn't realize she was racing the other guests, so I tried to appease her with a conciliatory tone.

"I'm sorry about the wait," I said. "The lines are getting really long in the kitchen, but we are doing the best we can."

She demanded to see a dessert menu ASAP to get that order in to avoid waiting for her next caloric intake. Judging by her size, she would do well to forgo eating for the remainder of the cruise, but I did not tell her so.

"The desserts won't take long at all," I said, calmly. "They are already prepared, so I don't have to wait for them."

"Are you sure?" she asked me. She spoke to me as though I were a dog who peed on the carpet because he didn't know any better. Many cruisers assume the workers are uneducated immigrants. Many are surprised to hear that I have a college degree and am fluent in English.

"I'm quite positive," I assure this woman and walk back to my side stand while cursing her under my breath. I wonder where this lady thinks she is going. We are floating on obsidian water after the sun has set. We are surrounded by darkness somewhere between O'ahu and Maui on a luxury cruise in what many people consider to be paradise. And she's in a hurry.

A rushed lifestyle has become the norm. It is woven into the American Dream to consume and accomplish as much as we can as fast as we can. I'm rushing, too. Rushing to finish my work to retreat to my bed. I'm rushing my contract so I can head home to get lost in anonymity. 

I count down the minutes of my shift and cross off the days in my calendar, but I'm trying to stop doing this. I'm trying to prevent myself from constantly anticipating the next stage of my life. I want to say I'm perfectly content with today. But before I can do that, I hit the refresh button and yesterday happens again. 

Round and Round

For the passengers, this cruise is a seven day vacation around the Hawaiian islands, but for the crew this job is a five month loop repeating week after week. The ship starts in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. When all the guests come onboard, we sail to the peaceful island of Maui. We dock overnight in Kahului, a small port town that boasts a Whole Foods and a Regal Cinema. 

The Big Island is next--first the rainy and overcast Hilo (the state's second most populated city behind the capital) and then Kona, famous for its coffee and clear waters ideal for snorkeling. From Kona we hit the high seas on the longest stretch of our journey as we head northwest to Kuaui, also known as the Garden Island so called for its bountiful vegetation. We have another overnight in Nawiliwili, where the beach and the bars are only a five minute walk from the ship. 

Finally we return to Honolulu to drop off the passengers in the morning and then pick up a fresh batch of paying customers at noon. How can anyone be even remotely disappointed with this itinerary? You've got the big city of Honolulu with its unique mixture of skyscrapers, lush greenery, ornate palaces of the former Hawaiian monarchy, Pearl Harbor, and, of course, the beach at Waikiki. If you walk a few miles outside these tiny cities, you can find yourself hiking in the vast wilderness nestled between the verdant volcanic peaks. You could rent a car and drive on the rugged unpaved roads up to the  crater. Hop on a free shuttle to see Rainbow Falls.

Or take that same complimentary shuttle to Black Sand Beach in Hilo to swim with the turtles. From the ship you can watch humpback whales splash playfully. Ukelele music, fresh pineapples, monstrous swells, a cozy beach under a radiant sun:  these options are always readily available.  When surrounded by this every single day, how can anyone be sad?  It happens, I assure you, and it happens a lot.

Many of my coworkers complain endlessly about working long hours. They whine about needy guests with specific (and inconvenient) requests. They bicker about nitpicking managers and lazy employees and the subpar food in the crew mess and the disfunctional driers that take two hours to dry a soggy load fresh out of the broken washer that won't drain. The list is endless.  

To be fair, I am guilty of bouts of pessimism as well, and the lifestyle has its difficulties.  Working every single day for five months straight is strenuous.  To be surrounded by cranky employees can be emotionally draining.  And the guests can be frustrating, too, when they leave a table piled high with dirty dishes of half-eaten food.  Laundry is often a hassle. I have to check several laundrettes to find an open washer, and often the floor is covered with water as a result of my fellow shipmates who don't understand that the water must drain before opening the door.  The food is often disgusting, and the managers can be a bunch of nagging slave drivers. But, hey, let's look at the bright side. 

The job is simple, and we are paid reasonably well for exerting little effort. I don't pay for rent, utilities, meals, or laundry. Everything I need is free, and I can save up a lot of money in a short period of time.  The work schedule may be repetitive and monotonous, but Hawaii never gets old.

I've heard of the island blues from a Kenny Chesney song called "Round and Round." The country singer remarks that we always want to be somewhere we're not. Even if you're on a sunny beach in Hawaii, it is possible to feel stuck on an island and to feel trapped in a seemingly endless circle of repetition.  Our continuous loop around the world's most isolated archipelago is a perfect microcosm of our own battles against boredom in our daily routines.  

Happiness has nothing to do with location. Millions of tourists visit Hawaii each year to escape the harshness of winter, but the sandy beaches, colorful fishes, and rocky coastline views won't solve your problems. Beauty alone cannot shatter pessimism. A sad sack can be miserable anywhere just as an optimist can be exhilarated in unfavorable conditions.

Life onboard the ship has taught me the importance of maintaining a high morale. Working with so many irritable people can be stressful, if you let their depression affect your mood.  I tune them out.  I have come to expect a certain amount of chaos in the workplace, so I am not upset when things don't go my way.  I do my best to avoid obstacles, overcome challenges as quickly as possible and flee toward comfort.  Moments of discomfort are inevitable, but fleeting. Once the conflict is in the past, there is no need to reopen a wound.  I let go of every mistake and rejoice that I survived another day. I have survived every day of my life so far, and that fact comforts me to believe I can endure my current struggle. I will crawl into bed yet again and wake up to a new day.

I took this job because I was curious to work on a cruise ship, but I also wanted to rapidly save money to pay for a three month hike on the Appalachian Trail.  When I'm working a triple shift, my feet are aching, and I get an eight-top and must wait thirty minutes for their entrees inside a steamy kitchen full of irritated line cooks and impatient waiters, I imagine myself plodding down a quiet and shaded path surrounded by nobody but the trees.  Having a goal helps me wake up in the morning, eager to earn money and then get off the ship to play. 

When guests ask me what I think about working on the ship, I can never give them a simple answer.  Overall, I am giddy inside to have this opportunity. I never imagined myself being here, and the unplanned nature of this adventure only amplifies the thrill.  I love being able to say, "The company paid for my flight," because it makes me feel like I occupy an important position, even though I'm only delivering food.  Some rich person finds me significant enough to buy me a plane ticket.  

I love opening doors that have signs saying RESTRICTED ACCESS:  CREW ONLY.  I love climbing up the stairs, listening to the metallic clang of my footfalls reverberate as I pretend I'm fleeing the Pirates from the movie Captain Phillips.  I love interacting with guests who come from all over the world.  I love miming and pointing to menu selections with Japanese tourists who speak no English.  I love practicing my French with Montrealers and Tahitians who laugh at my ridiculous wording and inevitable mistakes.  I love wearing sunglasses to work as I bus tables in the outside lounge and tell a guest,  "This is easy living, brother.  Check out the view from my office."  

I try to have fun at my job.  I'm not performing manual labor; I'm playing a game:  How fast can I run to the kitchen and round up these appetizers?  My job is a workout.  I carry heavy trays and bus tubs, so there is no need to hit up the gym.  My job is social hour, a cultural center, and a Zen dojo.

I provide the best service I can in a sincere manner, and I try to make life easier for my coworkers by emitting a positive attitude, but I don't take the job too seriously.  I do whatever it takes to survive each day.  I do what I can when I can.  I'm not Superman, and I'm not a nuclear physicist.  If I bump into someone and shatter a tray full of wine glasses, I grab a dust pan and sweep up the fragments and throw them away.  I forget about my mistakes, failures, embarrassments of yesterday, and I don't even think about tomorrow.  

When I clock out, I don't care if my coworkers were slacking or if my managers pestered me. That is their nature, and I cannot change that, so I may as well make peace with their habits.  I don't want to relive those moments of annoyance, and I don't want to share my negativity with someone who doesn't want to hear my complaints.  Complaining is a waste of time when you're off the clock. 

I soak up the precious moments between  shifts and forget about the job.  My free time seems to stretch onward to eternity because I focus entirely on the present moment.  I immerse myself into a novel.  Music sounds sweeter.  The sunlight revives me.  

The ship sails onward in its endless loop as I search for new details amidst the growing monotony.  As we leave port, I realize that's one more day finished, and I'm that much closer to going home. I'm always aware of the time on my watch, the days I have left on my contract.  I also realize that when I'm older I'll look back on these days. I don't want to recount stories of constant nagging. I'd rather have stories worth retelling.

The Dinner Rush

I started my first day in the middle of a hectic dinner rush. I was learning how to be an assistant waiter in a restaurant onboard called Skyline.  I shadowed a coworker, let's call her Anna, as she rushed from the kitchen through the automatic doors and into the dining room. A band wearing tuxedos was playing non-denominational Christmas tunes. The spacious room was filled with the smooth sounds of a saxophone solo. True to its name, the decor was urban themed. Skyscraper pillars held the ceiling in place. The walls, too, were covered with simplistic paintings of really tall buildings. The tables, over one hundred of them, were draped with white tablecloths.

Anna hurriedly pointed out where everything was located in the server side stand, but I struggled to comprehend her Chinese-accented English over the melody of "Jingle Bells." She grabbed two hot plates and balanced a third on her forearm and set them in front of guests all the while telling me to serve from the right and to never call out a dish. When the head waiter takes the order, he numbers each guest. The one facing the door is number one, and then you proceed clockwise. Women's orders are circled. Children's entrees are confined within a triangle.

I was still trying to remember so many details, like where the bread is stored. Where do I find the water glasses? When is it acceptable to clear a table with a tray in my hand? The side stands consist of two shelves in the shape of an equal sign. The side labeled SOILED is where we store dirty dishes arranged on oval trays. We land clean glasses and food on the CLEAN side. The waiters maneuver in the space between. 

We all bump into each other, yell out "Landing!" before setting down a tray, and lightly tap each other's backs to let them know we are behind them. Drawers full of silverware, sugar caddies, butter dishes, and wine glasses are flung open. Then there are separate compartments for square tablecloths and round tablecloths for 2-tops, 4-tops, 6-tops, 8-tops, and the captains table. Several of my fellow waiters moved around me in balletic fashion. I was trying to stay out of the way while trying to familiarize myself with this new environment, but there was no time for that. Anna was scurrying back to the humongous kitchen, a cavernous maw of ridiculous scale. 

We don't have to kick the doors down; they swing open automatically. Inside the first room is the beverage station and beyond that is the bartender's domain. She works behind a cage and makes drinks for the servers to run to their tables. The ability to create small talk isn't essential here. 

Just to the left is the dish pit. There are three bins full of tepid, greenish water. Each one is designed to soak spoons, knives, and forks. Someone's job is to muck silverware, which means separate everything and load it into smaller rack. This is actually the sole responsibility of an unfortunate employee who does this for five hours each day for five months straight. If you hate your job, know that others have it a lot worse than you, and they only make a little more than seven dollars an hour. 

At the dish pit, there's a shelf to land trays, and beneath the ledge is a yellow bin and a blue bin. I'm smooshed between the mucker and two other servers who are shoving plates toward the dishwasher and then jamming water glasses into empty racks to the right. I try to move quickly but I'm deciding whether or not the butter is wrapped in a paper product or plastic. Where do I put the teapots, the ice cream dishes, the martini glasses? There's a spot for everything, but all my coworkers come up with different answers. Most advise me to put it anywhere I please, and then run away. 

The dishwashers across from me are drenched with sweat. Their hands move faster than a rock and roll drummer as they become engulfed by a cloud of steam erupting from the dish machine, a conveyer belt long enough to house a Harley Davidson. The water heats up past 180 degrees and emerges on the other side, where one guy organizes the disparate elements onto a stainless steel counter and another guy transports everything into the correct cubbyholes. 

Beyond the clean dishes lies the soup station, where frantic waiters ladle steaming French onion and burn their palms in the process. A restless pastry assistant behind them scoops ice cream from massive drums. She has the best job in the whole restaurant. Both the ice cream and soup are conveniently placed to the exit route that consists of one 90 degree corner, a popular spot to collide with a waiter carrying a tray full of wine glasses. 

We are just getting started here on this tour through the kitchen. Past the sherbet and sorbet the floor opens up into an assembly line, a cafeteria, or the trenches of war depending on your perspective.

To my right cold food like salads, fruit plates, and salmon tartare sit atop frosty beds or in refrigerated drawers. Salad preps continuously fill plates with greenery. On the opposite side lies a squadron of line cooks who are each responsible for a different dish. Signs with a name and picture of the dish hang above their stations. Hardly any of them ever smile. Mostly they stare menacingly, daring you to ask for a modified order.

Anna grabs a clean oval tray near the soup bowls and reads orders from a slip of paper she tucked into her shirt pocket. She needs a salmon, two chef's specials, a rack of lamb, and a New York strip cooked medium but the sour cream on the baked potato was 86'd. 

"You put the steak order in when you get your appetizers," Anna said while slamming her tray down onto the ledge across from the cook's station. Behind the line stood a tall, unsmiling black man lifting salmon fillets onto plates with a spatula. 

"I need one salmon," Anna said to the cook. She turned to me and said, "If you need an entree, you just go to the cook who is making that entree and tell him how many you need."

There are no tickets ceaselessly screeching and spewing out of printers. Head waiters use the Micros POS system to order wine and mixed drinks, but the food has already been paid for when he guests purchased their cruise package. Skyline is a complimentary restaurant, so there is no need to spend any money. Everything is charged to the room cards. No cash is exchanged except for tips. The only thing a guest must pay for in this restaurant is booze. 

As a result of this process, assistant waiters must join a queue behind their coworkers and yell out how many salmons you need when the cook acknowledges that it is your turn to order.  So we must wait in the steamy kitchen for the food to be cooked. And the lines get can get extremely long because these cooks prepare dishes for two restaurants:  Skyline and Liberty. Liberty is a more formal restaurant located upstairs. The waiters have to transport their loads up an escalator to reach their dining room.

When the cook places the finished dish onto the counter under the heaters, Anna grabs the hot plate without flinching and loads it onto her tray. She places a plastic dome atop the fish to keep the meal warm. Then she rounds up the lamb, the steak, and the two specials and stacks those on top of each other. 

When she lifts all her entrees, her tray resembles a skyline with buildings of varying heights, except these are poorly constructed and sway and threaten to topple over. She must balance the heavy load and maintain her own balance as well. Did I mention the ship was moving? When we are out at sea, the waters can be rough during storms, which makes the floor bounce as we are pummeled by forceful waves. The room suddenly goes crooked. The floor slants, and you find yourself walking slightly uphill and then immediately downhill. 

You don't want to drop your tray and smash the plates on the ground. Now the guests will wonder what is taking so long. Your head waiter will grow impatient because he's basically staring at the guests looking neglectful with nothing in his hands. The cooks will be cranky you must ask for the same order again, and you'll have to wait in line again for anther ten minutes. 

By that time, you'll probably be sat again because the hostess has grown apathetic and pushes buttons randomly on a computer, which means you're getting a family of six that someone less busy should have gotten. So now that's eighteen people who expect to be fed within thirty minutes. Over 800 guests have walked through the doors tonight, and some of them are cranky, tired, sunburned and seasick. The entire space is filled with pandemonium, but that is just another Saturday night.

The Buffet

On the ship I work in two restaurants. For breakfast and/or lunch, I bus tables or restock the beverage station in the Aloha Cafe, the main buffet on Deck 11. The windows offer views of the open sea, the breezy coasts, or the green mountains depending on where we're docked. 

The interior is rather plain with the exception of a few painted scenes of the typical Hawaiian images of tikis and surfboards. The dining room is divided into stations, most of which contain a server station where we store a cleaning bucket, trays, and bus tubs. There are usually three employees in each section, and we all amble about our confined areas slowly to kill as much time as possible. I take my time scrubbing the tables by the window so I can scan the waters for breaching humpback whales.

The guests often seem stuck in a trance as they examine their choices. I must maneuver around them because they don't see me; they focus solely on the food.  They are not like hunters who are hyper aware of their surroundings. Instead, they resemble zombies bumbling toward convienent nourishment.

My job is to remove the dirty plates and ready the table for the next person to sit down for his feast. Breakfast can be chaotic because the cruisers want to fill up and then get off the ship. Lunch is often deserted because most reasonable people would rather spend time snorkeling with sea turtles than observing large families and extra large people stuff themselves. 

Recently I was assigned the role of beverage maintenance. I push a cart stacked with racks of cheap glasses and German coffee cups, and I replenish the stations. When the juices run low, I grab a carton from the fridge and top it off. The giant coffee makers and espresso machines unload their grounds into a bucket below the counter.  I haul that into the kitchen and dump it into a designated container. 

Everything must be separated and deposited into the correct bins because we recycle everything we use on the ship. It is illegal to do otherwise as certain environmental regulations must be followed. The paper goes in the yellow bin, plastic in the blue, glass in the red. Food scraps get dumped into a channel in the dish pit. All the wasted pizza crusts are pulverized into fish food and dumped into the ocean. The water turns a murky brown, and the fish begin their feast. 

The seafood you eat could have eaten what you threw away, but this is the essence of recycling. It is not meant to sound disgusting, although undoubtedly many will be sickened to know this happens. Fish that feed off of table scraps are not as gross as cardboard-like ice cream cones that were manufactured rather than baked, but people eat those, too. 

Many of these ice cream cone loving people, in fact, take cruises, and they leave messes on tables, which I transport to the galley, where the dishwashers convert half-eaten burgers into brown flakes that alter an ecosystem.  When you consider all this mess, I'm baffled by the concept of fine dining. 

After my shift in the buffet, I stuff my face in the crew mess as I prepare for my evening shift in Skyline, a quasi-fine dining restaurant with a casual dress code. With my pressed shirt and tie, I serve the same cruisers I did in the buffet, but now I have to concern myself with the fork on the left and the knife on the right with the blades pointed in a certain direction. Why should we worry about all this orderly pretentiousness?Whatever food we don't eat, the animals will, and they don't give a damn about the silverware.