Cruise shippers make my brains hurt
So this morning was a clusterfuck.
Got to the dock right on time for 7:30 to set up gear and whatnot for our 8:45 departure. Full boat today - 4 cruisers and 4 on island folks. Two are somewhat regulars so good there. BUT, the rest... oh the rest.
So as one might imagine in any place that thrives on tourism, working in the industry means that you must rely on them for your paycheck. It also means that you hate them with a fire that burns like Satan's bum after too much Taco Bell. People off of cruise ships are the worst. They tend to think that the whole world is supposed to just wait for them to decide when they'd like to do something. So, on the whole, they are late for everything. Which is not very good when you have a schedule to keep up for your business. We have a set departure time of 8:45, motor out to whatever site is available and do our first dive, generally a wall dive to about 100ft. Depending on air consumption this can last anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes. Then is a 45 minute surface interval lest all of our guests get the bends. Then the shallow dive (30-60ft) which generally lasts between 45 minutes and an hour. So that's at least 3 hours for the trip. We also run an afternoon trip set to leave the dock at 12:45. If you are LATE, cruisers, that makes everyone else on the trip have to wait for YOU. Today there were 5 ships in port. Yuck.
Our people were scheduled to meet us for a pick up at the cruise dock at 8:30. Well they were late. We didn't leave our dock until 9:15, putting us back into our dock for around 1. With our other guest waiting rather impatiently for us to arrive, fill tanks and get on again.
Now, the small window between trips is for us to, you know, eat and stuff. So when people get all pissy at me for wanting them to be on time and hurry up with the lollying around I get a bit cranky. Because it really isn't fair to me or my coworker that we must work from 7:30 to 5:30 with no break for bathroom or food so that you can take your damn time buying a coconut from that homeless guy.
To top it all off, they were all shit divers. The afternoon trip served to lift spirits though, and I knocked off 3 lionfish. So there is that.
But still. I freaking hate cruise shippers.
Got to the dock right on time for 7:30 to set up gear and whatnot for our 8:45 departure. Full boat today - 4 cruisers and 4 on island folks. Two are somewhat regulars so good there. BUT, the rest... oh the rest.
So as one might imagine in any place that thrives on tourism, working in the industry means that you must rely on them for your paycheck. It also means that you hate them with a fire that burns like Satan's bum after too much Taco Bell. People off of cruise ships are the worst. They tend to think that the whole world is supposed to just wait for them to decide when they'd like to do something. So, on the whole, they are late for everything. Which is not very good when you have a schedule to keep up for your business. We have a set departure time of 8:45, motor out to whatever site is available and do our first dive, generally a wall dive to about 100ft. Depending on air consumption this can last anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes. Then is a 45 minute surface interval lest all of our guests get the bends. Then the shallow dive (30-60ft) which generally lasts between 45 minutes and an hour. So that's at least 3 hours for the trip. We also run an afternoon trip set to leave the dock at 12:45. If you are LATE, cruisers, that makes everyone else on the trip have to wait for YOU. Today there were 5 ships in port. Yuck.
Our people were scheduled to meet us for a pick up at the cruise dock at 8:30. Well they were late. We didn't leave our dock until 9:15, putting us back into our dock for around 1. With our other guest waiting rather impatiently for us to arrive, fill tanks and get on again.
Now, the small window between trips is for us to, you know, eat and stuff. So when people get all pissy at me for wanting them to be on time and hurry up with the lollying around I get a bit cranky. Because it really isn't fair to me or my coworker that we must work from 7:30 to 5:30 with no break for bathroom or food so that you can take your damn time buying a coconut from that homeless guy.
To top it all off, they were all shit divers. The afternoon trip served to lift spirits though, and I knocked off 3 lionfish. So there is that.
But still. I freaking hate cruise shippers.