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I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there. Back then I had no idea

I once worked for a Cruise Company for some months. I really am shocked at how naive I was back then, when I applied and worked there. Back then I had no idea how bad this form of travel is for the environment, for the visited cities, for the people working below deck, and so on. The people I worked with in the main office of the company were really energetic, loved their product, had a great time launching ship after ship (every year a new ship was launched). It was great working with people who loved what they were doing. Compared to other jobs I had till then. I was there when the new hyped prototype was being put into service. Quite an interesting time. We were allowed to test travel on the new ship. It was a cool experience. From a purely hedonistic perspective. Yeah it felt nice sitting in the sauna, ten decks above see at 6am in the morning and looking out over the waves. It was purely relaxing. But from a more conscious perspective it was doing everything I could to help destroy this world - and I was so abusing the lower deck people. The ones never being seen by guests. They work horrible shifts, are employed with contracts from the tax heaven states the ships are being registered in. I was an employee of the same company - but I had massive employment protections and laws governing how long I work, what is considered overtime, and so on. The served me, made my bed, put coffee on my table. They prepared my food - but they were third or fourth class "citizens" on this ship. I am ashamed looking at it nowadays.

lopmotr 7y ago
If you had the power, would you fire them and be the one to give them their notice in person? If they asked why, what would you tell them? "For your own good"?
- mozey 7y ago
  Instead of asking would you fire them for their own good, rather ask, do you employ them for their own good?
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    If they voluntarily show up, I think they are judging that I am offering them something better (or at least as good) as their next best option. That’s one formulation of “their own good”.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Or perhaps he would put some serious effort into seeing how their work life could be improved and would work on improving the cruise’s environmental footprint
- 3finmunchousen 7y ago
  Yes because terminating someone's employment is the exact moral equivalent of treating someone with dignity in the workplace. Their vast numbers and lengthy shifts clearly imply that their contribution to the operation of the ship is negligible.
- noonespecial 7y ago
  Or could you use that power to pay them more even though you didn't have to?
- sdoering 7y ago
  Nice straw-man you present here. Or did I anywhere imply what words you try to put in my mouth? Someone could for example give them the same working protections offered by a German contract. The same work hours. Same wages? Someone would not have to let them go.
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    So you're happier that they were employed by the cruise line at all, but preferred they they be given more? I see. Giving them more than their market value is like charity. So perhaps my question should be "Would you give part of your salary to them?" Did you? It's easy to ask someone else to give charity but surely if you really mean it, you'd do it yourself first. Though you did say "I was so abusing the lower deck people" which, given you didn't want to fire them, implies their normal life would have been even more abusive. So wasn't your company actually helping them already? Isn't that something to feel good about? You were making their lives better. Not as good as your own, but why is that the standard?
Nokinside 7y ago
First word, third world clash in the service industry is real but you should not react with emotion only. What you need to consider is the opportunity cost for those workers. Opportunity cost = (return of best alternative not taken) - (return of a chosen option). If the work at cruise company is the best opportunity for the low paid Filipino worker, you should just be generally horrified how hard the life in third world is. 14-16 hours of hard work per day in a ship may be better than even harder lower paying work in some factory. This is separate issue from pure exploitation and abuse where even the low wages are not paid on time, agreements are not kept and more work is assigned without extra compensation.
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  "pure exploitation and abuse" happens to foreign cruise ship workers all the time and is exceptionally well documented.
  - pasiaj 7y ago
    Please provide a link to the aforementioned exceptional documentation.
    - staticautomatic 7y ago
      https://story.californiasunday.com/below-deck https://story.californiasunday.com/below-deck
      - the_seraphim 7y ago
        Guy earns almost 10 times his normal expected wage for 6 years, working only double the 40 hour week he expected. After fucking loving it for 6 years he gets sick and received shitty treatment from a doctor but then when he gets really sick, he gets sent to a nice as fuck medical facility, on 4 months sick pay with his medical bills covered for 3 months. then they wont hire him back because he wont indemnify the company for liability. hmmm... if he put even 10% of his wages into some kind of insurance he would be covered now and now in the literal shit (and he would have felt happy to return to the carnival line as he knew he could fall back on the medical insurance if necessary for further treatment) in the mean time, the guy has earned a full 60 years worth of wages from his previous shitty job, and while his kids are now in a private school with high fees (did he not save any of his money?!?) his out of work status has come at a poor time for him (shit happens, even in the 1st world) I just dont feel too sorry for the guy, sue me... now excuse me while i go back to waiting for my NHS appointment for my back pain... its only in december. If it goes like my knee surgery, i should be treated sometime around 2021, but at least i wont be bankrupt like i would in the states. life sucks, man made poor choices while raking the dough, now its carnival lines fault alledgedly
fasicle 7y ago
"How bad this form of travel is for... the visited cities" I was holidaying in Split, Croatia when the MS Queen Elizabeth [1] docked and thousands of people descended onto the city from it. The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not that much of a negative for the locals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Queen_Elizabeth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Queen_Elizabeth
- benj111 7y ago
  "I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants" Aren't most cruise ship full board? Plus you seem to suggest that visitor numbers are very lumpy which would make it very difficult to size the local restaurant industry. If average summer visitors are 10000, then the QE2 dumps out 20000 visitors for 2 days out of the month, do you size yourself to accommodate 10000 visitors? 30000? Source: Worked in pubs that hosted coach parties, there was a massive variation in spend from coach to coach.
  - ainiriand 7y ago
    Yes, most of them are full board. But you just don't want to go back to the ship only for lunch, so you have lunch in the city, where you can have a taste of the local cuisine.
    - benj111 7y ago
      Potentially. I suspect there's a lot of cultural and generational norms wrapped up in that though. A ship full of Swedes may prefer to return to the boat to eat, a ship full of Spaniards may all want 3 course meals on land, that just makes it harder for the host city to predict demand.
      - sdoering 7y ago
        At least for the Company I worked for - most people left on "harbor days". Be it for guided tours, beach days or other events or just plain "I am exploring on my own". Most have to be back in the late afternoon/early evening - so that the cruise-liner can depart on time. So at least for this company most people did not incur food costs on board for lunch (non the less having paid for it with the package deal).
amalag 7y ago
I met a cruise ship worker from Bali who started staying in the USA illegally because it pays more than the cruise ship. He works in some restaurant and will just keep doing it until he is caught or he wants to get married. Then he will return to his home country. In the mean time he is sending money back home for his family and sister's education.
bliblah 7y ago
A few years ago me and my parents wanted to take a cruise in the Baltic making several 1-2 day stops and I have to say I felt the same way. The ship was massive and had pools, a restaurant, live entertainment but it was obvious that all the people who were employed were semi indentured servants. Most were from southeast asia and worked 6-8 months away from their families. What broke my heart is that only a small portion could leave the ship whenever we docked and most didn't seem to have passports that allowed entry to European countries without visa so they would just wait in the dock and use up the wifi to face time their spouses and children. Except the wife was really bad and the bandwidth quickly peaked and most were left just being miserable. It was nice being able to visit all these countries that would otherwise have cost a fortune but man the pure human suffering really broke me.

lopmotr 7y ago

If you had the power, would you fire them and be the one to give them their notice in person? If they asked why, what would you tell them? "For your own good"?

mozey 7y ago
Instead of asking would you fire them for their own good, rather ask, do you employ them for their own good?
- sokoloff 7y ago
  If they voluntarily show up, I think they are judging that I am offering them something better (or at least as good) as their next best option. That’s one formulation of “their own good”.
Angostura 7y ago
Or perhaps he would put some serious effort into seeing how their work life could be improved and would work on improving the cruise’s environmental footprint
3finmunchousen 7y ago
Yes because terminating someone's employment is the exact moral equivalent of treating someone with dignity in the workplace. Their vast numbers and lengthy shifts clearly imply that their contribution to the operation of the ship is negligible.
noonespecial 7y ago
Or could you use that power to pay them more even though you didn't have to?
sdoering 7y ago
Nice straw-man you present here. Or did I anywhere imply what words you try to put in my mouth? Someone could for example give them the same working protections offered by a German contract. The same work hours. Same wages? Someone would not have to let them go.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  So you're happier that they were employed by the cruise line at all, but preferred they they be given more? I see. Giving them more than their market value is like charity. So perhaps my question should be "Would you give part of your salary to them?" Did you? It's easy to ask someone else to give charity but surely if you really mean it, you'd do it yourself first. Though you did say "I was so abusing the lower deck people" which, given you didn't want to fire them, implies their normal life would have been even more abusive. So wasn't your company actually helping them already? Isn't that something to feel good about? You were making their lives better. Not as good as your own, but why is that the standard?

Nokinside 7y ago

First word, third world clash in the service industry is real but you should not react with emotion only. What you need to consider is the opportunity cost for those workers. Opportunity cost = (return of best alternative not taken) - (return of a chosen option). If the work at cruise company is the best opportunity for the low paid Filipino worker, you should just be generally horrified how hard the life in third world is. 14-16 hours of hard work per day in a ship may be better than even harder lower paying work in some factory. This is separate issue from pure exploitation and abuse where even the low wages are not paid on time, agreements are not kept and more work is assigned without extra compensation.

staticautomatic 7y ago
"pure exploitation and abuse" happens to foreign cruise ship workers all the time and is exceptionally well documented.
- pasiaj 7y ago
  Please provide a link to the aforementioned exceptional documentation.
  - staticautomatic 7y ago
    https://story.californiasunday.com/below-deck https://story.californiasunday.com/below-deck
    - the_seraphim 7y ago
      Guy earns almost 10 times his normal expected wage for 6 years, working only double the 40 hour week he expected. After fucking loving it for 6 years he gets sick and received shitty treatment from a doctor but then when he gets really sick, he gets sent to a nice as fuck medical facility, on 4 months sick pay with his medical bills covered for 3 months. then they wont hire him back because he wont indemnify the company for liability. hmmm... if he put even 10% of his wages into some kind of insurance he would be covered now and now in the literal shit (and he would have felt happy to return to the carnival line as he knew he could fall back on the medical insurance if necessary for further treatment) in the mean time, the guy has earned a full 60 years worth of wages from his previous shitty job, and while his kids are now in a private school with high fees (did he not save any of his money?!?) his out of work status has come at a poor time for him (shit happens, even in the 1st world) I just dont feel too sorry for the guy, sue me... now excuse me while i go back to waiting for my NHS appointment for my back pain... its only in december. If it goes like my knee surgery, i should be treated sometime around 2021, but at least i wont be bankrupt like i would in the states. life sucks, man made poor choices while raking the dough, now its carnival lines fault alledgedly

fasicle 7y ago

"How bad this form of travel is for... the visited cities" I was holidaying in Split, Croatia when the MS Queen Elizabeth [1] docked and thousands of people descended onto the city from it. The quiet city became absolutely packed with tour groups from the ship, completely ruined the atmosphere. I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants, buying souvenirs etc, so not that much of a negative for the locals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Queen_Elizabeth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Queen_Elizabeth

benj111 7y ago
"I guess the cruise tourists do bring in quite a bit of money from eating in the restaurants" Aren't most cruise ship full board? Plus you seem to suggest that visitor numbers are very lumpy which would make it very difficult to size the local restaurant industry. If average summer visitors are 10000, then the QE2 dumps out 20000 visitors for 2 days out of the month, do you size yourself to accommodate 10000 visitors? 30000? Source: Worked in pubs that hosted coach parties, there was a massive variation in spend from coach to coach.
- ainiriand 7y ago
  Yes, most of them are full board. But you just don't want to go back to the ship only for lunch, so you have lunch in the city, where you can have a taste of the local cuisine.
  - benj111 7y ago
    Potentially. I suspect there's a lot of cultural and generational norms wrapped up in that though. A ship full of Swedes may prefer to return to the boat to eat, a ship full of Spaniards may all want 3 course meals on land, that just makes it harder for the host city to predict demand.
    - sdoering 7y ago
      At least for the Company I worked for - most people left on "harbor days". Be it for guided tours, beach days or other events or just plain "I am exploring on my own". Most have to be back in the late afternoon/early evening - so that the cruise-liner can depart on time. So at least for this company most people did not incur food costs on board for lunch (non the less having paid for it with the package deal).

amalag 7y ago

I met a cruise ship worker from Bali who started staying in the USA illegally because it pays more than the cruise ship. He works in some restaurant and will just keep doing it until he is caught or he wants to get married. Then he will return to his home country. In the mean time he is sending money back home for his family and sister's education.

bliblah 7y ago

A few years ago me and my parents wanted to take a cruise in the Baltic making several 1-2 day stops and I have to say I felt the same way. The ship was massive and had pools, a restaurant, live entertainment but it was obvious that all the people who were employed were semi indentured servants. Most were from southeast asia and worked 6-8 months away from their families. What broke my heart is that only a small portion could leave the ship whenever we docked and most didn't seem to have passports that allowed entry to European countries without visa so they would just wait in the dock and use up the wifi to face time their spouses and children. Except the wife was really bad and the bandwidth quickly peaked and most were left just being miserable. It was nice being able to visit all these countries that would otherwise have cost a fortune but man the pure human suffering really broke me.