As of the end of this cruise, I have to train someone. Me! Train someone! I am a little nervous about this really, I mean when you mentor someone it’s your work ethic that they carry with them for at least their first contract, and it’s you that they sort of come to count on if they need something. I’ve…never been really the greatest at that particular type of responsibility. BUT Head Office seems to think I can handle it, and I will – as ever – do as they tell me.
For now I’m just scurrying about trying to make sure that everything is up to date for her (and yes I do at least know that it’s a her) arrival. I really am a regular school ma’arm about my work (although I keep insisting to everyone that I am not old enough to be called ‘ma’am) especially when I know that someone else is going to be seeing it, and possibly modeling themselves after it.
Seriously though, when I started? I was handed a half page of handover notes and a set of keys (with no clue what those keys unlocked!) and told to go for it. People ask me why the handover notes I leave for my own replacements are so exhaustive – it’s because I want to give them what I didn’t have. Yeah, my handover file is nearly 20 pages long, but you could be brand new to ship-life and have nothing but that file as a guide and it will get you through the basics.
So I don’t know…I still don’t know if I’m a ‘trainer’, but we’ll see.
In the meantime, everything continues to go so smoothly that I’m almost almost losing my habit of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I sometimes forget how lovely it is to have a contract where you simply do your own job – only worry about your own job – do it well, and have everyone simply leave you to it. It’s not that there’s no pressure here, there’s always a little bit of pressure, it’s that the pressure is so much less. Or perhaps I’m just noticing it more this summer because the last season on the flagship was so difficult. In fact, I don’t think I even realized how difficult it was until I was well out of it and woke up a month later.
I adore my flagship, I truly do, but goddess it can wear me out sometimes.