Organized Chaos – Seattle – [09/26/2011]

And then there’s embark day. If debark day is a flurry of activity followed by a strange kind of sadness, embark day is just a flurry of insanity. Up and in the hotel lobby by 6:45am, on the transfer bus by 7 (and no matter what they tell you there’s never time for breakfast), and on the ship by 10.  45 minutes of meetings and safety briefings, collect your life jacket, find your cabin – get your orientation if you’re a first timer. If, however, you’re NOT a first time they hand your embark papers, (and in the case of this ship, and this team , give you a hug and tell you welcome home) and send you off down the I-95, trusting that you’ll remember where you’re going.

If you’re fortunate, you do. In fact, you’d best hope that you do – because you start work almost as soon as you drop off your luggage. Or in my case, pick up my luggage  as my luggage was shore-side with the port agent.

I’m back home now, as much home as a ship can ever be. Being back on the flagship of the fleet feels both strange and uplifting at the same time. This is my ship. These are my people. No torn jeans on formal nights here, no strange looks for wearing a cocktail dress after 6. This is the one cruise, well, one of two, where my smart casual evening uniform doesn’t draw a second look from anyone. Here, you curl your hair and do your make-up to the last eyelash before you walk out the door in the morning. And on formal nights? your gown better reach the floor, or be a damn fine looking knee-length…because if it isn’t, you’re being told to change.

I know almost everyone here, from the cast down to the cabin stewards. And it’s done me some good to see everyone again. That said, there are still people from my last contract that it will take me a while to stop missing…there always is, and it always does.

One whirlwind change into uniform later I set foot into my library and find myself thanking everything that there’s two of us. This is a Grand Voyage, it never ever occurred to me that the person who had worked the contract in between this and the previous World (in other words the person who replaced me for the summer) would have left it any way but how she found it – if not better. Basic respect no? I left that library in pristine, perfectly ordered, perfectly alpha’d, spotless condition. She had 10 pages of detailed handover notes to work from – more detailed than usual even because I knew it was her first contract.

What do I come back to? Shelves that aren’t alphabetized, drawers that are overflowing with junk and un-filed personal paperwork, no cards in stock, no stationary in stock, no spare pens, storage that took us two days to clean up last time is now SO disastrous you can’t walk into the closet to find anything, a check out system that isn’t set up properly, a book drop that isn’t emptied

And the list goes on…the place is a disaster…and we have 800+ very demanding very high end guests on board…

Rolls up the sleeves of her smart casual uniform and ties back her hair..

Looks like my fellow librarian and I have our work cut out for us…