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If there is one thing that is so often difficult out here on the waves, it\u2019s the fact that \u2013 and I\u2019ve said it before \u2013 we truly are cogs in the machine. Much as I love the job (and I do) there is the same underlying current that I imagine comes when one is a worker bee at any big company: if you can stand, you can work.<\/p>\n
That can be difficult sometimes. The smiles wear thin and the clockwork winds too tight; and once in a while, all our carefully polished cogs and gears fly all apart and we have to scramble to pick them up and put them back into place before anyone notices any dents.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no big secret that there\u2019s some fairly major things going on in my off-page life right now. Some of it I\u2019m chatty about, most of it I\u2019m not. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad. All of it has led to me being a little bit on the frail side. But hey, you focus on the good and you keep going right?<\/p>\n
Until one day you kind of wake up and find that you sort of\u2026can\u2019t; and that\u2019s a rough place to be out here.<\/p>\n
Until you realize that you are lucky enough to have one of the best managers in the world, well two, because it was both my on-site manager and my shore-side manager (my \u201cuber boss\u201d) who made this happen.<\/p>\n
Manger walked up to me while I was getting coffee yesterday, looked me up, looked me down\u2026and said<\/p>\n
How are you doing?<\/i><\/p>\n
Honestly\u2026.?<\/i><\/p>\n
And she, immediately, no questions asked, no prompting from me \u2013 arranged for me to have the day off today. A decision that \u2013 as it turned out \u2013 was fully backed up by my handler in Head Office. I taught only one short class, and wouldn\u2019t have even had to do that if I had not insisted that I needed something to do. They granted me a mental health day\u2026something that is practically unheard of<\/i> in this environment,<\/p>\n
And even though it wasn\u2019t all that different from any other port day (my classes are light on port days to begin with), it made ever so much more difference<\/i> than a normal day\u2026because it highlighted something really really<\/i> important..<\/p>\n
Sometimes, even out here where we are all sometimes thought of as so many clockwork dolls\u2026there are still people who care<\/i>, there are people who see<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And that\u2026that just makes everything so<\/i> much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If there is one thing that is so often difficult out here on the waves, it\u2019s the fact that \u2013 and I\u2019ve said it before \u2013 we truly are cogs in the machine. Much as I love the job (and … Continue reading