Worklife

Learning new things is a wonderful thing! I think! After a a day to settle in and a morning class on food safety we are ready to get to work. The schedule is spread over two weeks. This is the easy week – Work Wednesday and Thursday, off Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Nest week is working Monday, Tuesday. Off Wednesday and Thursday, then working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Even through Kathy is in the Galley, we both have the same schedule.

Dining Room (Tim) – I will forever appreciate the work it takes to operate a dining room. Learning where to find everything, what needs to be cleaned, and what am I supposed to do next. They have the dining room operation organized into areas of responsibilities. Each learning day is focused on one of those areas. Everyone is very helpful and it will all become very automatic. Meanwhile 5:45 am comes pretty early.

One of the advantages of being dining room staff is I see everyone working on the ship and can enjoy occasional conversations. These are truly an amazing group of people. Their joy and compassion is obvious and it is an honor to help provide food for them.

Galley (Kathy) – I have begun work in the galley in the cold room or salad room. I work with a delightful hardworking group of Africans. The oldest worker is Bernadette, but everyone calls her Grandma. Since I am older than she is, I just call her Bernadette! So far, my work includes a lot of chopping and cleaning. So much cleaning!! The twelve hour days are long but doable. There is so much to learn still and it is an education to see all the work that goes into providing breakfast, lunch and dinner to 600 people.