Work

Work has been going well. The age of my patrons ranges from 20yo up to 70yo, with the vast majority being in their 50’s and 60’s. As the week progressed I’ve garnered quite a few regulars who have made the job a lot of fun. They aren’t shy about requesting songs, and by now know what I can and cannot do. I find myself doing things like Blue Suede Shoes, Great Balls, Mustang Sally, Buttercup, Daydream Believer, Croc Rock, Killing Me Softly, Mama Don’t Dance, You Lost That Lovin Feeling and NY State of Mind. My two biggest requests here are Sweet Caroline and Piano Man. I’ve been trying to keep it upbeat, but many times they want to hear some mellow tunes like James Taylor or Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” So far I haven’t made very much on tips, which is not really essential since I am getting paid a decent wage. We are not allowed to have a tip jar out on the piano, but when someone does hand me a tip, I make a fuss over it on the mic and leave it sitting as conspicuously as possible on top of the piano. Last night I had already goine 30 min past the time I am allowed to stop and yet they wanted me to continue. Hoping to keep me playing, one of my regulars asked me what I was drinking. I told him I was drinking twenty dollar bills. Within moments there was a Dos Equis beer and $40 on the piano. That was worth another 20 minutes. But it’s tricky with the bar staff. I was told by my boss, who is the Cruise Director, that I should continue to play after midnight if I have a crowd. This is fair, as I am only scheduled for 3 hours. So even going into overtime doesn’t really strain me. But the bar staff would prefer I finish at exactly midnight, because they have been working all day and all night. Because of the red alert with the Noro virus, the staff hasn’t had a day off as they have been conscripted into disinfecting the ship when not working their normal stations. So I definitely feel for them and respect all the hard work they do. But it’s a delicate dance because they want me to stop, and yet I’ve been told to keep my show going if there’s a crowd and booze is being sold. And they will never actually tell me to stop because they don’t want to take responsibility for that; they want me to stop of my own accord so that if there is a question about who closed down the bar, they can say that it was the piano player that stopped.

The red alert for the Noro virus has been lifted so the crew bar is open again. During red alert, they had actually suspended handing out the bi-weekly cash wage (paid to non-American crew members) to the crew for fear of the virus being spread through the money. That made people pretty unhappy because most of the crew was expecting to send their pay home in St. Kitts and weren’t able to do it. The other thing that they did during red alert was not allow the crew to serve themselves (buffet style) in the crew mess, but rather be served by the stewards (think cafeteria lunch lady). As a result there was an unreasonably long line to get served. Because the crew has been kept so busy with cleaning tasks in addition to their normal duties, some of them were going hungry because they just didn’t have the time to wait in line.

I have heard that people are still getting sick, but I guess the Captain realized he might have a mutiny on his hands if he wasn’t able to pay or feed the crew properly. And really, I don’t know how effective closing the crew rec area was during the red alert, as the crew just had impromptu parties inside their rooms that spilled out into the hallways. One of these parties was going on two nights ago outside my door with the music staff. Life back in the crew area reminds me of my freshman dorm in college. It’s really not much different.