Callings
My chin trembled as I glanced from the TV screen to the dinner table and back again. Blinking back tears and sculpting the smile back into place, I poured more wine or bottled water and watched the brightly lit hotels and bungalows and palatial Italian style monstrosities slip past as we made our way down the Intercoastal.
My first freelance yacht job... and it was going splendidly. No I mean it. The captain was cool, the owners friendly and appreciative and plying us with expensive wine, the guests in awe of the gorgeous new boat, delicious food, sparkling scenery.
And I was having a great time...until the TV came on.
Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Bono, etc etc etc.
The benefit for Haiti introduced mutinous thoughts into my conservatively made-up and hair pulled back head. ("Don't wear too much makeup or try to compete with the lady of the yacht. It just isn't done" the How to be a Yacht Stewardess manuals say)
People are still being pulled from the rubble hundreds of miles away and I am asking red or white, filet mignon (UNSUSTAINABLE AGRIBUSINESS!)or sea bass (ENDANGERED!) and I wonder what I am doing on a big white plastic boat in the Southern Florida.
But as my attention comes back to focus on the present, around the table I hear about the sizeable donations that have been made and I look at my fellow stew and the four other crew and think how everything is relative. Yes the value of this yacht could feed the hungry and dying in a small 3rd world nation. But hundreds if not thousands of people make their living off of building these boats, sourcing the interiors, cleaning, provisioning, maintaining, driving, fixing, and entertaining the guests. Down to the tool and die makers that make the enormous engines whirl, the tree of employment stretches pretty far.
And the bar keepers who cater to inebriated yachtie crews on shore leave make out pretty well, too.
So while I am still philosophically at odds with the industry as a whole, I will smile and pour and laugh my financial way back to school where I will learn how to feed, heal, help those who cannot even imagine what the inside of a motoryacht that anchors off their tropical island looks like.
My first freelance yacht job... and it was going splendidly. No I mean it. The captain was cool, the owners friendly and appreciative and plying us with expensive wine, the guests in awe of the gorgeous new boat, delicious food, sparkling scenery.
And I was having a great time...until the TV came on.
Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Bono, etc etc etc.
The benefit for Haiti introduced mutinous thoughts into my conservatively made-up and hair pulled back head. ("Don't wear too much makeup or try to compete with the lady of the yacht. It just isn't done" the How to be a Yacht Stewardess manuals say)
People are still being pulled from the rubble hundreds of miles away and I am asking red or white, filet mignon (UNSUSTAINABLE AGRIBUSINESS!)or sea bass (ENDANGERED!) and I wonder what I am doing on a big white plastic boat in the Southern Florida.
But as my attention comes back to focus on the present, around the table I hear about the sizeable donations that have been made and I look at my fellow stew and the four other crew and think how everything is relative. Yes the value of this yacht could feed the hungry and dying in a small 3rd world nation. But hundreds if not thousands of people make their living off of building these boats, sourcing the interiors, cleaning, provisioning, maintaining, driving, fixing, and entertaining the guests. Down to the tool and die makers that make the enormous engines whirl, the tree of employment stretches pretty far.
And the bar keepers who cater to inebriated yachtie crews on shore leave make out pretty well, too.
So while I am still philosophically at odds with the industry as a whole, I will smile and pour and laugh my financial way back to school where I will learn how to feed, heal, help those who cannot even imagine what the inside of a motoryacht that anchors off their tropical island looks like.
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