#poem (human written)
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@grumble209 YES! THIS! This was the guy's job.
@ai6yr I'm not even sure our hosts were paid - they had better cabins than the band, and had dining room privileges (we got the crew galley and lunch access to the poolside bistro). In return, they had to essentially be hosts at every entertainment event through the day, dance at the dance sets, and sometimes be guides on shore excursions. It looked like a PITA to me. I think that's why they swapped out every few weeks.
The only worse job, imho, was the photographer who literally had to be at every event all day, every day. Halfway through my contract they fired our photographer because he was always drunk. His replacement showed up a couple days later, and refused to use the previous guy's cabin - he'd peed on the mattress so much that the metal tray underneath was rotted out.
Our lecturers got flown to/from the boat, good staterooms, full guest amenities, but not even a stipend. Most of them seemed to have books that they'd try to sell.
It was a very educational four month contract - which was good since it paid not much. There's a whole genre of cruise ship musician videos on YouTube, and frankly, I think I was on a pretty good ship compared to some of those stories they tell.
hardcopy is forever
***trivia: I once met someone whose job was lecturing on interesting topics on cruise ships. On the off season, he spent his time wooing/bedroom surfing the mansions of wealthy divorced and windowed 80- and 90-year olds. 🤷 He admitted (and apparently quite enjoyed) his job was mostly flirting and/or bedding extremely rich women a decade or two older than him. 🤷
@ai6yr welcome to dating the Santa Barbara way.
@ai6yr what if Speed 2 but Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
@ai6yr sounds consensual, and everyone deserves to have fun. lol
@bolderbekah No one was complaining, not at all 🤷
@ai6yr On the ship I worked on, we had "gentleman hosts" who were older guys with good suits, knew all the ballroom dance styles, and who's job was to dance with the widows. Those guys would discretely hook up with the widows. It had to be discrete, because if the widows thought they were being snubbed for a dance they'd raise hell with the Entertainment Director or even the Cruise Director. Those poor guys danced non-stop every set, except the late set after the main show - by 10:30 the widows were tired.
This was Cunard line - way too pricey for mortals, and the widows were typically quite demanding. We played 2 or 3 sets of ballroom dance music every day. It was invaluable as education for n00bs like me, but the old timers in the band were bored and/or drunk.