Being at peace with rules and regulations on cruise ships

Dear Musicians,

Let’s assume that you have already gotten a gig on a cruise ship. Now you should be concerned with keeping that very same gig. I say this because quite a large number of people get fired because of disciplinary reasons. In other words, they can’t comply to the rules and regulations on the ships.

I’m fully aware that us musicians like to do our own thing and don’t like to be restricted in any way. Interestingly enough, there is a new study out that seems to suggest that the part of the brain that’s responsible for following rules is quieted down in musicians that are improvising. More on that study in a later post.

Unfortunately, in a closed environment such as a cruise ship, where you can’t just get up and leave if you don’t agree with a certain rule, it’s imperative that you comply. What helped me comply to these rules and regulations (even if I didn’t necessarily agree with what they were trying to achieve) was to look at them from a company perspective.This occurred to me after I became a business owner myself where the ultimate goal is to provide the best possible product in order to keep all clients happy.

You could look at the long term achievement of structure in a company. By this I mean that if there is no structure to a company, the quality of the product or service will suffer and you’ll lose customers. If, for example, cruise ship passengers had to wait in line to get to the buffet because a slew of crew members were ahead of them, it’s safe to say that this would lead to lots of complaints, and if this problem persisted, passengers would pick a cruise line where they wouldn’t run into this problem.

How about passengers that couldn’t get on a treadmill because crew members are using them? Or, what if the crew would walk around in jeans on formal nights? Crew members skipping the line to get on tenders? Crew members occupying the whirl pool? Crew members being drunk at the gig?

You simply can’t keep order in a large company without a certain amount of regulation. Of course, we wouldn’t need these rules if people would use common sense, but we all know that common sense means something different to just about every single individual not to mention that it is completely absent in some.

I’m almost certain that musicians wouldn’t be all that thrilled to get a call from their employer saying they couldn’t get you another gig because they lost a large percentage of customers to a competitor. This is all I’m saying here. The better your employer does with clients, the better it is for your wallet in the end.

Making sure you’re at peace with rules and regulations before you get on the ship works wonders. Knowing that you will be confronted with some challenging demands and being prepared to handle these situations positively will most likely be the deciding factor in whether you’ll have a positive or negative contract.

All too often have I observed individuals that were trying to “fight the system” and make their point only to see them get fired after a while. In the end, you’ll actually benefit from adapting since you won’t have to put up huge amounts of energy to combat negative situations. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t voice your concerns over situations you’re not happy about, but voicing your concern and taking on the system are two very different beasts.