Time to clean up our act
Working on a superyacht may involve crew getting their hands more dirty than they originally thought. Britta Fleischhak-Norquoy levels with crew expectations of a purely glamorous job and lifestyle…
In Issue 60 of The Crew Report Britta Fleischhack-Norquoy of Crew Conundrum levels with crew expectations of a purely glamorous job, and admits that some concessions may have to be made.
I recently came across an article in one of the The Crew Report’s sister publications in which Greg Marshall stated that typical yacht crew workloads were “90 per cent cleaning service and 10 per cent the actual job they applied for” (SYD Q9).
If you are in the group of quality crew that believes the reason you are being paid a comparatively generous salary with excellent fringe benefits is that you are expected to be more flexible and work harder than your land-based counterparts, and don’t think there is anything wrong with the above split of your working time as long as you receive a good salary while travelling the world for free, you may ignore the rest of this article and move on to one more suitable to furthering your career in the yachting industry. Crew expectations tend to be quite confused. Everyone in yachting measures themselves and their expectations against what is considered the top of the industry, where huge boats with a large crew and unlimited budgets are seen as the pinnacle of a crewmember’s achievement in the industry. Unfortunately, far too many expectations are based on anecdotal evidence from questionable sources.
So I thought it would be good to remind crew of why their profession exists in the first place. I could, as many people are trying, glamourise yacht crew in the way the airline industry has in recent years by saying that cabin crew are highly skilled professionals there to ensure the safety of the passengers, and not for serving drinks and snacks. However, in reality, owners hire crew not for their personal safety or as a status symbol, but to perform all of the functions that the owner and their guests are either unwilling (cleaning, beds, laundry, cooking) or unable (navigation, repairs) to perform themselves. In a simplified job description, an engineer would have a large part of their work consist of cleaning and maintaining the engine room. A chef would be expected to keep their galley clean and tidy as part of their responsibilities. A masseuse/beautician would be expected to keep her workstation clean and ample fresh towels available for her clients. A service stew is expected to clear the table and wash the dishes and glasses after a meal. Additional crew can be helpful to increase efficiency and service quality, but whichever way you see it, cleaning and maintenance is always a core function of whatever job a crewmember has been hired to do, even if it is indirectly in case of the more senior crewmembers. You are unlikely to see the captain of a vessel cleaning and scrubbing the boat under normal circumstances, but if a captain (as chief executive of the vessel) walked through the boat to his quarters and ignored areas requiring cleaning or maintenance, he would not be doing his job if he didn’t get someone to rectify the situation.
So why has ‘cleaning’ become such a bad thing if it is the reason you have your job in the first place? Everyone should consider this when they strive for a job that involves only the fun things such as organising parties or shopping. If there was no more cleaning to be done on yachts, there would soon be minimal crew and everyone would have to double up to help other crewmembers get their jobs done. There would be no more time or energy left for the fun parts of your job, and overall service quality would be greatly reduced as a result. The only context where cleaning should be considered negatively is when the need for it adds considerable additional cost to the owner, and therefore affects his enjoyment of the vessel.
When I left my job at a bank in the City of London for a life at sea many years ago, I told everyone I was leaving to clean toilets on a boat. This caused quite a few raised eyebrows at the time, but no one questions it now that I am semi-retired 20 years earlier than they can stop working.
This article can be found in Issue 60 of The Crew Report.
I recently came across an article in one of the The Crew Report’s sister publications in which Greg Marshall stated that typical yacht crew workloads were “90 per cent cleaning service and 10 per cent the actual job they applied for” (SYD Q9).
So why has ‘cleaning’ become such a bad thing if it is the reason you have your job in the first place?
If you are in the group of quality crew that believes the reason you are being paid a comparatively generous salary with excellent fringe benefits is that you are expected to be more flexible and work harder than your land-based counterparts, and don’t think there is anything wrong with the above split of your working time as long as you receive a good salary while travelling the world for free, you may ignore the rest of this article and move on to one more suitable to furthering your career in the yachting industry. Crew expectations tend to be quite confused. Everyone in yachting measures themselves and their expectations against what is considered the top of the industry, where huge boats with a large crew and unlimited budgets are seen as the pinnacle of a crewmember’s achievement in the industry. Unfortunately, far too many expectations are based on anecdotal evidence from questionable sources.
So I thought it would be good to remind crew of why their profession exists in the first place. I could, as many people are trying, glamourise yacht crew in the way the airline industry has in recent years by saying that cabin crew are highly skilled professionals there to ensure the safety of the passengers, and not for serving drinks and snacks. However, in reality, owners hire crew not for their personal safety or as a status symbol, but to perform all of the functions that the owner and their guests are either unwilling (cleaning, beds, laundry, cooking) or unable (navigation, repairs) to perform themselves. In a simplified job description, an engineer would have a large part of their work consist of cleaning and maintaining the engine room. A chef would be expected to keep their galley clean and tidy as part of their responsibilities. A masseuse/beautician would be expected to keep her workstation clean and ample fresh towels available for her clients. A service stew is expected to clear the table and wash the dishes and glasses after a meal. Additional crew can be helpful to increase efficiency and service quality, but whichever way you see it, cleaning and maintenance is always a core function of whatever job a crewmember has been hired to do, even if it is indirectly in case of the more senior crewmembers. You are unlikely to see the captain of a vessel cleaning and scrubbing the boat under normal circumstances, but if a captain (as chief executive of the vessel) walked through the boat to his quarters and ignored areas requiring cleaning or maintenance, he would not be doing his job if he didn’t get someone to rectify the situation.
Additional crew can be helpful to increase efficiency and service quality, but whichever way you see it, cleaning and maintenance is always a core function of whatever job a crewmember has been hired to do
So why has ‘cleaning’ become such a bad thing if it is the reason you have your job in the first place? Everyone should consider this when they strive for a job that involves only the fun things such as organising parties or shopping. If there was no more cleaning to be done on yachts, there would soon be minimal crew and everyone would have to double up to help other crewmembers get their jobs done. There would be no more time or energy left for the fun parts of your job, and overall service quality would be greatly reduced as a result. The only context where cleaning should be considered negatively is when the need for it adds considerable additional cost to the owner, and therefore affects his enjoyment of the vessel.
When I left my job at a bank in the City of London for a life at sea many years ago, I told everyone I was leaving to clean toilets on a boat. This caused quite a few raised eyebrows at the time, but no one questions it now that I am semi-retired 20 years earlier than they can stop working.
This article can be found in Issue 60 of The Crew Report.
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