I got a phone call from the company receptionist, ‘Can you come to work on liveaboard tomorrow for 4 days?’ It’s a surprise because I was suppose to work on the island shop for a month. In addition, it's a short notice for me to work on the liveaborad ship.
‘Hmm… I am not sure yet if I can make it.’ I would have two days off from the day after tomorrow. ‘Can I call you back later?'
‘We really need you to work on the liveaboard. Please call back to Gibson.’
Why did the receptionist ask me to call be the operation manager instead of her? Was the decision made by the manager or she just tried to abuse the manager’s authority?
I checked company online roaster instead. Surprise, surprise. My name has been put on the trip for liveaboard as the trip director. The trip had been assigned to another colleague. What was happening? After studying the roast, I found that I had to cowork with a difficult instructor. Was it the reason that nobody wanted to take the job?
The job title of trip director was attracting to me. I wanted to prove myself. However, it’s a huge challenge. I still remembered how stress to be a trip director and the only instructor on board just for one day last time. Therefore, I hesitated to make the decision. Instead of calling back, I went to work and let the company decide my fate in the next morning.
Gibson showed up and said ‘If you don’t go to liveaboard, there would be only one instructor on board. Because of what happened to you last time, I have made it clear that never happen again.’ I had no excuses to overrule him but took the job.
I expected to arrive on the liveaboard in the morning and have a few hours to learn from trip director Matthew before he left in the afternoon. However, the daytrip boat was lack of manpower and negotiated with Matthew to borrow me for the morning. Then, I would have to swap with Matthew within a few minutes.
When I met Matthew in the morning, I had to go straight to the point, ‘I’m sorry that I could arrived early to swap with you.’
‘You are the trip director?’ he had puffy eyes and had not shaved for a few days, ‘So I can go home?’
‘You know how inexperienced I am. I thought I could have time to learn how to be a trip director from you.’ I said.
‘That’s okay, I will write down what you need to do.’ he answered without hesitating.
Later when we swapped in the afternoon, he gave me a hourly schedule specifying all the duties. What a great reference for me to do the job.
The immediate task was to arrange dive team roaster for the night. The only team member beyond my control was instructor Eric. He was the most senior instructor in the company and familiar with all operations on the liveaboard. His job was to take care his student divers only. In other words, he did not need to take care the other passengers nor the liveaboard operations.
I brought him an empty roaster sheet to show my respect and support. ‘I’m arranging the roaster for everyone. Just wanna know what you are going to do in the following hours.’ I said. Instead of arranging his tasks, let him tell me what he was going to do in the following hours. Flattering did work, and he was willing to be my consultant whenever I had questions.
Then, I counted on dive masters to run the daily routines. I outlined what needed to be done on the roaster and told them, ‘I don’t care about the details. You can swap your work yourselves.’ Instead of telling them who doing what, let them decide the details as long as the goals were fulfilled. They knew much better than I do about the daily routines.
So, the job left for me was talking. Mostly talking to passengers, from the moment they arrived, gave them a lengthy briefing about onboard facilities, safety rules, and daily schedule. Also, I had to know a little about their background for arranging diving and snorkelling activities. Most time I stayed dry on deck by having instructors and dive masters to do diving/snorkelling.
However, I deliberately arranged myself to go diving with new arrival divers. Inexperienced divers often had problems at their first dive. I could help them troubleshoot the problems. Moreover, I could give other instructors and dive masters a heads-up when they took over for the following dives.
Although I had planed in advance, Murphy’s law still stood in this trip: anything that could go wrong, would go wrong. I had prepared the dive deck in order. I was expecting all the divers jump into the water one by one.
‘Do we have more weight belts?’ a dive master asked.
‘It’s all in the baskets.’ I replied.
‘But, no weights are in the baskets.’ he said.
I checked the baskets myself, and the baskets were really empty. How come! How are divers going to descend without enough weight belts! My head was as empty as the baskets.
‘There could be extra weights in the BCD packet.’ someone said and woke me up.
Yes, dive guide would put extra weights into divers’ packet when they had difficulty descending in the water. The diver often forgot to take out the extra weights after diving. Thanked God! I found two extra weights in a BCD’s packet. The weights were just enough for all divers. I had carefully calculated all the equipments required to run the dive deck but had missed the weight belts. It almost ruined every effort I had made. In the next morning, when the daytrip boat came for transferring passengers, I grubbed as many weights as I could from the daytrip boat.
The Murphy’s law kept ambushing me. One the last day of the trip, the last dive was delayed. I was still escorting divers swimming towards the liveaboard ship while the daytrip boat was arriving. The daytrip boat was picking up passengers back to Cairns, and I forgot I was one of passengers. No time to take off and pack up my diving equipment. I got out of water and hopped on the daytrip boat while the equipment on my back was still dripping. After dumping the equipment, I rushed to the liveaboard ship, grubbed all my belongs in hands, and jumped back to the daytrip boat within a minute.
Finally, I got back from the liveaboard trip. The trip director remained a challenge to me, but I wouldn’t hesitate to challenge it next time. I wanted to improve myself. But right now, I was exhausted and needed a break.
