Cruiser stranded on a cloudy day: 10 months after landing, I want to continue to ride the wind and waves

Editor's Note

In the online world, we laugh at ourselves as workers. We have no names, only symbols.

But in the real world, we are riders, teachers, flight attendants, screenwriters, financiers, tourists...

In the past 2020, we were just a drop in the sea of ??all living beings, and also ** *One with breathing.

When ordinary life comes and encounters an extraordinary "epidemic" year, we are worried and confused together, but also moved and looking forward to it.

During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Ox, China Business Network specially launched the special topic "Extraordinary 'Epidemic' Year". These seemingly ordinary human journeys reflect the extraordinary changes of the epidemic year, and also describe the endless soul of craftsmen.

If every day without dancing is a failure of life, then every ordinary and extraordinary of us is making life more passionate.

Text/Huang Yulu

10 months, this is the first time in more than eight years that Zhilan has lived on land for such a long time.

Zhilan is a front desk manager on an international cruise ship. After more than two months of drifting without knowing her future, during the past 10 months, she experienced isolation, waiting, starting from scratch, facing a new life on land, and thinking about the unknown course after the storm.

In September 2020, she started learning Spanish again and started learning Spanish from scratch. In the eyes of her classmates, she is an academic master - she can communicate grammar with foreign teachers in fluent spoken English, and she can quickly take the lead in saying Spanish words and explain their meanings to her classmates.

Only Zhilan herself knows that her vocabulary is "attributed" to the process of being unemployed day after day: "I have nothing to do, I just read foreign books at home every day and learn words." At the same time, she does not She unexpectedly became a good cook - making flower rolls and making dumplings, and now she is proficient in everything. Ten months ago, she was a professional manager traveling between tourists from all over the world and the oceans. She spent eight months of the year eating employee meals.

It is said that "small ships are easy to turn around", but behind the deck where Zhilan once stood is an ocean-going ship that can accommodate 5,000 people for fun. It is one of the top three cruise companies in the world, and it is the result of 8 years of cruise work Experience is a rare world journey. In the past 10 months, some colleagues went to technology companies, and some colleagues took jobs in hotels, but she remained unmoved.

Sitting under the warm light of the tea room, Zhilan calmly talked about her personal experiences and testimony in 2020. There was no panic, no plague spreading, no resentment. As she described it, all the stormy waves turned into ripples in a teacup. Sipping tea, Zhilan still cast her sights on the ocean: working on a cruise ship may not be a familiar choice for people in the river civilization, but for Zhilan, it is not only a livelihood but also an experience. After being stranded for nearly a year, she was even more eager to set sail.

60 Days of Rafting in Nanyang

Zhilan recalled the first half of 2020. Although the voyage was bumpy, the days of isolation and drifting on the cruise ship were far away from the "virus culture" that many people suspected. "Pan" is far apart.

In mid-January, Zhilan boarded a cruise ship on the Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand route in Singapore. There were more than 4,000 tourists on the ship and thousands of employees. After the voyage, tourists from all over the world disembarked in Singapore. In February, Zhilan began to drift on the high seas of Southeast Asia for more than 60 days with thousands of colleagues, spending the Spring Festival and an important point in the spread of the epidemic.

At the beginning of the epidemic, Chinese crew members were treated "differently." Zhilan said that the cruise ship employees were allowed to disembark at the port of call, but Chinese employees were not allowed to disembark. As the epidemic spreads, the cities where the cruise ship docks only allow tourists to disembark, not employees. This is why at the end of the voyage, all passengers disembarked smoothly in Singapore, while thousands of employees could only stay on the ship, waiting for arrangements. "It just doesn't make sense." Right? But that’s how it’s stipulated.”

In desperation, the cruise ship had no choice but to leave Singapore and wander on the high seas. During the rafting period, news came three times that we could dock and go ashore, but all failed. Initially, the cruise ship was preparing to disembark employees in Manila, Philippines, but soon Manila also closed its port. Later, the cruise ship sailed to Hong Kong, China, but the epidemic broke out in Hong Kong. "We were forced to drive back when we were almost arriving at the port." Sailing back to Singapore, where there seemed to be signs of relaxing epidemic prevention measures, we were still unable to get off the ship.

During this period, many cruise companies around the world suspended sailings on a large scale. This was almost the first time in the modern cruise industry in the past 60 years. The market value of the world's three largest cruise companies evaporated by more than 300 billion yuan. On the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan, more than 700 people were diagnosed with COVID-19, and panic spread across the world, faster than the spread of the virus.

But at first, the fear and panic did not spread to the cruise ship Zhilan was on. On the contrary, she described the days when she first started rafting as "like a fairy": "There was no pressure, there was a salary, and you could play whatever you wanted."

It turned out that in order to appease the stranded employees, she switched from bumper cars to water rafting. , from the basketball court to the sunbathing beach, the cruise ship has opened all entertainment facilities that were originally only open to guests to employees.

Every day, the entertainment department also organizes employees to dance, swim, and even hold employee Olympic competitions. In addition to two hours of training every day, the rest of the time is allocated freely, and there is no need to receive guests. The contract period was originally until the end of April. Due to the suspension of sailings, at the end of March, the company paid all wages for the contract period including April in advance.

But the wages would eventually be paid out. By April, with no income and no choice but to wander at sea without knowing the destination, Zhilan’s colleagues felt their mood plummet. "I'm scared at the beach, but I'm alone in the ocean." An employee developed suspected symptoms, and the rafting journey reached its most difficult moment.

Zhilan recalled that the captain made a broadcast to the entire ship, requiring all employees to be quarantined in single rooms for two weeks. Everyone could stay in guest rooms. The one she stayed in was a sea-view balcony room with three meals a day. A specialist delivered the goods and came to take her temperature twice. Years of working at sea and a quiet and solitary personality made her accustomed to the floating life in the waves.

But as "flowers float and water flows", being far away from the land, isolated, and with an uncertain future, loneliness and worry are unavoidable. Only then did Zhilan and her colleagues wander to the balcony, coming from different countries. They "***enjoyed" the same loneliness, chatting all over the world from the small cabin.

Fortunately, it was a false alarm, and the colleague with suspected symptoms was safe in the end. In fact, the cruise company Zhilan works for has more than 60 luxury cruise ships, and none of them faced serious challenges like the Diamond Princess. .

Until the cruise group communicated with Shanghai, the twists and turns of the journey home were finally settled. In late April, the Shanghai Port gave the green light. After more than two months and more than 60 days of long drifting, more than 300 Chinese crew members on board the ship finally set foot on the land of the motherland.

"Huagu Mianzhang" was forced to be abandoned

In May 2020, after two weeks of hotel quarantine, waiting for Zhilan ahead were her eagerly awaited relatives. And waiting that is more foggy than wandering on the sea.

What Zhilan faces is a major break in her eight-year cruise career.

Usually, the labor contracts between employees and overseas cruise companies are relatively flexible, with a term of 4 to 6 months. Service cruises are rotated within the term, and the contract is renewed after the end of the contract period based on the circumstances of both parties. In 2020, Zhilan's labor contract ended at the end of April. After landing, it meant that there was no protection from the employment contract and no income. The overseas company did not pay the "five insurances and one housing fund" for employees in their home country. She also needs to go through other channels. Pay medical and social insurance premiums in China.

"It would be a lie to say that I am not anxious." Zhilan, who considers herself to be indifferent, still admitted that she was "not in a particularly good state" in 2020.

The second reason is not having any money and eating up her savings. For Zhilan, she has lost the sense of value brought by her work and has not been able to wait for the notice of resumption of flights. Her spirit has fallen into emptiness, "Like That feeling of being busy and fulfilling was relatively fulfilling, but now I feel that the value of my existence is gone and cannot be reflected.”

The Zhilan in front of her speaks slowly, but behind her calm glasses, she is able to face tourists from all over the world with ease.

As a front-desk customer service manager who directly deals with customers, although she is already in the middle level, she still has to go to the guests to resolve disputes, big or small, when faced with four to five thousand tourists and 5% of complaints. At the same time, her customer service department is also responsible for the boarding and checkout process, as well as managing her employees, with a shift of 8 to 10 hours a day. Zhilan said that once she got on the ship, the work intensity was so intense that she had no time to miss home. There is no such thing as "the days at sea pass by like years", even the eight years of working seem like a blink of an eye.

After 8 years of hard work, Zhi Lan is now like an experienced traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, able to grasp the "pulse" of tourists of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds: Australian guests express their dissatisfaction with words written all over their faces. Unhappy; British guests complained politely and "accurately" without losing their temper or raising their voices, but they could make a list; North America is the largest source of cruise tourists, and American guests are also shrewd. When making complaints, they like to bypass the grassroots service staff and directly Just say "I want to see your manager"; it used to be "paradise" to travel on Asian routes, but they are becoming smarter and smarter. More and more Asian tourists are visiting travel guide websites, meeting smart tour guides, and learning to use complaints to ask for benefits. .

As long as it is a working day, the gentle Zhilan must maintain a gentle personality and great patience to face the "rain of bullets" launched by waves of customers, and most of the time she also It can turn spring breeze into rain. This is the sense of pleasure and value that this job, which seems to outsiders to be extremely worrying to outsiders, brings to Zhilan - in addition to being able to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds, it is fresh every day, and she can receive customers again and again. of “landmines” and smoothly “clear mines”.

When Zhilan first entered the international cruise industry 8 years ago, there were very few Chinese employees who entered the management level, and they were even looked at with "strange eyes." "", passed 1 written test, 3 English speaking interviews and 3 online tests. Today, in the big wheel of "bar" rankings, she is only half a bar away from the position of major department manager. So far, her company has only one Chinese person who has become a major department manager.

With the arrival of the epidemic, the "Bone Transforming Palm" she had practiced when "guests abused me thousands of times" was forced to go into waste.

Waiting for long winds and waves

Zhi Lan then thought about it, maybe life is like this, what is lost is gained in the east, and what is gained is gained.

After the quarantine, Zhilan returned to her hometown in Shandong and accompanied her mother for surgery. After accompanying her for more than a month, she returned home to Beijing. She remembered what her mother said: "This is the first time in so many years. You stayed at home with us for so long." At that moment, Zhilan felt "a blessing in disguise."

For the past eight years, Zhilan has lived an "amphibious life" of working at sea for eight months and vacationing on land for four months. Zhilan's time with her parents and her husband, who also works cross-border, is very limited. After graduating from college, she has always been busy with plans to continue her studies. Now that the cruise is suspended, "it's a rare opportunity for me to use this time to spend time with my family." Zhilan accompanied her parents to take care of her health, washed her hands and made soup for her husband, picked up books and textbooks again, and relived the good times of studying.

When she was idle at home, she read English classic novels and took cost engineer courses. Zhilan had many South American colleagues, and when taking the American route, she found that Spanish was very useful, so she went to Beijing Cervante I entered the Spanish class at Sri Lanka College and became a student again. There is no end to learning, and there are many cliffs in my life. Zhilan has made full arrangements for her unemployment time, but she still hopes to "unify knowledge with action."

Some Chinese colleagues have already changed tracks in 2020, either going to hotels or technology companies. Zhilan does not want to change careers hastily and chooses to stay at home. She hopes to board the ocean as soon as possible and realize the true "traveling thousands of miles" , read thousands of books."

In the past eight years, she has traveled routes including Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas. The only places she has not reached are Africa and South America. This is also an important reason why she can persist at sea for 8 years - to experience the scenery and scenery around the world and appreciate the customs and customs of various countries around the world.

Wandering across the ocean, seemingly without touching the ground, is actually a journey full of novelties. The company allows employees to log in during breaks and docking days, and they can apply to change a route if they get tired of it. Taking this opportunity, Zhilan traveled around the world with colleagues from all over the world.

They dived into the Mediterranean with a fragmented coastline, caught a glimpse of the brilliance of the Renaissance, and enjoyed the sunshine of the Cinque Terre in Italy; she was able to follow the ocean currents and see the majestic Australian and New Zealand fjords; The famous Northern Europe, she was amazed by the majesty of St. Petersburg's Cathedral on Spilled Blood, and the regular and majestic architecture of Stockholm...

Although the company has sold two old ships in order to reduce losses, the global cruise industry is in a state of decline. After spending 2020 in the cold winter, and even welcoming 2021 shivering, Zhilan believes that she will wait for the day when sailings resume. She also believes in the upward trend of the cruise industry. She has already seen a turnaround.

Starting from December 2020, domestic cruise ships sailing to the Paracel Islands have resumed sailings, and Zhilan’s company has also resumed sailings in Singapore. She has seen changes: tourists need to issue nucleic acid negative certificates, and the public** * Masks are required in places, and smart watches that monitor distance and health status are required. The buffet has changed from guests picking up meals to employees delivering meals... Zhilan learned that the ventilation systems of some cruise ships are also being transformed, from centralized ones to Is decentralized.

"Confidence is gold" is a saying that has spread across all walks of life in 2020. Zhilan also believes that regardless of whether it is emerging markets such as China or traditional markets such as Europe and the United States, tourists' long-term attitudes towards cruise travel are still different. Be optimistic. In August 2020, after Carnival Cruise Line announced that its North American routes would resume sailings on August 1, data showed that within three days, cruise bookings surged 600% compared with before the announcement.

When she walked into Instituto Cervantes in Beijing, Zhilan, who had short hair cut close to her ears and wore a pair of glasses, was almost the same as when she traveled across the ocean to study 10 years ago. There is a stuffed bear hanging on her schoolbag, which was given to her by an old British lady five or six years ago. Zhilan said that she was not satisfied with who would "serve" the old lady at that time. Only when Zhilan came to solve the problem, the old lady smiled and gave her her doll.

Perhaps one day soon, this little bear will accompany Zhilan on the deck again, riding the wind and waves into the unknown world.