It's kind of exactly like- well you'll see.

Rarely do we get to appreciate our cliches like this (okay fine, I couldn't figure out how to do the little apostrophe thing over the 'e'. More work than I felt like looking up this evening).

In a former life I thought I could be a sound-guy. I studied theatre, did lots of shows, and ended up working professionally for a little while. The job I had straight out of college I will directly blame as the reason I am no longer working in theatre (don't worry, the Green Show Chronicles will be coming. I just have to dive deep into a very dark place to pull that out).

As fortune would have it, the career I ended up in -Internet Technical Support- offered me an out in the form of a convenient layoff. I swore I'd never do support again and proceeded to apply for any sound job in the country I could find. What landed most quickly was a job on a cruise ship.

If you've ever worked on a cruise ship, you may as well stop reading now. Nothing I'm going to spill here will be a surprise in any way. I'm sure my tales here will pale in comparison to yours. Save me the embarrassment, stop now.
For anyone who hasn't worked on a ship, anyone who's considered it, just gone on a cruise, or even wants to go on a cruise: please read on. I won't ruin the whole thing right away. I won't tell you how much we pay at the crew bar for the same drinks you do as a passenger. The penalty for 'cone-snoging' will remain safe for now. But even after this, if I convince at least one person not to join the crew of a working cruise ship: my mission will be accomplished.

Working on a ship might seem glamorous, but like most things that seem so, as soon as you are in the thick of it you realize that you were horribly delusioned from the get go. If you've taken a cruise you know what I mean. You get a room about half the size of a normal hotel for about ten-times the price and sometimes a pizza-sized porthole to look out of. The toilets try to suck you out to sea every time you flush. Dinner times are set and you have no idea who the other people at your table are. Despite the cost of your ticket, everything but the food has a cost, and is expensive. Unless you are on the biggest-newest-coolest ship out there everything just seems a little 'off'. The decor is just a little worn-down, the food isn't as good as you expected, everything but the water you are surrounded by has is lacking a certain shine you expect from your Vacation of a Lifetime.

Trust me when I say that your accommodations as a passenger reek of royalty and sin compared to what the crew is put through. Before I got on board my ship, I was expecting something roughly dorm-room sized: small but survivable. Perhaps there was no greater shock for me in that career than when I walked in the door of my cabin. No window, porthole etc, this was somewhere below sea-level. Only a set of bunk-beds, one tiny desk, one tiny chair, and a Refrigerator-sized closet. All of which was to be shared by two people for the duration of my serfdom. For you gamer nerds, think 10' x 10' stone corridor with a bathroom crammed into one corner.
The crew areas were all cramped and dirty and stank of smoke (you could light-up anywhere). Our food was worse, and harder to get. The serving times weren't exactly synchronized to all of the positions on board. We couldn't be seen anywhere in passenger areas unless we were in 'uniform', even for a few minutes. Generally speaking it was not the lifestyle I was prepared for. Back on land I was enjoying my funemployment. Biking, rafting, cooking, anything slightly outdoorsey and not-work related.

Like I said, I was an audio person an "Entertainment Technician" as the official shirt said. Between the main stage shows, rehearsals, welcome-aboard shows, Captain's Cocktail party, stand-up comedians, midnight shows, silly on-stage game shows, and the dreaded guest talent show there was plenty to do. Plus the boat I was on did the 3 and 4 day cruises, so we got twice the lifeboat drills, twice the formal nights, and twice all the afore mentioned shows. We worked seven days a week, all the odd hours you'd expect from a theatre gig, and essentially lived and worked inside a big floating office building. We wore what the company told us to wear, did what they old us to do and spent our off time trying to get off the boat for as long as possible.

All jobs have their level of stupidity. Big corporations, small shops, everything in between. There are always dumb policies and silly, tedious tasks that you the hard-working employee must endure. We are lucky when we finally land that job with a minimum of idiocy. Or better yet, we end up in charge of all the morons and can send them off in vengeance on all the horrible things we had to do.

But that's not what happens here. On the ship you have the combination of very large corporations, and limited availability of people on board. This leads to a lot of people getting a lot of stupid things to do.

Which leads us to my current favorite anecdote. An example of such utter mundanity, it makes me glad every day that I don't have to deal with crap like this anymore:
The main-stage shows I mentioned were run of the mill 'vegas style' stage shows. Horrible music and dance numbers with just enough glam and scantily clad dancers to keep the audience in in their free-ticket seats. Part of the pizazz were various pyrotechnics. Plumes of fireworks and smoke ignited to get an 'ooh' and and 'ahh' out of people. Not much compared to any Broadway show, but exciting enough for your average community-theatre goer. We performed these shows four times a week, so a substantial amount of the pyro was held on board. When not employed on-stage, the pryo was stored in a water-tight, blast-proof locker out near one of the outer decks. Anything exposed to the salt air of the sea is under constant wear from the elements, so everything on the outside of a ship is under repair. Always. Everything gets painted over, a lot, to keep the rust from forming. So naturally it came time to have the pyro locker painted, inside and out. Paint fumes and gun-powder aren't exactly a good mix, and there is no circulation in the everything-proof locker, so of course the door must stay open. It's also in a place where some confused passenger could happen to wander by if they got just a little bit lost. Keeping track? Explosives + paint fumes + open door + chance of visitors = bad.
Answer? Someone has to stand guard. Who? The stage crew of course! The Irish lighting guy, the Trinidadian stage manager, and I rotated in two-hour shifts. Watching paint dry. For real. Every once in a while the safety chief would come by and inspect the work, poke at the fresh white paint, shrug and wander off. Was it hours? Days(no)? I don't remember how long it actually was before he gave the all clear. That's not the point. The point is while 'watching paint dry' might be one of the most common cliches in the American vocabulary, few of us have a base-line for comparison.
I had already given my two-weeks notice by that point. I realized very quickly that I wasn't cut out for boar life and was just waiting out my allotted time before getting off-board for good.
That would have been the last straw, I would have walked into the Cruise Director's cabin (a mansion compared to our quarters by the way) and demanded they stop the boat and send me on a life-raft to the nearest port of call. Mexico preferably.. booze is cheaper there.

For anyone who's ever had to endure the brunt of what the rest of us joke about: this 12-hours of sleep I'm about to have is for you.