Sunday August 15th, 2010 - Tampa, FL/Kenosha, WI One of the down sides of working on a cruise ship is having to obey all their rules when it comes to getting on and off a ship. This morning I had to report at 7am to a room where the staff people who were disembarking today had to go through immigration. There were probably 100 people present, and the line moved slowly. I had one choice - sit and wait. My individual paperwork took about thirty seconds to stamp, and I was back waiting in my cabin until 10:15 when we were allowed to leave. I’m sure there are reasons for it that are quite legitimate, but I don’t see why I can’t just get my gear and bolt when we arrive. Passports are another concern. The ship holds all of our passports until Immigration has to see them, then they get stamped and we get them back. I really haven’t gone very many places until now and haven’t had to worry, but now it’s going to be a major concern if the pace I’m going keeps up as I’ll have to get a new one way before I would have otherwise. Every time I get off a ship someone has to stamp it, and before too long I’ll be out of all empty pages and have to get another one. The expense is bad enough, but the time needed for turnaround can be worse. Some of the people on board were talking back and forth of problems they’ve had, and I’m going to have to watch my own situation to avoid theirs. Carnival has been great to work for though. They treat people well from my perspective and I have no complaints. They provided a shuttle from the ship to the airport for those of us who needed one, and many did. It cost $10, but I’m sure a cab would have been quite a bit more. It was an easy process and I wound up getting to the airport several hours early. This is much better than having that high pressure wall of stress to deal with to catch an earlier flight so I wasn’t complaining at all. I took the opportunity to finish reading a book I brought along called ‘The Packer Way’ by a former Green Bay Packer General Manager named Ron Wolf. Packer fans remember him fondly, as he was all about winning games. The book laid out nine steps of strategy to build a winning organization, and sprinkled a lot of stories in about the Packers of Wolf’s era in the 1990’s. I think it’s a great idea for a book, as Packer fans will enjoy the stories and those who aren’t can use the strategies in a business scenario. I don’t know if I’d call it a classic, but I’m glad I took time to finish it. That’s another one of my goals on the cruise ships. If I’m out for a week I should have a lot of free time that can be used productively. If I can crank out at least one book a week I think I’ll be ahead of most other people on Earth. I’ve never been one for fiction, but I am a fan of self help stuff so this could be another way to improve my entire quality of life. Jim McHugh was very kind to pick me up at the airport, and of course my plane was an hour late. That made me cut it way too short as far as getting to WLIP in Kenosha for the Mothership Connection radio show. I made it, but barely and again it was stressful all the way there. We did have fun on the air, so that made up for it. Still, there’s a lot going on.
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