Once upon a time, I worked in the call center. Back then we were in the big yellow house and we had taken on 5 cruises for the first time. I was doing other jobs on top of call center duties – bookkeeping, office and building management, travel arrangements – you name it. I took maybe 3 -5 calls a day and never really felt the pressure in the cooker, so to speak.

Well a couple of weeks ago the whole company was asked to pitch in and help out on the phones. Kid Rock’s Chillin’ The Most Cruise had just gone on sale and the Call Center was being bombarded. I thought to myself, “I used to work phones. How hard could it be?” Well after two days of being on the phones nonstop my throat hurt, my blood pressure was up, my emotions were haywire and my brain felt like mush…complete and utter mush. I mean, the sheer amount of numbers, and dates, and cabin categories, and ship layouts, and answers to a billion questions that they have to keep at the forefront of their minds every day has blown me away. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the job they do.

It got me thinking…what do the rest my coworkers do? What are their busiest days like? For instance, I work in Operations. We are the “devil in the details” department, doing all the behind the scenes work that makes the event run – lining up delivery companies, creating the on board schedule, ticketing the shows, etc, etc. For the most part, whenever an outsider looks into our area of the office they will find us hunched over our computers working quietly but intensely on spreadsheets (our way of remembering a billion details), emailing Carnival reps or spot-checking any number of things that are currently in the works for a cruise. It may not look or sound as busy as the call center, but about two months before an event we all begin looking red-eyed and frazzled as we keep all the balls in the air and try to make the event go off without a hitch. What would a phone ninja think if she got put in my shoes during my busiest time of year?

If you are like me, there have to have been times when you wondered if your coworkers realize how hard you work, but did you ever stop to wonder how hard they are working as well? Imagine the respect you would gain for each other if your whole office understood the good, the bad and the ugly of each others’ jobs. I highly recommend walking in their footsteps some time…or at the very least, taking a minute to say thanks.

Thanks Ninjas – if for nothing else saving our customers from frazzled old me on the phones.

Jill Mac