Decisions, decisions
27 December 2007
I got some news last night that puts me in a situation where I am questioning not so much my reason for being here, as my ability to stay here. First a little background. Between contracts I got an email saying that I had been assigned to this ship and giving me a date in two weeks time that I would need to be in Miami to catch the ship. I rushed off to my local travel agent and booked my flights and then got ready to head off.
Last night an email came from the head office saying that the company was only willing to reimburse me for a little less than a third of my airfare. I knew that they didn’t reimburse the entire airfare but was unprepared for having to cover so much of it myself, especially considering that I had gotten the fare $600 cheaper anyway, if I’d paid full price it would have been even worse. The result of this is that I find myself in a situation where I will have to work almost the first two months of this contract just to pay off my airfare and that’s assuming that I spend no money either on or off the ship, severely curtailing what I can do in ports, my reason for being here. The necessity to still cover living expenses at home like my mortgage, insurance etc eats into what I’m earning here in a big way and I’m not earning very much, being the lowest paid in the casino.
Having slept on it I can see only 2 real options for me. The first is to resign and leave the ship in a month’s time in either Auckland or Sydney. This would mean that I could use my frequent flyer points to cover my flight back home from either of these ports and then look for a normal job, try and get back into the black and then go back to life as it was before I first joined the ships. There must be other options out there to travel and keep my writing going and maybe this is nature’s way of saying that I should be looking for them.
The second is to suck up the cost and just accept that I will probably end the six months I’m here at a loss and simply write it off as the cost of doing a world cruise and seeing places that I am now unlikely to be able to see otherwise. The problem is that all of the most expensive ports are coming up and having so little reserve to cover what it would cost me to truly see some of these places (just the cost of a coffee in Venice for example) may make me hesitate to do things that I may very well regret missing out on in the future. Is it crazy of me to think that I could do this amount of travel and not have it cost me, let alone expecting to make a profit?
Ultimately I doubt very much now that I will be returning for a third contract but should I cut my losses as quickly as possible and try and think of the future and my ability to keep my hard worked financial security or should I not put a price on seeing the world and experiencing things that will create memories to last a lifetime?
Any thoughts or comments would be much appreciated.
Greg
For what it is worth. Get off in Sydney or Auckland.
There are many sea days on the world cruise and you may not always be able to get off at the ports.
As it would cost you to do it, I would advise not going further into debt.
Those ports and countries will still be there when you are back on your feet.
Roll the dice.
Greg,
Forty-seven years ago I was $20 train fare away from Florence, Italy. After a summer studying in France I was close to my time to return home. Worried about having enough money, and not wanting to ask my parents for more, I opted not to make the trip. Since then, floods have destroyed some of the priceless treasures there, and I never got to see them.
Similarly, if I had only borrowed $1000 twenty-five years ago I could have taken myself and two children to England where relatives were living. Being unsure of my financial future, I took the safe course and deprived myself and my children of a wonderful experience.
I realized years later that there were many ways to earn money for important things and many ways to waste money on inconsequential things. I have regretted those early decisions many times over the years. If health holds out, I hope to finally make those trips over the next two years.
Follow your dreams, choose the course that will feed your soul. You’ll never regret it!