I went on a cruise.

Not my normal ‘thing’, but it was pretty good. Saw lots of cool places and ate too much. The usual, I suppose.

I also met some of the most fascinating, hard working and impressive people I have ever met. And none of them were passengers!

You see I am fascinated by the whole world of work, not just recruitment. I am interested in labour, and fairness, and work ethic.

And so I found myself chatting with the crew on this ship. Not the professional mariners or the ‘higher-ups’ so much, but the cleaning staff, the bar staff, the waiters, the room-attendants and the butlers. An incredibly industrious bunch I quickly noticed, and cheerful almost to a fault.

And what I learned about their work contracts will make you choke on your coffee and have you lurching in shock. Seriously.

• For a start there are different contracts for workers of Asian origin vs the rest of the world. Asians get an 8-month contract. The rest get six months. Why?  No one knew, or would tell anyway. Let’s just speculate.
• Each working day is 11 hours, including one hour for lunch.
• And now the big one. The contract stipulates, that they work every day of that eight (or six) months. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Now I checked and doubled-checked that claim. With at least 8 or 9 different staff members, at different times, in different sections. And every one of them told me the same story.

You work eleven hours a day. You work every day. No weekend. No leave. No day off. For 32 weeks! Straight.

I couldn’t believe it. “But surely when the ship is in port you get a break?”, I questioned. No, that is the busiest time apparently. Cleaning and preparing for the next group of passengers. The ship leaves the day it arrives.

This is not a political piece, but I was left to ponder, how could this even be legal?

Of course I subtly asked why they would accept such terms. The money is good of course (relative to where most of these people come from, which was often the Philippines or India, but I met people from Europe and Ukraine and even the US doing the same jobs).

In one particular case a woman from the Philippines working as a waitress, with her husband on the same ship working as a butler, and two kids at home being cared for by her Mum said, “The work is hard, sure, and missing my kids even more. But in two contracts my husband and I can afford a house, which we would never, ever otherwise achieve“.

And so I left my cruise, fatter and more relaxed. But also reflecting on all the internet memes celebrating ‘hump-day’ and moaning about Monday, and celebrating Friday, because “now we get a break from our exhausting jobs”.

Recruiters are particularly fond of these posts, and they saturate Instagram, and increasingly, LinkedIn.

And I thought of these guys whose ‘Friday’ comes after  224 days of constant, continuous, back-breaking work.

Recruitment is a tough job, no doubt. But every time I find myself about to complain I will think of Jhovi, and Nolan, and Linda and all the rest, ploughing through their 224 day working-week.

Sometimes we need to be a little more grateful for what we have.

All of us.

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