Abandon Ship! Or...wait...what?

Sometimes I feel like I am on a sinking ship. A sinking cruise ship. Do I stay and help repair this vessel or abandon ship? If I decided to stay, I wouldn't even know where to begin repairs. I don't know much about the inner-workings of boats and I'm sure cruise ships have many different compartments and guidelines than freight ships or sailboats or fishing boats. 

I feel like the people aboard this particular ship are just here for fun, to enjoy, they are supposed to actually be the people "manning" the ship and serving the guests but they themselves are acting like guests. They are not here for others or because the Captain specifically asked for them, but because it's where their friends are and maybe they're afraid to try something else or to go to some other ship they have never even seen before. But I know how it got this way. I think I can at least find that explanation.

It's the supervisors. They are the examples that the crew look to. If the supervisor does his job well and emits a sort of scary/intimidation yet compassionate way of doing things then the crew will be respectful and work hard. However, if the supervisor is just having fun and choosing favorites and not being clear about the rules or proper procedure then the crew will be just as lazy, easy-going, and not serious about their work and particular assignment.

Basically, if the supervisor does not take his job or crew seriously then his crew won't take their responsibilities or supervisor seriously.

So now I have a choice set before me. I love this ship. I love this crew. Do I love them enough to actually attempt to bring about change? Do I love this ship enough to try to do everything in my power to save it? If I just stick with it while it sinks I do not love it. If I leave, I love it, but not enough. Not as I should.

As the Indians would say, "what to do?" One thing about Indian culture I am not fond of is the fact that they do things the way they have always been done and if you try to bring about change they will not accept it. Not always of course, I mean India is one of the fastest changing countries in the world! But they are still wearing the clothes they wore hundreds of years ago, wrapped and tucked in the exact same way, and if you wrap or tuck it differently everyone notices and they will re-wrap and re-tuck you until you are the way it has always been. 

I remember going to Café Coffee Day once and asking them to put vanilla ice cream in a brownie sunday on their menu instead of the chocolate ice cream that it comes with. They flat out said that it was not possible. I had to get it the way it was on the menu or I had to choose something else. How difficult is it to put vanilla instead of chocolate? I mean it's like the simplest of changes, but it is refused because "it's not the way it has always been done." 

The same goes for this cruise ship. Nothing is getting better because the crew is living and working the way the crew before them did, and they did the way the crew before them did, and so on and so forth as far back in time as you can go.

Then there's the whole problem of putting the wrong emPHASSis on the wrong sylLABle. The supervisors discipline the minor infractions while the major ones are swept under the rug. They put all their energy into putting a brand new addition on the ship while ignoring the smaller problems that have been needed to be repaired for years. Excited and quickly running to the next thing instead of working on making the current one better. Trying to add all these new features and entertainment while the current ones are being ignored and seem not as important as the new ones.

I've felt this way for a long time and have never really been able to put it all down in words, but for some reason, tonight, as I am in a mood to actually do something productive for once, I have decided to write it all out.