Erin: Hello Via. How are you today?
Via: Hello. I’m fine. I’m really happy that I’m again here. Not close. What about you? How are you?
Erin: I’m fine. I’m enjoying the weather today in Greece. So it’s very unusual for this April. No.
Via: It’s a really warm day.
Erin: Yeah, than normal, but it’s nice. So you are the chief stew here in the lowly material? Yeah. Tell me something about your job. What are you doing every day here on board now?
Via: Okay. When we have guests.
Erin: Yes.
Via: Usually. I woke up around 2 hours before them. I have to prepare all day just to be clean and tidy. Then I have to prepare the table for the breakfast for them.
Erin: Usually you serve it in the deck inside of the weather.
Via: The breakfast is most of the times of deck. Yes.
Erin: Nice.
Via: It’s a nice view.
Erin: Because you enjoy the view, the pressure from the morning making fresh juice.
Via: Of course, because you know, we’re sleeping in the port at night. But we woke up really early and then we go somewhere beautiful just for them to eat their breakfast, quiet and with beautiful view. And then I prepare the table, usually outside there for.
Erin: The breakfast.
Via: For the breakfast, and then they need maybe some cocktails. I’m around with them out there all the time.
Erin: They’re swimming. If they need something, they ask for something just to be there to be sure you want to make them happy. Of course.
Via: You know, your job is just to make them happy. And it’s all about how you make people feel. Is that simple? Is that hard?
Erin: It’s a vocation for us to make them them happy, to enjoy their cruise.
Via: And my goal is they just to have a great time. I hope they’re going to come back again next year. And I just want to see them happy.
Erin: Of course.
Erin: How many stewardess are you on board?
Via: Here we are. 5.
Erin: You are 5. You, the chief steward and another 3 stewardesses. Yeah. And what do you prepare for, the lunch? How you prepare the table for the dinner?
Via: Okay. Yeah. Every day I want to show them something different because they eat at the same place. I mean, I want to show them something different every day. Maybe I collect the shells or I grab them up from the bridge and I make, like, chips or something like that with ropes or with flowers.
Erin: So every day, actually, you make a new design to make them enjoy a different situation. Yeah. Then surprise.
Via: Of course. Yeah, of course. With shiny colours every day. You know, I just want to impress them and to see something different every day.
Erin: So you must be creative.
Via: Of course. I just grew up here, Opal stones, and I make something beautiful, as they said, and I’m happy for that.
Erin: If they come from the inside. See, that’s me. And it’s like that. Yeah. So you serve them coffees, cocktails?
Via: Usually before the lunch where they are sitting up there to the sundeck, make for them some cocktail music. Or maybe if they don’t want alcohol, maybe just water with strawberries and lemon, something like that. At night we have party on Sunday sometimes with cocktails or soft drinks or what they like are live music. Sometimes we have a birthday party.
Erin: Okay. I’m curious how you how did you start this job? Because it’s not a usual job in the office on the land.
Via: Of course.
Erin: From what it was starting?
Via: It was really something.
Erin: Very unexpected?
Via: My brother, he’s a chef. Many years on a yacht, and he asked me, Do you want. I said, No. Do you want. I said no. And one day he said, Do you want to try? I was in holidays and I said, okay, just for a charter. And I said, But just for a charter, because I don’t like it. And he said, Yes, just for a charter. And then I really love it because I love to travelling and my free time I travelling a lot, maybe two or three trips on a year.
Erin: Yes.
Via: And from the first charter I said, okay, I love the job because I like to make people smiling. I like to travel. I like to meet new people and new cultures, you know?
Erin: So you enjoy very much your job.
Do you know what I think? If you don’t love this job and you do it just for the money, you cannot do it good. Because you have to work maybe 18 or 20 hours per day. And if you don’t really love it, you cannot do it good.
Via: Yes, absolutely.
Erin: Since how many years do you do this job?
Via: Five years.
Erin: Five years? Yeah. And for example, next year or in five years, you still think that you are going to work?
Via: I don’t know what is going to be tomorrow. So, I don’t have an answer for that (smiles).
Erin: You just enjoy the moment. Yeah. The benefits of this beautiful job. Travelling for free all around the world. Yeah, very nice salary. And also when it’s coming, the tips after one week, two weeks depends how.
Via: It’s also really good.
Erin: Yeah. Enjoy that. If you can tell us a little bit of the secrets.
Via: What do you mean by secrets?
Erin: I mean, for example, how in the past, for example, for one week, how much you get tips for one week?
Via: It depends. Maybe a thousand, maybe just 300. It depends of the clients.
Erin: So your salary it’s very good.
Via: Very good. I am happy for my salary. It’s what I wished for.
Erin: Yes, and that’s good. I can ask you how much you have the salary around. More or less.
Via: Around 2000. Yeah.
Erin: Okay. That’s good.
Via: And the tips is also good here.
Erin: So after one season, you are happy?
Via: Yeah, also, during the season I’m happy. I like what I’m doing.
Erin: Okay. We are here now in the master cabin of the boat, of this beautiful boat. It’s like a hotel, but more.
Via: Yes, we have to pay attention more to details, you know, because this is not an hotel. It costs so many money for the night. And also here I try to make something different every night, like when we’re going to the port. I just bought two or three cup of style from the island or just the flowers or just a cookies or something sweet for the night.
Erin: All the time. You impress your guests?
Via: Yeah, I like when they see everyday the room in different ways.
Erin: Yeah. Because you are going in the hotel and you see your room all the time.
Via: I don’t want something like that because, you know, the most of the yachts, they just put the linen and all the stuff and the bed is tidy, and okay, but I want to give something more here. The cleanest is very important. Of course, every day you clean the room, every day you clean the bathrooms, even more than three times in the day.
Erin: You want to pamper your guests to make them feel happy.
Via: Of course, we fix the cabins once after the breakfast and then before the dinner. During the day we came down. Just check everything just to be okay. Fix the pillows beat or the toilets.
Erin: Yeah. So you prepare them for sleep or of course when they come from the party to have the bed. Very nice.
Via: Of course. Just a little bit lights just to be more atmosphere.
Erin: Yeah. More romantic atmosphere. Of Course. And your colleague beside you? What, what is her duties? What is she doing on board beside you? because you are a supervisor as well.
Via: Of course she’s doing the most of the time the cleaning of the cabins. Just I’m here with her. Yes, because I like to help her. We are like a team. Of course. She’s doing also the laundry by herself.
Erin: Yeah. a Crew.
Via: Yes, of course. And, you know, we have a plan and we’re doing all the things like team and together. You know, I help her to the cabins and she’s helping me to the service because I think we are just 5 and there are smaller boats with 7 or 8 people working in it.
I think the most important thing here, you know, in a boat, you must be like a family, of course, because it’s like only a few crew, for example. And if you don’t understand each other, if you don’t like each other, it is difficult. And that’s why you need to help each other in the end to make the people who chartered the boat to make them happy.
Because if you are not happy and if you don’t have a good smile, then they are not happy. And we are together more than we are with our families. 24/7 we are at the same small place. We have to be like team and we have to help each other of.
Erin: Of Course, otherwise it’s not working very good.
Via: Well. Exactly.
Erin: And the most important thing. Yeah. And if you make your clients happy, they give you more tips, of course. And this is actually one of the goal. Your responsibility, more or less. You are the responsibility of the chef, of the captain of the staff, captain, the engineer, the defence. So that’s why you need to work all together. Very nice. When you don’t have charters, you prepare for the next charter.
Via: Yes. Because usually we don’t have so many days gap. Just maybe one or three. And then the next chapter come and then we have just to clean the boat. We really, really clean and tidy, have provision for the next charter. And we just I’m just thinking, what difference can I do now? Something like that. We don’t have so many days gap, we just don’t have.
But it’s good because in short time you receive a lot of money. Yeah. Before the charters and after the charters you have much more time to spend in the port to visit the town.
Every place you go, every island you go. So you have something the your personal time as well, of course. And when the guest they go out for dinner maybe, and the boat is like tidy and clean, we can go out, visit the island. Also have a bit of free time just to come down.
Make you way with you. Yeah, many times. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. To disconnect a little bit from the job. To be more like a family all together. The crew.
Erin: So you have, like, a vacation? Yeah?
Via: Sometimes. It’s not often, but it happens.
Erin: Because you are. You are also paid to, to go with them for swimming to and of course you, you enjoy it in which language you speak with them. You speak in.
Via: English. I speak English and I speak German.
Erin: Thank you very much, Via. Yeah. Okay. Thanks to you, nice to meet you.
Via: Nice to meet you, too.
Erin: I hope you enjoy this this summer here in Greece. Thank you very much again. And I hope you have many guests and to meet you also next year on the show.
Via: I wish you the best.
Erin: Thank you.
