Back Under the Radar

This is my first entry since the “Censorship” incident, which now goes back 8 weeks to December 29. It was on that day that I’d gotten a call from the “Events Manager” - the person I directly answer to. This lady had received a call from the Hotel Director of the ship. The “HD” is a 4-stripe officer, of which there are only four on the ship, the others being the Chief Officer, the Chief Engineer, and the Captain himself. Spock, Scotty, and Kirk, for all you Trekkies.

No “Beam me up Scotty” however. It was “Vaporize that blog entry Steve”. The entry was apparently discovered through a regularly conducted search for recent internet articles using the word “Veendam”.

The entry, which I had posted only the day before, was pretty exuberant. Having been quarantined in my cabin on December 24-25 with gastrointestinal (“GI” as they say around here) symptoms, I was happy and free to roam on the afternoon of December 27 in the little Argentine town of Ushuaia, way down at the tip of South America.

The ill-fated blog entry described a mid-afternoon alcohol-fueled gathering of crew people at a Irish pub in Ushuaia. Yes, an IRISH pub, complete with Guinness stout and shepherd’s pie, seemingly in the most unlikely locale possible.

The blog entry also made reference to the ailment which had put me out of action for 60 hours, myself in addition to many other people, both passengers and crew. There was a numerical stat (“12%“ - referring to the amount of sick people on the ship) which I’d learned from an officer friend, supposedly “inside info“, and this is the key point that prompted the Hotel Director‘s action, and justified his intrusion….and very possibly put me on their radar for further intrusion.

To wit: shortly after deleting the offensive blog entry, I found some interesting material in my mailbox located in the Cruise Director’s office-- 3 pages of “Rules and Regulations on Blogs and Websites“ of Holland America Employees.

These Guidelines told me not to be disrespectful to Holland America employees, methods, management, guests, even competitors. Huge gray area -- really now, what do you mean by disrespectful? Furthermore, anything questionable should be discussed with some “manager” person before posting. Yeah right, as if that manager person would give me creative freedom.

All this angst over a blog with less than 15 readers. Holland America doesn’t know it’s only 15 readers, for all they know it’s 15,000 readers, thus their fear of blog criticism. There’s already many people out there - passengers - putting their comments on Cruise Critic.com and other such sites. That can’t be stopped -- all the more reason to squash criticism from employees.

So private it will be, with whatever crazy thing I feel like saying….. nice place to vent, play “journalist”, entertain, and be entertained.