The Man Who Demanded A Free Upgrade Because He Was "Basically Crew"

I work passenger services on a ferry, which means I am the face that people bring their whole day to.

He came aboard with a lanyard. Not our lanyard. A conference lanyard, from a trade show, with his own name on it and the logo of a company that sells hydraulic fittings.

He wanted the crew lounge. He explained that he was "basically crew". He explained it to me, then to my colleague, then to a passing engineer who has the social skills of a bollard and who simply walked away mid-sentence.

We said no, politely, four times.

Then he started drinking, and at about the ninety-minute mark he became an authority on my career.

He told me I had "a bad attitude for someone in a service job". He told me the crossing was "shameful". He asked for my name badge, and I gave him my name, clearly, and spelled it, and offered him the complaints email, which we are trained to do because complaints emails are where these men go to die.

He then went up on deck and was sick, in front of a school group, and then demanded a blanket.

Here is my favourite part.

We do not have blankets. We have never had blankets. It is a ninety-minute crossing.

He said, "Every ferry has blankets."

I said, "Not this one, sir."

He said, "This is why the industry is finished."

He sat on the floor for the last twenty minutes, holding his lanyard, telling anybody who passed that he was in hydraulics.

At the terminal his wife met him. She looked at us, and then at him, and she said — to us, not to him — "I'm so sorry."

The whole shift stopped. Somebody actually said "aw".

She took him away by the elbow, and honestly, that woman deserves a medal, a pension, and a very long holiday somewhere he cannot follow.