Who’s My Boss?

Starkey asks:

I am the band leader of a new band going onto Princess in August. How does the MD affect or not affect my show? Who do I answer to directly with regards to my act?

Thanks for the question Starkey, and congrats on the new gig. Bosses are a common subject amongst cruise ship musicians, maybe because the concept of a boss doesn’t jive totally with being a musician – especially freelance musicians. For instance, you’ve spent the past 2 years freelancing without a boss, then you get on a cruise ship and you’ve got, like, 10 bosses.

The Music Director is the leader of the showband/houseband on each cruise ship. Sometimes the MD is also in charge of scheduling the lounge bands, but sometimes that is the responsibility of the cruise director or assistant cruise director. And sometimes, depending on the day, you just have to play the “Who’s My Boss Today” game, in which case you could be told what to do by whoever – the captain, the hotel director, the staff captain…the dude scooping food at the buffet…your cabin steward… I think you get my point.

Officially, this is the chain of command on most cruise ships for musicians, starting with the top:

1. Captain
2. Staff Captain (or “First Officer”)
3. Hotel Manager
4. Cruise Director (entertainment department head)
5. Asst. Cruise Director (when the Cruise Director is unavailable)
6. Music Director
7. Band Leader (for lounge bands)
8. Side Musician

Does that make sense? Find wherever your position is on this list – every position listed above you is someone you have to listen to.

If you have a problem, the standard etiquette is to bring it to your MD first, then your Cruise Director, but usually not higher than that. If you have a problem and you bring it to the Captain, you’ll get in trouble with all the people you skipped along the way, and potentially the Captain too (because that guy probably doesn’t give a hoot about your problem). When in doubt, go to the cruise director – they are the head of your department.

(If the problem is a safety or harassment problem, i.e. a BIG problem, go to someone higher up on the list.)

Chain of command is an important thing on a cruise ship, but it can create as many problems as it solves. For instance, there tends to be a don’t-tell-Mom kind of mentality on cruise ships, where something will be going poorly, but your immediate boss won’t tell his boss because he doesn’t want to look inept or get in trouble (or they are lazy). So the problem remains until it comes to a head or just drives all the sidemen nuts. An example of this would be a chart that’s written wrong, a musician that is always late and/or drunk, or poorly mixed monitors and a lazy sound man, etc., etc., etc.

I’ve never worked on Princess, Starkey, but it’s likely you will answer directly to the cruise director if you are a lounge band leader.