All times record and a point of no return for Chinese Medicine aboard a Cribbean cruise ship

Solstice My Love Chapter Seven

Sunday, Home Port The Everglades, Fort Lauderdale

Too often lately I feel like I'm not living a real life but one where I am used only as a pawn in a reality show on TV. The only difference is that I have not been told about it. There are hidden cameras and at any given moment a "big brother" could emerge with a big smile to indicate the position of the hidden cameras to my great embarrassment - but also to my great sigh of relief…

Joanna is the new spa manager. Tall and large, tactical, smart and knows a thing or two about human relations. Anna used forcefulness and punishment, divide and rule, often instilling terror and humiliation. Spa girls were punished by being made to work until late at the desk if found "negligent" in Retail sales. The carrot was two hours free time at ports.

Joanna immediately won our hearts by declaring at the first team meeting that everyone is entitled to a free day – regardless of Retail Sales figures. The atmosphere has improved remarkably, the girls are smiling and laughing and all types of sales are bouncing back big time in the spa to the tune of 175 thousand dollars! This was only 8 thousand less than what was achieved during the lucrative Atlantis Cruise!

Thursday I left the ship to relax for several hours. In San Martin I met Tyson from the Gym. We met at The Honky Tonk Bar where I connect to the Internet (the password -" After Shock "...). Athletic Tyson (32, Australia) and I floated lazily above the wonderful turquoise waters of St. Martin and talked about the spa. Tyson is on his fifth contract. He was a stage actor for 15 years in Australia before he started working onboard cruise ships as a Gym instructor. He noted to my surprise that sales fell during Anna's time in relation to her predecessor. Since last week when Tyson lost his voice, came to me and had his voice returned after I treated him with Acupuncture (a special 3" long needle through the esophagus) our relationship only grew stronger. We are the two best revenue makers of the spa and there is a mutual respect between us as professionals, each good in their respective fields. I can say wholeheartedly that he was the best of the Gym instructors in all of the cruise ships I worked aboard. I enjoy watching him in action which is when he uses the great skills and techniques known to actors and street performers to promote the seminars that he presents and the sales of his products. I can spot when he decides it's time to close a sale as this is when his tone of voice starts to go up an octave.

It was only natural for Tyson to refer Don, "his" guest, to me for Acupuncture treatment right there at the Honky Tonk Bar. Don played the skeptic and hard to get, but came to the spa for treatment that same evening. It took him another day to decide to have two more treatments on my recommendation. It was only after the third session, on the last day of the cruise, that he brought with him his wife who suffers from advanced Arthritis, with a bone deformation. Lack of time and a place at the clinic caused her to have only one Acupuncture treatment and on my recommendation she bought six bottles of herbs valued at only $95 each. That will do for three months of herbal treatment. She was very sorry for not having reached me at the beginning of the cruise. We can treat Arthritis very well with Chinese Medicine. One in every 3 Americans suffers from this disease.

Craig, muscular and solid at 60, began to trust me only after I had released some of the shoulder pain he has been carrying for five months. This is an injury resulting from overwork at the Gym without taking into account his age. He agreed to one treatment at first, but promised that if there was to be any change after the treatment he would continue for four more - as I urged him to do from the beginning. Because he was on Coumadin aka Warfarin (a rat poison originally converted to become a blood-thinning drug) I avoided issuing Chinese Herbs. It's one of the few contraindications for Chinese Herbs because the herbs enhance the action of the drug. He took a fiver and even increased to a sixer on Friday. Last treatment resolved the shoulder problem completely. We became very friendly and I invited him and his wife to spend time at the Honky Tonk when we land in San Martin. The Honky Tonk venue is not a tourist trap. It is far away from the center and is used mainly by the crew members of the cruise ships. He so wanted to thank me for the treatment and the tip regarding the Honky Tonk that he kept sending the waiter with cold Corona beer bottles to me and to Tyson while we were busy at the Internet. The fourth bottle I could not drink and I gave back to him ... which of course made him appreciate me more ...

Weeks later he wrote to tell me that the shoulder was completely healed and that what he had spent for the treatments he had received, was money well spent, and added: "How many things today you can say that about them"?

By the end of my very second day aboard the Solstice I told Anna that she had to renew the stock of Chinese herbs because I intended to issue a lot of them. That said though, I knew that Dana and my predecessor hardly sold any herbs. For me Chinese Herbs are not only retail but an integral part of treatment. I am an expert in Chinese Herbal Remedies, have written two books on the subject and see these herbs as friends. Also, Acupuncture treatments are limited to the days the guests are onboard, so the herbs can complement and progress the effect of the treatments at home.

On the third day onboard I told Dana we can, together with Acupuncture services and herbs, make sales of 20 thousand dollars each week. She looked at me like I was crazy and smiled dismissively. I could understand her reaction because she and my predecessor together did at best 5 thousand dollars per week, a figure which was much below target for a ship like the Solstice.

Please be reminded, we receive a small percentage of these sales and pay $35 per day for food and board...

Martin, the travelling guide who promotes Acupuncture, came to see me in San Juan, Porto Rica. He spent 10 minutes with Dana and about 3 hours with me.  He told me that he had never met a practitioner like me, one who is doing so well regarding revenues but at the same time getting so many complaints from the Spa manager, the team and the desk.

At that time there was much tension built up between Dana and I. For weeks I had tried to help her get better at sales and treatments but nothing changed. Martin met my question about what can I do by suggesting that I do something extraordinary to change the situation. I had long been very frustrated because Dana and I had not hit our target and as I said on my second day onboard I thought we ought to exceed it. The total spa revenues did not hit target. The status of Acupuncture at the spa did not fit what we represent.  Dana completely ignored our targets for many weeks and did not try to reach them. For me that meant not only loss of income but it did not allow me to do what I want and can do. Treating people, after all, is the main purpose why I am here.

What usually happens is that very early on the cruise I sell a few fivers and then I mark the five treatments on the spa's computer. It makes my daily columns quickly fill with patients while those of Dana remain empty. Naturally, the spa desk and the massage girls refer all the new patients to her. She then does not upgrade them to more than the initial first treatment and so there is a "waste" of a great customer potential for "Fives", much to my dismay.

This means that I knew I could do better by myself as a single practitioner, with 4 treatment rooms, if only I could see all those guests that Dana "wastes". Unfortunately, Anna could not understand why I made more than Dana with only eight to ten guests per week, while Dana saw more than twenty. I believe that this is the reason why while the spa was led by Anna it was always missing a few thousand dollars to reach target.

Anna shot herself at the leg when she ordered the desk to refer new patients only to Dana. This was done to show me her power and to put me on the spot. What that did to me was the opposite. I was forced to excel and get even better. I improved my seminar presentations and recruited many more guests from them. I also had to improve my selling techniques and most of my patients took packages of fives. This way I could treat them more effectively, rely only on myself and ignore the desk. I improved from week to week while Dana stayed the same and even got worse. After all, you lean against what resists you… and I had a lot to lean against….

Given all of the above, and as I had nothing to lose but money, I decided to propose a revolutionary idea to Dana. I will do the diagnosis and intake for all guests/patients, without exception. We will work as a team in all four rooms and Dana will serve as an assistant to coordinate the billing forms, the treatment schedules, set the treatment beds, take needles out, change sheets and deliver the herbs that I will prescribe.

Each one will do their best, so I can focus on the diagnosis and treatment, and of course on selling fives and herbs. The drawback was that to obtain Dana's consent I had to offer her an equal share of the revenues. She of course accepted the offer gladly, as I had predicted.

The embarkation eve alone I had already signed 4 guests for 5 treatments each. From there it went on in an accelerated and exponential growth. And so it was that in the first week of Joanna on the throne I worked like crazy. However I had little help from Dana as very soon she could not keep up and I had to take on more and more of her responsibilities. Nevertheless I did manage to bring a total of 126 treatments to us and a record of 25% of Retail sales. The total sales exceeded $20,000, as I had predicted on my second day onboard.

It was a great achievement and with the peak on the last day, which was also a sea day. I worked from 7am in the four rooms, spending fifteen minutes per patient for many hours straight while still receiving new patients. At one point, as we were behind the planned schedule due to new arrivals, I left the treatment rooms and explained to the six guests pending acceptance in the waiting room that all four rooms were taken, that we apologize and ask them to wait a few more minutes. Usually when that happens, some leave and seek a refund at the desk, but this time they waited their turn patiently. At one point I was praying that no new patients will show up so I could get some rest at last....

Claudio, an Italian man 36, is the company's computer staff member whom I met about two months ago when his team installed a new computer system onboard. We became friends then. He came onboard at embarkation to be with Joanna all week to tutor her and us in how to use the new program that was freshly installed. He saw and understood exactly what was happening and constantly encouraged me behind the scenes to continue and not give in to fatigue. He was a former Gym and spa manager so he knew all about how the spa operates. He became very angry that I was sharing the proceeds equally with Dana while he could see my investment was most of the work and management. He was the one who told me that there had never been such record sales aboard the Solstice not to mention such high retail done on a cruise ship.

That week was the first time Acupuncture outdid the Gym regarding revenues. It was also the first time that Acupuncture changed colors on the colorful charts of the ship's targets, from the usual Red to Green. That month was also the first time we met and exceeded the target for Acupuncture, which is normally greater than the ship's target. A month later when we received the newsletter from our company in which all ships in the fleet are rated according to actual monthly revenues, the Solstice had reached third place fleet wide. On the records it is written as the joint achievement of Dana and I…The Solstice had never reached this rating before and as far as I know never again after.

On the last evening of the last day of the cruise it became clear that everyone in the spa had done well. The spa, of course, had reached and exceeded its target at last. I was focused on our project so intensely that I could not see what others were doing. I realized that many of "our" patients, who were at the spa for their treatments for at least 5 days out of the 7 days of the cruise, were exposed to and tempted to use other spa services. I, as usual, had referred my guests to other spa services for their well-being as needed.

Joanna told me she respected me like a big brother, the achievement was huge and she had never seen anything like it when for hours I saw so many satisfied patients at intervals of fifteen minutes each across 4 rooms. Later she called me to her room and said she had written to Miami in order to prepare for me 2 more treatment rooms by splitting one of the offices into 2 treatment rooms, so together I will have four available to me to work freely and produce more revenue for the spa.

Right after the team meeting at the end of the cruise, Dana and I met with Joanna. I pointed out to Joanna the economic and tactical data of the model I had built that worked so successfully. The big question was why it did not work as well prior to this week. The pressure was now on Dana. The next day, at embarkation I told Dana that I wish to work separately to her and stand alone in recruiting my patients, without having her standing beside me. She broke down, running away shouting that she wants to get off the ship and go home.

Unlike the rest of the hundred ships in the fleet that have only one Acupuncture therapist onboard, in the Solstice Class which consists of 4 ships, there is a standard of two therapists.

It was clear that after the occurrence of such a powerful performance there could not be any return to what used to be. There had to be a change. The tension was unbearable and indeed the change came rather quickly, in just four days. It wasn't what I had expected. All about that and more will be discussed in the next chapter, Solstice my Love # 8...

I wanted to tell you about Rob from New York. A black musician, 45, with curly gray hair, a pony tail and a belly who has played his guitar for 5 years onboard ships. I laugh a lot with him because he's funny like crazy, with a great spirit and a very kind soul. I experienced many moments of joy during his performance with his band. He plays the bass guitar along with a gifted 23 year old pianist and a drummer. Their favorite place is in the middle of the ship, "Mid Ship", where there are great acoustics and the sound of the band can be heard all around the ship. The glass elevators go up and down behind them, with guests dressed in their finest clothes while watching the musicians in order to get to the disco on the upper floors.

I want to tell you of Donna, 46, a beautiful woman, paralyzed after a traffic accident, who moved through the corridors riding an electric disability vehicle and of her nanny named Khadija from Congo. I took care of her during the course of five treatments while she sat in her vehicle and my heart wrenched for her every time. We laughed a lot but my heart ached. I hope I gave her the strength to improve her life, imprisoned in her cold still body.

I want to tell you about Adrian the British director of a pheasant hunting farm in Britain. He rose early every morning and was the first patient on each of the cruise days. We had long and amusing conversations in many of those early mornings.

I also want to talk about Wang the Chinese guy from the uniform laundry. I give him medical advice regarding Chinese medicine, and he cleans my formal clothes. The rest I wash by hand.

I want to... but maybe another time ... as I am very, very tired.

Do you watch the Reality TV show "Survival in the Caribbean Islands"? You make me laugh ... is this reality?

 
Effi Kfir L. Ac

My Cabin aboard The Solstice

Atlantic Ocean landing in San Juan - Puerto Rico

To be Continued in the 8th and last Chapter of "Solstice my Love".