Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Elves Have Been A Cruising

By the Boiler Room Elves

When it comes to vacations, Boiler Room Elves love touring cruise ship boiler rooms (we tell BossMen these are “fact-gathering missions” so we don’t need to take vacation days!). A week of sun, sleeping in chairs on the Promenade Deck, and eating good food sounds like the perfect escape to Elfin ears. But we don’t get paid enough to cruise too often (we’re saving up for a new turbo-charged sleigh), so we always look for cheap fares. This time, we found a great deal on a Caribbean cruise. So we went.

Alas, day after day, nothing in the way of a boiler room tour materialized in our Daily Cruise Bulletin. Upon gentle inquiries we were told that the behind-the-scenes tours had come to a halt after 9/11, and we had to settle for the captain's talk and slide show in which he included pictures of the bridge, the ship in dry-dock, divers examining the bottom of the ship, and yes, even the boilers. Another fun thing ruined by terrorism.

Sadly, slide shows just cannot compete with the feel of real nuts and bolts under green felt shoes, so we headed to the buffet to eat away our sorrows. In addition to the normal dining room, this ship had a self-serve buffet where most people ate breakfast and lunch every day. We found ourselves shocked at the behavior of many of our fellow passengers. People would load up their plates with all sorts of food, eat part of it and then dump the rest, only to return to the buffet and come back with more plates full of food. The dessert station was among the worst - it would have 10 types of cookies and cakes, and people would take one of each. They would try one bite of some of the things and trash the rest.

Certainly, none of these passengers ate like this at home, where they were paying the bills. But given free reign and an "I paid for it!" mentality, people freely wasted food and took things they didn't need or maybe didn't even want. There was often a slightly desperate feeling in the air that someone else was going to clean out a tray and you wouldn't get your "fair share."

We met one “gentleman” who was lamenting how the quality of the food had gone dramatically downhill since he started cruising 10 years ago. He lambasted the cruise line, while he was in the process of abandoning a fresh hamburger and fries, after only a few bites. It would join the other two plates of uneaten food sitting at his side, waiting to be cleared. We refrained from asking if he'd considered that perhaps the cruise line could afford to keep the quality higher if every passenger didn't waste enough food for 10 people...

Now, don't get me wrong, we Elves certainly ate more than we needed to. At home, breakfast usually consists of a bowl of Ho-ho-ho-ios, some milk, and a banana. On the ship, we indulged in large amounts of pineapple, cantaloupe, an omelet, bacon, and hash browns, all topped off with a cherry danish or cinnamon roll. But we ate what we took, and if we wanted to try something we weren't sure we'd like, we took a bite or two, knowing we could always return for more.

All this got our Elf minds thinking. Instead of a buffet filled with food, imagine one filled with health care. Having paid the entry fee to get on board, won’t people demand every test ever created at the slightest sensation of pain? Why wouldn’t you get tested for everything if it doesn’t cost you anything? “Let’s run an MRI, how about a CAT scan, how about that Jingle-titis test?” (Editor’s Note: Jingle-titis is a disease that happens only to Elves over the age of 70 who live in Guam.) Won’t people demand medications upon the slightest whim or whenever they see advertising for it? Won’t medical necessity go out the window? Even relatively responsible people will be hard-pressed to avoid the "free" smorgasbord of well-being check ups, no matter how unnecessary they might be at the time.

Where will this lead? Like hamburger-man complaining how quality has dropped, the "cruise line" will not be able to offer high-quality health care to everyone for long. They will have to cut back on the variety of offerings, the quality itself, and the level of service that goes along with it.

Don't get the wrong idea, we Elves really enjoyed our cruise, and we returned to the Boiler Room well-rested and eager to work. But it was also a good opportunity to observe human nature. We simply can't have it both ways - cheap fares and all-you-want, great food and services do not go hand-in-hand. Something has to give. The cruise lines are giving way on the food quality - is that what we want for health care, too?

21 comments:

AndrewPrice said...

You've put your finger right on problem with any sort of "free lunch" -- literally. This is the fundamental flaw at the heart of socialism/communism. Good call.

By the way, if you never saw the boilers, then why wasn't this a vacation?

ScottDS said...

I think I just had an epiphany (not bad for 8:00 in the morning). One day many years ago, I went with some film school friends to one of Orlando's Golden Corral buffets.

At one point toward the end when we were all stuffed, a friend said to me, "Scott, you ever noticed you eat more when you only have to pay the flat fee?" Don't get me wrong, I eat what I take (waste not, want not and all that) but I couldn't argue with his thesis.

As for cruises, my family and I went on one in the summer of 1997. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Sovereign of the Seas (which was refit a few years ago). It was a lot of fun! Dinner was always set in stone but lunch, which was usually a buffet-style free for all, was too daunting for me. So many choices!

BoilerRoomElf said...

Scott, the Elves are proud to say we only gained 2 pounds each, depsite the buffet free-for-alls! ('Course that's like 25% of our body weight...)

The buffet struck us as a simple, obvious analogy to "free" healthcare.

Andrew, ummmm, we, ummm, continued to try to gain access to the boiler room repeatedly. There was an unfortunate incident involving a rope, an engineer, and the brig, which we won't get into...

Writer X said...

LOL! Loved the analogy to "free" health care. So true!

I have friends and relatives who love to cruise. I am definitely not one of them although, admittedly, I've never been on one. The idea of being captive on a ship, surrounded by thousands of hungry people hellbent on a buffet line, holds no appeal for me. Besides, how does that big honkin' ship stay afloat anyway?? Way too Titanic for me.

BoilerRoomElf said...

WriterX, don't forget that you also get to "fight" for a premium deck chair by the pool! ;)

Really, though, we enjoy cruising. We find it about as relaxing as we can get. Plus you get taken to see new places without having to squeeze into an airplane or constantly change hotels.

But have you seen some of the new ships they're building? Behemoths designed to hold 5,000 to 6,000 people. We Elves will stick to smaller ships.

StanH said...

I thought it might be your guys? I saw some elves getting their picture taken with the Travel Gnome. Always the mischievous bunch, one was holding the bunny symbol over the gnomes head, two where making faces, one giving the thumbs up, one looked embarrassed, and last but not least one was mooning.

The healthcare buffet with indeed be sparse, the continental breakfast if you will, low fat milk, with a stale cheese-danish.

CrispyRice said...

Andrew, maybe for their next cruise, you can send your elves here -

www.titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk

They're doing a cruise on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic and following its path. Personally, I think you'd have to be nuts to try that one!

Good point, elves, re the buffet. I know I always eat way more than I should at buffets. I wonder if I'd overuse health care, too.

BevfromNYC said...

Just one question - There are elves on Guam? Okay another question - isn't this a very busy time for elves?

Your analogy is spot on - When HMOs came into existance in the '90s, a doctor relative of mine had a patient who started coming into the office for a check up at least two times a week because it only cost a $3 co-pay. The patient didn't understand that just because he could didn't mean he should and would get angry when the doc wouldn't see him. He was finally "fired" as a patient.

BoilerRoomElf said...

Stan --

Elves rule; Gnomes drool!

Your healthcare plan sounds like the free breakfast at a Super 8. Blech...

CrispyRice, you can't prove that Elves had anything to do with the Titanic!

BoilerRoomElf said...

Bev, that's why we took our fact-finding mission pre-holidays. Surely, we'll need another one after the holiday rush...

Oh, and there's a nice retirement home for elves on Guam.

That's not surprising about your doctor friend, nor that people out there would choose to see their doctor weekly. There are many lonely people with lots of time on their hands.

AndrewPrice said...

CrispyRice, A Titanic cruise, hmm? Sounds like a good one for the elves!


Bev, I was just as surprised to learn that. Of course, that said, there seem to be elves everywhere -- mainly vacationing!

Elves, Sounds like we should begin an investigation?!

BoilerRoomElf said...

Nothing to investigate here, BossMan! Move along, move along...

Unknown said...

Andrew: I give up. Now they're sneaking off for cruises and "free food." Well, I've got that covered. You know those employee lunches we've been so generous in giving them? Well, I have low friends in high places in the gummint, and they're giving me some of that "free food" that we can give the Elves in exchange for our support for cap 'n tax. Even free food has a price. Wait 'til they see the "healthy" food I'm getting for them. I hope they don't notice the expiration dates.

AndrewPrice said...

Now you've got me worried elves!


Lawhawk, Sounds like that Elf Kibble from the 1940s that the Government has stored in Alabama. Hmmmm kibble.

BevfromNYC said...

We should tack on a "free lunch" tax to their little Elvish paychecks 'cause it looks like they make waaay too much if they can afford the time for cruises...

BoilerRoomElf said...

You'll be hearing from our union reps if you try to take away our Cadillac Kibble plan!

Bev, you know that tax will just get passed on to the readers, right?

AndrewPrice said...

Ok, now that was funny! LOL!

BevfromNYC said...

Dearest BRE - Did I say tax? I meant supplemental payroll excise surcharge of less than .01% for every non-hourly wage earned on alternate Tuesdays in months with "R", but only if you eat in that month. You'll never miss it...

BoilerRoomElf said...

Well, Bev, since you put it that way, that sounds much better... umm, how could we argue with... ummm... what were... yaaaaawwwwwwnnnn... sure... whatever...

BevfromNYC said...

Shhhhhhh, now that they are asleep...
Now see that's how you handle the Elves. Lull them with lots of meaningless wordplay (much like Obama) and you can convince them not only will there be no new taxes, but they agree to pay for their free lunches!

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, It's like you're reading from the Obama playbook itself! LOL!

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