Am I really getting paid for this?

Living in Alaska is by no means cheap. In order to fund our new life we are both working for Allen Marine tours. Allen Marine is a family owned business well known throughout southeast Alaska for their quality tours. Our positions with Allen Marine are as passenger servers or as my wonderful naturalist tell passengers "galley slaves."


In short the job consists of exploring the Misty Fjord National Monument while keeping the passengers fed and happy. Working in customer service always requires patience and a decent sense of humor. The ability to answer the same questions over and over again with the same amount of displayed enthusiasm is definitely an art.

My favorite and fairly common question is: "What elevation are we at?" A response to this questions must be carefully planned in order to avoid a large amount of embarassment. I have discovered two responses to this question which seem to work well depending on the repoire with the passenger.

#1 "You know that is a very common question! While we are currently at sea level, the highest point on our island is actually 3000 feet." (stated while pointing to Deer Mountain) This statement provides a response without any additional ridicule. In this case, however, the passenger is more likely to repeat such a question in a different port and receive a less friendly response. I like to call this my redirection answer.

#2 (Peeking over the side of the boat) "Well...I would say about 8 ft. Unless you choose to move to the top deck." This response is by far my favorite but it must be choosen carefully for the risk of embarassment is much higher. This response is often chosen when repoire with a passenger has already been established.