I'm writing this from the "Card Room" of the cruise ship Fascination. I'm somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean with Jeanie, our two teenage sons, and a teenage niece heading for Puerto Rico. It's the last day of a seven-day tour of five Caribbean islands, and I can't wait to get back to work.

Sure the vacation was nice, but seven days is my limit, even if it was my first time off in five years. Not once have I thought about work until today, the last day. I was too busy making deals with the cab drivers in Dominica and Martinique and trying to figure out whether $6.50 American for a hot dog at the Barbados Hilton was worth it.

It's all a matter of branding. It's not what you sell, it's how you sell it. That's why the barkeep at poolside can keep a straight face when he tells you it's that much for the hot dog and $9 for a hamburger. "Well, whaddya want," Jeanie quips, "it's the Hilton." The barkeep made a face. We opted for two orders of fries and two drinks. Yummy.

There's no question that if you market yourself as a premier provider of "X," people will pay just about anything for it without asking for the "Y." That's just the way it is. Like Jeanie said, "it's the Hilton." Business lessons I can incorporate, I'm sure, in my own business plan.

My business acumen helped me tremendously on this trip. Not only did I negotiate flawlessly with all the cab drivers but I also was able to deduce that my luggage was missing. Seems the cab driver forgot to unload my suitcase at the airport, and by the time it reached me in Martinique, half the trip was over. I discovered this on the flight to Puerto Rico where we were to board the ship, when the count of our bags came up one short. Knowing that these types of things always happen to me, I calmly told Jeanie that I thought my bag didn't travel with us. She was very good about it, being that it was mine and all. "You'll get it. Don't worry." Yeah, I'd like to see her without her stuff. Scenes from The Exorcist come to mind.

And yes, I did call the office from one of those exotic islands. But only once, and it kind of pained me to find out that all was well and that no major fires were burning.

"Whaddya doing calling in? You're on vacation," said my assistant, Claudia. "Nothing's going on here, just have a good time."

Nothing's going on? Does that mean that business came to a screeching halt or that no one needed the entrepreneurial input of the boss? Either way, it didn't make me feel great.

Oh well, another Caribbean Martini please!

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.