Monday madness

This is my last week at my current company and after just come of 2 weeks study leave, I was totally prepared for a quiet week.  The girl who will be replacing me had started 3 weeks ago, so she had all that time to get to know my clients and the week I was there with her, she did just fine.

This week she has gone on a course, so I am back to helping my old clients.  Monday was hell.  There were so many mistakes in her bookings that my clients went from thanking me for being back to yelling at me because of all the shit.  I have never in my life had such a bad day at work.  And my clients don’t even know that I’ve resigned yet and that the new girl is taking over from me permanently.

I feel so bad for the new manager, who had only started last week;  She walked into an office where all the consultants left and it is only her, and the new girl.  She was so panicked yesterday when she saw all the stuff I had to deal with because of the new girl.  She seems so nice and I really do like her, I would hate to be in her position and really hope the new girl improves very quickly.

Today was only marginally better.  Luckily I now only have 2 more days left, but man, the time cannot go by fast enough!

Dear Clients

I would like to thank you for making the past 2 weeks of my work-life absolute hell.  You’re lack of any kind of planning or organising is causing my workload to quadruple.  Changing your booking 4 times only to eventually go back to the original arrangements is not funny, and you laughing about it on the phone makes me want to go over to your office and bitch slap you with a cactus.

Also, I do not appreciate it when you as travel coordinator couldn’t be bothered to ask your people what times their meetings are and then expect me to quote you on 6 different times during the day so that they can “choose”.  Newsflash:  I have a lot of clients and a lot of work, I simply cannot quote you on every single flight because you suck at your job!  Seriously, pick up the phone and talk to your colleague / boss!

And lastly, dear Prof I, you get a personalised mention in this letter.  I appreciated that you try and book your tickets in advance, and I really understand that plans change, but asking me for restrictive tickets every single time and promising not to change, when we both know that you are going to, is insufferable.  And even worse, making funny little quips when asking me to do upgrades / reroutings and reissues for you, really gets my blood boiling.  Then after all the work is done, and lots of swearing and calling you a wanker, you go and send me sincere thanks and apologies, which just makes me feel bad about being so horrible about your changes, especially since you are the only client, who bothers to send me any kind of recognition for the work I just did.

So to all of my clients, whose e-mails are piling up on my inbox, I just spent the last 40 minutes, typing this blog post while intermittently singing and dancing along to the music in the office.  I hope you enjoy the wait in me getting back to you because you finally broke me.

Sincerely,

A very tired and pissed off travel consultant.

Horrible clients; we have them

I’m a corporate travel consultant and I absolutely hate my job, but some days are just worse than others.  Today was actually a good day for me work wise;   my clients were busy, but not too hectic and everything was running smoothly, that is until my colleague went out for lunch.  Her corporate clients are the absolute worst clients ever and I really do not like assisting them when she’s not here.

She left just after 1pm, which is a normal time to take lunch you would think, but not 5 minutes after she left, 1 of her clients called and asked for her.  When the receptionist said she is out on lunch, he went off at her and honest to god told her “that is unacceptable!”  Seriously!  This is the type of people we have to deal with on a daily basis, even though this client (and all his colleagues at the same company) is the most horrid of them all.

His crisis: His SA passport is full and he is travelling to Kenya on Monday, and needs to know if he needs a visa on his European passport.  His ticket was issued last week, but he waits for Friday afternoon, and after the Embassy is closed, to decide to check on his passport / visa problem.

While I am trying to sort all this out, and am frantically trying to call around to get the correct information because heaven forbid something goes wrong with his trip, another guy from the same company calls.  His crisis:  He is going to be very late and possibly miss his flight and the next flight is only 3 ½ hours later and he can’t sit around at the airport that long.  What does he want from me, you might wonder, he wants me to call the airline and tell them to wait for him, he is 10 minutes away.

I really have no words to explain the arrogance and ignorance of some clients! And the funny thing about the travel industry is that even though you think you have heard the most outrageous request ever, something will come along that is even more ridiculous as the requests that came before it!