C is for Customers, amongst other things...

C is for Customers, Complaints, Colleagues & Cretins…

Good morning everybody, I’m sat in my baking hot apartment at 07.45 killing 13 minutes of time before starting my duties at the Ambasciatori Palace, I must confess that I’m not entirely awake - I’m sure that somewhere in this condo is a picture of me sleeping…

So, ‘C’ is rather an all-encompassing entry for working with people on both sides of the organisation. As I sat down to write this, a quote my good friend Miles Redwood-Davies used to use rather liberally couldn’t help but spring to mind (no, it wasn’t ‘focus’, or ‘if you want fast food go to a f*cking McDonald’s’). If I were actually the owner of any canine friends I would say this with more gusto, however the written word will have to do:

The more time I spend with the Great British public the more I like my dogs. .

Now I must first of all point out that statistically 99.5% of the people I deal with are just people, they’re great fun and are abroad to have a holiday and escape the realities of everyday life (good God, aren’t we all..?). Then there are the kind of people who turn up to the hotel with the page of the brochure cut out and attached to a clipboard. “It says here that the rooms have a high ceiling, however I have measure the ceiling and it is only 2.25m tall, which I would hardly consider high - what are you going to do to compensate me?”

With the danger of starting a Daily Mail-esque rant here I must say that I am utterly appalled at the state of society now that everything is a case for compensation because people are so utterly crap at managing their own expectations. Honestly, people will and do complain about anything and everything, from the types of towels they have in the bathroom to the noise outside the hotel - of which obviously no-one has any control over but also no-one else has complained about in 8 sodding weeks of the season. You see people filling programs like “Holidays from Hell” or “Watchdog” and you think (or at least I do) ‘what is wrong with you that you cannot just attempt to enjoy yourself?’. People arrive into hotels with faces like smacked arses and attitudes of spoiled brats, what’s worse is that the parent here (me) has to take all of their self-obsessed drivel without any possibility of giving them a damned good hiding, damn their eyes.

Here is an example in which we can see the two types of British traveller, the good and the bad. On only the second week we had a luggage disaster, the disaster being that a quarter of the luggage got stuck on the plane as the doors wouldn’t open. This was due to a mechanical failure and after some truly incredible mismanagement at Marco Polo airport turned the plane around and sent it back to England complete with the luggage still on it, citing ‘a lack of appropriate tools’ as the reason. The truth behind it is actually more likely that they didn’t want to wait on the tarmac as that costs money, although we never actually heard this from our management or the airport management.

So, this mean that we had 30 people (approximately) without any luggage or maybe one bag out of two, heading into resort with us. We had to go on the information that was given to us and as a result, as I’m sure you may be able to imagine, we (reps) ended up getting shot to pieces, at least that is what most people wanted to do.

The part of this delightful little narrative that always gets me though is the fact that people are so clouded by anger they lose any ability to be reasonable or fair. Whilst I am a representative of Thomsons/TUI it is not like I can wish the luggage to Lido di Jesolo any faster, it is not as if I could go out onto the runway myself and start working on the doors armed only with a clipboard and a million dollar smile. So, when on the Saturday morning I had to inform the 15 or so people I had that there luggage wouldn’t be there for another day you can imagine the joy that I got. It is fair enough for people to be irate without their bags for a couple of days but honestly, it isn’t the end of the world. The only person who I thought had a genuine reason to be worried was the diabetic whose needles and insulin were in his luggage. Whilst we all thought he should be responsible for that himself it is actually the case that the airports encourage you to only take one day’s worth of medicine with you on the plane, which is so short-sighted it beggars belief. Anyhow, we got him a doctor and furthermore this is why you purchase travel insurance when you go travelling.

The extent of the problems was that when I said in my welcome meeting “don’t forget to wear suncream, I know it’s patronising, but there is a breeze on the beach and it can be a lot hotter than it feels” someone came up to me later and said “What was the bloody use in you telling us to wear suncream when it’s in a plane in Manchester?”. Well my Neanderthal friend, what you could do is head to something called a shop and here they have goods and services which can be traded for other goods and services, although in most cases in this modern age money will suffice. Yes, it is inconvenient, yes do keep the receipts so you can charge it back to your insurance company, however that is life. Honestly, a woman cried over suncream. Suncream! What is wrong with these imbeciles, these cretins? I gave them my own personal suncream and did I get it back once theirs arrived? Did I heck!

There is a moral to this story and that is that whilst I was on duties I was contentedly sitting in my chair minding my own business, trying to avoid the teary eye of the Suncream Psycho when a chap walked past and as usual I asked him how his holiday was going. Here is a rough transcript of the conversation:

Me: Hello there, how’s the holiday going?
Mr Holidaymaker: Grand thanks, although any news on the bags?
Me: Oh, they’re due to arrive with the Monarch flight tomorrow morning and then a private courier is dropping them off at the hotels. Once again we’re very sorry…
Mr H: Don’t worry about that at all, it’s not your fault and we’re here to have a good time, you just have to make the best of it…

Oh my word, if I was an evil scientist Travel Rep I would clone this gentleman and make him all of our customers. Surely people wouldn’t come on holiday to have a good time? I got the impression that they came to expect perfection? This week I have people who are staying in a room that has been stayed in every week since I have been here, but this week apparently the noise is so bad that they demanded a room change. There was availability so we sorted it out but lo and behold the new room was noisy. The beauty of this one is that the noise they heard was boat horn - what exactly we are supposed to do about that I am unsure…

Other fantastic complaints include the definition of a buffet, the fact that the chap who cooks the eggs in the morning has a face like a slapped arse (that one was fair enough), there isn’t enough entertainment in Jesolo (what the jolly heck do they want, Tom Jones?! senile old women), that there are no tea and coffee making facilities in the rooms, that all the food is a bit Italian…

The list goes on. Whilst this is an incredibly rant-y entry the reason is because during my working life I have to sit and take it, smiling with the inane calm of the mentally challenged. This is a release.


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By the way, if you can’t tell, I write these ‘articles’ in bits and bobs throughout my week all on my laptop, then I finally get enough willpower to put it on a pen drive and take it to the office and put it on the world wide web. This may explain the less-than-linear approach they may take…

So, relating to A for Airport Days and C for complaints we had a slight problem last night at the airport, primarily the last flight of the day was due to land at 18.25 but didn’t touch down until 22.55 and as a result we didn’t finish drop off’s until 1am. Can you imagine how happy all of the customers were? Can you imagine how happy all or us reps were? Well, to make the time pass I became a man and watched Die Hard 4.0 in Italian with the bus drivers on one of the coaches. That’s right, in Italian. Didn’t understand much but you probably won’t be surprised that ‘yippee-ki-yay mother[expletive deleted]’ translates pretty literally. Hmm.

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The other part of ‘C’ was for colleagues - I’m going to be careful here as there is a chance that they may read this (highly, highly unlikely - nobody is really interested in me here, which is jolly good), however it is also not good to bitch.

I have a bit of a strange relationship with my colleagues in that I work with them but I am content for that to be the complete extent of our relationships - I don’t feel a need to socialise with them, not because I’m anti-social just because if I didn’t work with them I wouldn’t be doing that. I miss intellectual conversations, especially ones that aren’t pretentious, I miss dumb jokes, drinking being accidental rather than intentional and I particularly miss being accountable only to myself - I don’t like the fact that through working with people they become the judge and arbitrators of all that I do. Hmm.



Insert - If you have a high opinion of me please do not read this, this is utter crap, it is rude and self-indulgent, please do not read because we all have moments of weakness, this is mine. If you are being good and skipping it just scroll down to the next bold section.

C right now is for overConsumption of alcohol. I said I didn’t have a problem in my previous entry, the not-particularly-entertaining B for Booze, I’m not sure if you recall….

Well I do. Last night to deal with my problems I knocked off my bottle of Jim Beam, a glass of red wine and then headed to the now infamous Gasoline, where I met the girl I’m in love with….and her boyfriend. I’m a fucking idiot. I drink to escape which has problems, such as the fact I have absolutely no idea how I got home last night, I’ve got a feeling I kissed a girl called Alice, but I have no concrete evidence of this. My eyes look like I’ve been in an opium den (I haven’t, my debauchery is yet to get that far eastern flavour), my breath smells like a flipping brewery and my head is ready to explode - more than usual because not only does it have these ridiculous fucking thoughts flying around it is also has the joy of biological chemistry - a hangover too.

I knew when I started drinking this would happen, it was the whole damn point - I drink to forget and then in the morning I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself - I’m a freaking idiot. My mouth is furry, my stomach empty but for the sloshing of some random alcohols. I’m so damn poor I couldn’t eat last night but I somehow thought it was ok to take 10 euros from my work money (that’s right boys and girls, stealing to fund an addiction, I’m a big man) to buy a drink in Gasoline, let alone the fact that the girl I’m in love with and her boyfriend expect to buy me drinks…at 23 I’m already a fucking charity case.

The thing is that I know I could stop this…I’d have to stop drinking completely, but I really, really, really like drinking. It’s an awful thing, it makes me die inside, it makes my body turn against me and my mind do things it shouldn’t do, however it levels me, it makes me feel normal - I can be myself if I’m drunk because suddenly it’s excusable. It’s ok if I’m fucking weird when I’m drunk, that’s me, but other people can say “oh it’s ok, he’s drunk…” and I don’t need to worry. The Italians seem to love it…the fucking English performing monkey, feed him alcohol and laugh at what happens.

Regardless of where I go or what I do I have always got to live with myself and I’m still no good at that. It’s a dichotomy - I know I’m actually a pretty fucking great person…however I cannot reconcile that with what goes on in my head, I get no peace. I want peace, I want to be quiet just once. Without drinking.

Boys and girls I’m sorry that you get to witness this, hell I don’t even know if I’m going to publish this, it’s 7.46 on a Sunday morning and I have to go to work, but if you read this you have some interest in my sordid life and now you know how it feels.

Love you long time, it’s the one thing that I can do successfully, loving because I get to give myself away rather than stay with me the whole damn time. And if anyone organises an intervention I will eat a monkey.

Ciao belli,
Chris de Montfort Wellborne/Monty/Eric/Mince-Boy/Munter/Stupid Fucking Idiot.


if avoiding the bit I told you not read this is the bit that you can read again

Hello boys and girls, I’m back, and yes I did some very foolish things but I’m sober and a lot more rational now. Anyway, those of you who know me well know that I’m an absolute nutjob, now those of you who don’t know me that well know why I always look so damned odd, it’s because this kind of thing is always going through my mind. I would like to correct myself, I don’t have a drink problem, for at least 360 days a year, there are just about 5 times a year where I go overboard. Pfff. I’m going to play the young, arrogant card here, and pretend that I’ll sort myself out soon. I just need a good woman to keep me down. Word.

So, where was I, back in the world of pretending anyone cares about this drivel I write? I believe we’d got up to colleagues…

That was it, I’m not really big on socialising with them because I have my own completely secret life where I’m seeing someone (or not anymore, but that’s going to be covered in G for Girls), where I get to be me and not tied down to the perception people have of me and the a way of behaviour they expect. I hate what nights out become with my colleagues - sitting on a table in the corner of a bar talking English, talking about work and not doing anything different…it could be a pub in England for all it matters and that is not why I am out here.

A new complication has arisen due to my colleagues as well…in that I have to leave my apartment and move in to the staff house. Currently I have a fantastic apartment with a private beach, it is just me, I can come and go as I please, play guitar, do what I like….I have never lived by myself before but now I can’t imagine going back to living with anyone again (unless it was Greggy-Greg, but then I’d never get any work done because I’d be beating him up for being such a blatant Toilet-Trader for playing Link’s Crossbow Challenge). One of my colleagues is leaving and as a result we have a new person coming out, under the name of Liam. Liam, as you may be able to guess is male and the colleague leaving is a girl, so the apartment she shared in the staff house with a girl is to be mine and Liam’s apartment, whilst the remaining girl moves into mine. Still following? The point is I am no longer completely independent, I’m going to have to see one of my colleagues all of the time (who I don’t even know, so I’m hoping he’s a good egg), whilst the other two girls live in the apartment below. There will be no escape!

I’m sure it will be fine, it’s all part of the adventure.

Right, this is quite enough of this writing malarkey, I will go on forever otherwise. Apologies if the drunken insert is a little disturbing, I just feel in the interests of artistic integrity I should keep it in, also, I’ve been checking the traffic on this blog and hardly anybody reads it anymore, so, what the heck. I love you long time amici, don’t forget to stay in touch and I hope all is well with everyone.

Ciao, Monty x

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