D is for Days Off

D is for Days Off

Despite all appearances and the vast amounts of time taken to write up all this blathering gibberish I do actually do quite a lot of work. To understand my days off and how I use my free time I’d best describe the actual working part of all of this first.

My normal working week starts on a Friday, which is airport day (see A), which usually lasts from 07.00 to 21.00 if all is on time, with maybe a couple of hours off in between. Yesterday was actually the best we’ve had, with us being finished and back in resort by 20.00 (although on an aside I met the vilest people I have ever had the misfortune to come across whilst doing the return back to Manchester. They complained that they had to wait while the wheelchairs got checked in first, complaining about ‘special assistance’ and I quote ‘what’s the fuss, they’re sitting down, we’ve been standing up all this time, they can be pushed’, whilst the woman was right in front of them, it was humiliating for her and embarrassing for everyone else in the line. After I told them to stop shouting at me otherwise I wouldn’t deal with them they eventually checked in and left, refused to say goodbye when I wished them a safe journey [not at all sarcastically, honest], every other person in line couldn’t stop saying what utter bastards they were and how impressed they were that I had refrained from becoming more than a little Anglo-Saxon. Anyway, it was certainly eye-opening…)

Saturday consists of doing my Welcome Meetings in my hotels in the morning trying to sell as many excursions (or ‘trips & activities’ as they are now known), that will last until about 12.00, after which I will then spend an hour in the office writing out all the tickets, booking them on the trips and guessing approximately how close to (or, in more cases than not, how far from) target I am. Then it’s free time until I work my evening duties collecting money, working from 17.00 - 20.00, before getting home for around 20.15 and once again free time.

Sunday is a standard day, which is duties from 08.00 - 11.00 in hotels, usually an hour in the office sorting out everything from rooming lists to arrival schedules, then I’ll have my own time until doing the 17.00 - 20.00 shift. A normal day is actually relatively easy, only 6 hours of being in hotels, with a huge siesta in between, it is however the split of the shift that can be painful - it can be frustrating because it can feel like there’s never enough time to do anything before having to be back at work again.

Monday I do the same morning hours as Sunday, but then it’s Accounts and it’s heading to the office to make sure the number of tickets sold add up to the amount of cash and credit card receipts that I have. I’ve never had a problem with accounts being out, which of course means that I will this week, but as long as you double check your maths it’s easy enough. Then I’ll receive commission, which is pitiful when arrivals are low (as little as €6 for a week), head to the Black Cat Pub, spend it on a big meal with Heather (a friend from Cosmos), have an ice cream, let it digest, then hire a pedalo for an hour (€9), bum around on the sea, come home, shower and then work a slightly reduced evening shift (finish at half seven, only half an hour, but it makes a difference).

Then we come to Tuesday, oh sweet Tuesdays, my only whole day off in the week. Mmm-mm. What I do on this beloved day varies week to week and what’s going on in my ever-complicated yet constantly dull life. The first couple of weeks I’m ashamed to say that I spent pretty much the entire day in bed…utterly glorious. It is, of course, the horrid truth that the one day you don’t have to get up in the morning you wake up just as your alarm would normally be going off, whilst on the days that you do have to get up your legs are made of lead and eyelids sealed with epoxy resin.

This Tuesday (yesterday) for example, I went into Venice. I did it with the excursion that we do, simply because it was free and I’m very close with Janica and Stefano, the two guides. Going round this city with locals is enormous fun, you end up in the bars where you can get a cheeky Spritz for €2, soak up the sun and laugh at all of the tourists with smug sneer of the educated. This time I went into St Mark’s Basilica for the first time in 17 years and it was wonderful. The actual entrance to the basilica and the ground floor are absolutely beautiful and so ornate and gilded (8000m2 of gold leaf) that it is almost impossible to imagine such wealth possible to build this, were it not right in front of you. It was however not as awe inspiring as it should have been…perhaps because I’ve been to the Vatican and Torcello, Florence too, however the real reason was because the atmosphere was wrong. For me, cathedrals and churches should be places of peace and respect and there is very little of that in St Mark’s. This is because there is a strict queuing system with people walking quite fast, no attempt at silence and a real feel of just being shown an attraction rather than being in a bona fide spiritual building.

Going up to the top level of the basilica (€4) was well worth it however, for the view over the Piazza onto the Lagoon, for the glorious sunshine beating over this ancient city. Also, on the top level you can see the replica horses (I’ve forgotten their name…it’s been quite an eventful two days…heartbreak included, wait for the constantly mentioned G for Girls) and then the real ones. They are nearly 2000 years old, it is incredible and the museum section of the basilica is incredibly interesting and worth seeing.

Other days off have included lazy mornings in bed with the person who I am now not seeing, or better still a lazy morning in bed because she had to get up to go to work whilst I got to play on the Playstation. Word. I don’t really do full beach days because I get way too bored just sitting there and cooking, it’s not my style at all, my attention span does not suffer it. I’ve also been to Treviso again on a day off, it is as I originally wrote, a gorgeous city and one that I could live in.

In my free time I get up to all kinds of antics, mostly secret to my colleagues because I like having privacy and because they really wouldn’t be interested in most of the things I get up to. A lot of the time was taken up by this damn girl I fell in love with, the rest with sadly banal things. For example, I’ve become addicted to the free pinball game that came with the laptop (current high score: 5,380,750), I watch a vast amount of films and TV on the laptop, I write these things up - they usually take a few days coming back and forth to…although this one should be finished quite soon. I’ll quite frequently just go for a walk or a bike ride to get out of resort, er, that’s it really.

The rest of the week is much like Sunday for hours, except I have Thursday morning off and then in the evening we do the Thomson quiz at the Black Cat which will last until 11pm at least, which can be painful for the early starts for airport day on Friday.

Plans for days off in the future include going to Padua and Milano and of course heading back to Venice a few more times. I’m really tired now, so I’m going to go to the Black Cat for Becky’s leaving drinks, make an appearance and then head over to the girl’s house for our ‘Last Chat’ to double check it’s all over (it is) and then I will come home and sleep. Life’s not that bad…

Ciao,
Monty x

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