Dear traveller, Hi.
I understand that you are desperate to see a friend, your family, move to a different country to get away from our shit or return home. I understand that you are tired and frustrated with the COVID situation. I understand that you are frustrated with the delay in responses and I can understand why you throw the lack of service card at us. It is not that I do not understand, actually I do.
Can I tell you a secret?
While you were baking banana bread and trying out the air fryer, reorganising your home, we were working. We were trying to figure out airline policies, fighting for better refund options and trying to figure out exactly what can and cannot be offered.
We are tired and overwhelmed. There was no 3 week break where we could read, eat the banana bread or garden.
We are tired opening an email, a message, answering a call and the first thing you see or hear is your service is pathetic, oh great a human, finally thank g**, f*ck off, you motherf*ckers, your company is a fraud.
No one wakes up in the morning with the intention to provide bad service. In fact, we wake up scared of what awaits.
You have 1000’s of travellers which is manageable when it is “travel as usual”. Imagine all of them coming at you at once because Covid hit and the globe closed down.
Here is another secret.
I have a family member that have been trying to go on honeymoon since last year, who had to move a wedding, rebooked the honeymoon just to be told now, sorry you cannot go. Both my parents ended up in ICU at the same time with COVID. They are alive and well, but imagine the stress and worry. I lost colleagues and friends as a result of downsizing. I have been working tirelessly, doing over time and trying to cope with the situation myself while you blame us for everything wrong in the travel industry.
Every time you take out your anger or frustration at a person you leave a mark. As much as we try to distance ourselves this infiltrates every aspect of our lives.
We are trying and fighting to assist you as quickly as possible and not keep you waiting, but we are human.
You forget that we are someone’s mother, father, brother, sister, child, husband, wife and that you have no right to be so rude and so angry at us. You have an even less right to swear and verbally abuse us like you do. There is no reason for 1 human being to speak to another like that. Think about how you would feel if someone spoke to you the way some people speak to us.
I will share a last secret.
We are a middle man. We do not sit around the round table with the airline/suppliers/tour operators and discuss what is going to be offered. We are sent directives and because we are a third party, we have our own rules that is different from the airline’s rules (as written by the airline) and we are forced to adhere to the directive sent. Can we do anything about this or change the directive to suite your needs? The answer is no.
We know this is not your fault or your doing or your decision. You need to understand that is not our fault, our doing or our decision either. The same goes for the airlines/tour operators/suppliers etc. It is not their fault, their doing or their decision. There is a lot more to this than what you can see.
We need a little more patience, just for the time being. We need your understanding and above all, we need you to stop being so self righteous.
Try and place yourself in any travel agencies shoes and try and imagine just for 5minutes how we must feel and how our heart sink with every ban or new regulation being applied.
We are human. We are tired. We need an ounce of understanding and we need kindness.
Stop being a bully!
E xx
The Travellingmind 