Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to journeybound stories from overseas travel representatives. Dive into the heart of travel, immerse yourself in vibrant cultures and experience the world from an entirely new perspective. Each week, we bring you riveting stories, unscripted moments and the incredible highs and lows from the lives of those who represent us abroad.
These are the tales of adventure, lessons learned, and the transformative power of travel. Guiding us on this voyage are seasoned travellers, a man and a woman, with stories from every corner of the globe. Wesley Baker and Miranda Kilstrom.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to when things don't go as planned. That's this episode. I'm Wesley and with me is the lovely Miranda, all the way from Finland. Hello, Miranda.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Hi. And hey, from Finland, indeed.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: So, we're going to talk about the experiences of overseas reps and when things don't go as planned, and we've got quite a lot of those stories, I'm sure we just have to drag them.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Out in the last episode, didn't we?
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, indeed. Previous episodes. I think that's what we've been talking about, but there's plenty more in my memory bank. I just need to find them.
So, you mentioned one just a moment ago and I think it's an interesting one, just before we started recording, and I'd like you to leave with that one so I can think of one while you're doing.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, of course. No problem. I can talk to the whole of the Nordics. And by the way, I am english. I've just moved to exotic to say.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: That you were in.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Exotic? Yeah, it's very snowy here today.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: That was a very northern bit of accent. Just came out, the news. Exotic, the way you say it's exotic.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
It's going back to Harry Enfield days. That's what she used to say.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Loads of money. Do you remember that? Loads of money.
Loads of.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I'd actually been recruited by a tour operator and most of the flights out to resort went from Manchester or Gatwick, and that was your choice. I live in the Midlands, Wesley, so I'm smack in the middle. And we was being sent out to have our company orientation or training and.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: It was going to be in Tunisia.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: So we managed to get a flight from Birmingham, which know real luxury, instead of trooping up and down the motorway. So, anyway, it was back in the days when you collected your paper ticket from the desk. And so I arrived at Birmingham airport, all excited, going to do some training for this company. And I got there and I kept looking for the flight on the board. Couldn't see anything? And I went to the desk to collect my. And she, no, no, it was to monasteria. And she said, there are no flights to monastery today. And I was like, but I'm going training. And then I met some other people. There were six of us that were doing exactly the same thing and we'd heard the same information and what had happened is there'd been an admin error and it was one of those funny flights, as I was saying to you, where it's over the night, so you would fly out at, say, 11:00 p.m. But you would arrive at 200 or something. So it was a case of they'd put on the ticket the arrival date, but not the actual departure date. Departure date. So it was actually. We managed to get out to resort three days later. So halfway through the course, the six of us from Manchester, I think we ended up going to. And I'd worked as a rep for several years before, but there were some people there that had never done it. So completely green, brand new, and I think I'd done about six, seven seasons by then. And so I ended up doing the training for them as a new member of staff.
Everyone carried on with the course, but I did want small coaching and. Yeah, and they paid me extra for being on that and I went straight into the role as a senior rep, whereas normally you started off as a brand new rep and you worked your way through. But because I'd obviously demonstrated my experience and they couldn't thank me enough for doing it, that I went in as a senior rep, but my position wasn't a senior rep, it was just a rep, but I just got paid for it because they wanted to acknowledge the fact that I had the experience and how much I'd helped them out. So every cloud, as you say, turning negatives into positives, and the guys got one to one training and some of them had got some experience of working overseas, but in different realms, like working in bars and things and restaurants.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: Interesting. That's really interesting. So did you ever have any.
I mean, I did. Did you have any weather related. I know we covered this in the previous episode, but not intentionally. In your previous episode, did you ever have any weather instances that caused major issues for you in resort? You may not.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: Oh, huge. I was in Cuba at hurricanes in the summertime and fogbound in the UK. Sometimes it'd be delayed from the UK coming out to resort because of fog and bad weather in the UK, and.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: It would strike in France, that would strike airstrikes, air traffic, control. Yeah. They was on strike and they're still.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Doing it, aren't they?
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they do, yeah.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Or has that now become the ultimate cop outline? We're a bit busy this summer. Let's blame the French.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that was quite comical, wasn't it? Because particularly in Portugal would have to. They would literally go down through south coast and straight across the Biscay in that I used to. I had a really bad period when we had rain, consistently, heavy rain, I mean, severe downpours. And this was in one of the spanish resorts. And it was torrential for ten days.
And it was in May, end of May, actually, an unusual period. It normally should have been dry with the odd showers, and I'd never seen rain like it. I mean, it was really the river, the roads were rivers, as you know, they don't have the guttering system that we.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: And all sorts comes up from the sewers, doesn't it?
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah. But they got this storm, what are called the storm rivers, and they were just. They were gushing like rapids, you know, and it was all going. So the sea wasn't blue at all. The sea was actually mud. And not just started with a line of it and then it just kept on going out. But I had obviously, at that time, we had 400 plus guests in three of my hotels in total. And so that was a big problem because they couldn't go into the pool.
It was horrendous. Did you have anything like that and how did you deal with it?
[00:07:45] Speaker C: Absolutely.
Gosh, I remember we'd have to rearrange excursions and things, but even excursions were in rain.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: I mean, that was the thing.
It was just horrendous.
Most of the excursions that we did were outside excursion in some shape or form, apart from when we went to Montserrat, which is up in the mountains, or you were going doing a medieval night that was different, obviously, but everything else was outside, so in the rain you couldn't do it. And all these people shorts. Oh, yeah.
Terrible situation.
I think we organized chess. I organized a chess tournament and drafts. I found one chess set in the whole hotel and we used that someone had bought with them a draft set. So I put, could we use the drafts? And so they had a chess set and a draft set and we had this competition going between.
It was horrendous. And I think that's the most shocking time, probably as a massive collective group that I dealt with in frustration, because there's nothing that we could have done to change that.
[00:08:58] Speaker C: No. And you get people curtailing their holidays, wanting just to go home because the fault they couldn't. So bad.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but it was all charters, so there was no alternatives.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: But we'd find tickets from other carriers. I remember having to phone round and see how we could get them home. It was their choice to do that. But I understand the hotels and things.
I remember Nabisa in October. The weather's really hit and miss. Same in May and you're fine if you're in one of these big hotels that they have an indoor pool, they've got an animation team, but put them in a small apartment. Oh, that's when it really challenges, because there is no entertainment team and people are going crazy and just sat round or wading round in the water.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: In one hotel on a different, totally different period, we had a breakout of salmonella and, yeah, we had a lot of gastroenterology and salmonella going on.
Both those infections, it was horrendous. We had to fly out a special medical team from the UK to inspect the cleanliness of the hotel.
In fact, that was probably the start of the period when Thompson's in particular started to look at its own chefs and bringing in its own catering, because I don't know whether your operators that you work were slightly smaller, whether they actually had chefs or advising on the menu, but we basically ended up having. Certainly when I was leaving those companies, there was a situation where they were advising the hotel restaurants and keeping an eye on their food cleanliness and everything else, because in those days, of course, you don't get it as much now, but you had the spanish tummy, you had the greek tummy, you had all these different things, deli belly or whatever you want to call them.
Yeah, exactly. But you did.
You had all this going on, didn't you, in every single.
I think one of the areas that I knew had a very good surfing beach near it and someone named them the surfer squirts because everyone was going really bad. There was a surface nearby and everyone was.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: Gross. And it's getting near to lunchtime as well.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: I know, I apologize about that. That was a little bit close to the wire. But these things are very difficult to deal with when you're in bizarre, to be honest. And I find that looking back, we probably dealt with them very easily, but they are horrific.
[00:11:34] Speaker C: No, we were stressed out hugely.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah, indeed.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: I remember having to deal with so much stuff that I never imagined it was certainly.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: How did you keep calm for a time? How did you keep calm?
[00:11:46] Speaker C: We had alcohol, didn't we did work as a team, that's one thing. The team ethics were unreal. I mean, you was thrown together with this bunch of straight. For me, we tend to have a party thrown together with a bunch of strangers.
It was single swim. There was always an odd one or two that were there and some people that never worked well within a team. But my friends from overseas are friends for life even now. Now we've all got children and things, we still chat and we can pick up and take them trips down memory lane and what have you. But yeah, you'd phone head office in the UK and they'd be scratching their heads as well if you could get through to them, because depend on the time of day or night. And like I said on the previous, dealing with the federation of tour operators, so you'd work as a collective with the other tour operators. So even though people thought we were all enemies and arch rivals, we actually worked together because we wanted the customer experience to be the best for everybody's customers. And.
Yeah, but I had situations like that where people would not be very nice to their representative. And I remember as a representative, stepping in and saying, this is outside of their.
What's the word I'm looking for? Their level of capacity that they can do anything about this. And it's still somebody's daughter, somebody's son.
Why are you being so abusive? And people were threatened and I remember reps not even having proper ties. The guys would have like clip on ties. I remember being threatened. Yeah, I remember being threatened myself as well. By a male passenger.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, yes.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: Awful. Absolutely awful experiences.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: I didn't have any anger issues. I think maybe once, maybe someone raised their voice a little bit, but maybe I've got quite a stern look about me sometimes. So maybe that's it. I've got this look. Even my kids say my eyes go and I give them one look and that's it.
It's a stare. Who's that? Famous dancer. He passed away years ago. Used to do stuff british. Had a name's on the tip of my tongue. Had sort of fuzzy hair, fizzy hair. It's not fuzzy. Fizzy hair.
I can't remember his name.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: I'm not sure where you're going with this, Wesley.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Oh, I was just going to say Lionel Blair, he had this stare and there was once on tv they showed it and some people were heckling and he gave this stare.
You have to look it up on YouTube. Lionel Blair stare.
I had that stare, I think because I used to give that stare even in a welcome meeting and everyone just goes quiet.
[00:14:45] Speaker C: Don't question me.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: It was interesting. Now, we briefly discussed a couple of episodes ago, my antics and my over safety antics that I would.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: Gosh.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: When you were repping, did you have to do many safety checks and stuff like that?
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Oh, wow. Yes. All the time. All the time.
Absolutely. Beginning and end of resort, mid resort, new hotels or new properties that came on board during the season. And just to make sure that your clients, your guests safety is paramount, because we're know, I know I need to stop straight away, but it was quite interesting doing it in Goa because the fire alarm would be a whistle.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:15:35] Speaker C: You could be in some of the places because they were like small family run places, or it would be a telephone. But of course, the power cuts are constant there. And we're like, what do you do if there's a power cut and you can't use telephone? Then we use our whistle. And you've got to imagine there's probably like six blocks of apartments there's a fan on in the room for some. Well, that might have gone off if there's a power cut. But we just used to think, and there was so much we had to check there and things because it was a very different setup. Because, like you say, we're in the developing world, but we've got customers or guests that expect at least we can give them some safety or give them knowledge of how to keep safe and things, because not everyone is as well traveled as the next person. So sometimes we were preaching to the converted, but we still had to relay that message about stroking local dogs and things like that, and beggars and things like that to deal with, which you don't deal with that in the Med.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: True.
I guess safety wise for us, safety checks and everything. I mean, you already know that I had this pool fetish going around checking all the pools, but I used to march around like sergeant major in the mornings. Honestly, I did.
We had little bags that were like a linen type, or it's like nylon bags. They'd come flat and you'd open them up and you push the card in and you have little square briefcases. Did you have the same or did.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: You have similar to that? It depends where I was. Rugsacks as well.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: But it was like, phenomenal. I mean, Thompson's had it. They're all red and they used to just have Thompson in white on it. Thomson. And that was like, to me, it's like my marching bag. I'd have that and I'd have my click. I used to go through the hotels once a week and I'd really quite be hard and even checking the disabled rooms and I'd check the door widths because they'd often say it was a disabled room, but when you get in there, you could get a wheelchair in there, but you couldn't get them in the bathroom.
Have to check all the safety issues of that. That's really interesting.
Okie dokie, what else can we talk about? I've got loads of different stories.
I've got one where. This is where british guests.
I was unbelievably fond of a lot of my guests.
You call them guests, you call them guests, didn't you?
[00:18:04] Speaker C: Guests or passengers?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: You see, I'm catching yours now. So our guests, and there was a shearings coach coach tour and they'd been in resort for about three days and nice, lovely tour guide, she was on it. And they'd been in my hotel and I'd been out to dinner with her a few times just to give us someone to talk to in the resort.
[00:18:28] Speaker C: Yeah, we did that a lot.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And anyway, they went to start their engine and the bus wouldn't go, oh, no. And the starter motor or something had gone in it and the driver, and they didn't have any alternative.
So quite a few people had sort of come down from the pool area. But I went back up to the pool, grabbed my famous microphone and I actually asked if there's any of my guests could actually help push a double decker bus down the slight incline to get it started.
Yeah, we left all the grandma and grannies, grandma and granddads that were on this because saga being the elder generation, as there were then, we kept them all on there in those days. I don't know whether it was over 55 then, but it's just over 55 now. But it seemed to be a lot more older generation one sagas in those days.
And we pushed it down the hill and it actually started and left. And then six weeks later, this bus turned up again and she's there smiling. And I said, no, you're not switching off your engine. You will not switch off your engine for two weeks that you're. For the two days that you're here, because we're not pushing it down the hill.
[00:19:45] Speaker C: We had a similar thing, actually, in Goa, because we use local buses, so they were not air conditioned buses. They were what we could actually get our hands on. So they were local buses, so they had a little tv screen on at the front where bollywood movies would be played. Tv was behind a cage so it wouldn't get damaged. But also there'd be, I don't know if you've ever seen like the spitting of the beat. So there'd be all sorts of, they were cleaned up, but it stains.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Just interrupt him for a small commercial break and then we'd be straight back to the podcast.
[00:20:18] Speaker D: Do you hear it?
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[00:21:05] Speaker C: And we had the similar thing where the bus broke down. Guests had to push it. And I'll tell you something that happened to me in Turkey as well once. You remember I talked yesterday about being in Ismia and it's like two and a half, 3 hours, something like that is arriving back in resort and you know the luggage areas underneath, opening that up and there's a little turkish fellow asleep in there with all the cases he's got in for a rest. Or he was just helping his friend on the transfers, but he slept in the luggage compartment underneath. It was like, oh my word, so uncomfortable around those.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: I heard of something similar in Majorca once when the Spaniards are loading on the coaches.
And he'd gone in the coach sorting it out, and the driver had come along and he was sorting it all out. They were all loaded up and it was obviously pushing them around, but he was making his way probably back. So I think he must have barricaded him. And they shut the door. The driver shut the door and just got in the coach and he was banging the door, banging underneath the floor. No one could hear him. So he did the whole, until they did the first hotel stop and the driver, and he was shouting out the bank, which is a very similar story to yours.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: And you'd always say to your guests, make sure your case gets loaded, just because there'd be buses everywhere. But I also remember this was in Bibisa. I'd come back on the last transfer, so it was like 03:00 in the morning. After the east coast, you'd always get to one of your last hotels. Someone would go, my case isn't here because you'd probably had like 25 navy blue cases on the same flight with no tags and it's dark, everyone's tired, and you'd have to chase around. And I just remember having to return cases where somebody's actually checked into their room, gone, oh, no, this isn't my stuff. And actually happened to me at an airport once as well. It's at Ibiza. And I said to this guy, I think that's my case. He goes, no, it's mine. I said, would you do a favor and open it? And it was mine. He was about to wheel off for a long weekend in Ibiza with my silky drawers.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Oh, my lord.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: I was about to have his boxing shorts, whatever he has in his case.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Cheers. It's quite scary.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: Always put the tags and the things on, make sure it's yours, because black case, everyone's got them, haven't they? The black or silver case.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Always recommend putting a bit of material tied around there. If you've got a black case or a standard blue or gray case, then put a little bit of tying around the top, little bit of ribbon on it. Yeah. I used to put stickers on mine.
[00:23:49] Speaker C: And stuff like that because it was a nightmare. And also because it was the last transfer we used to go through this small town. And the driver would be in a hurry because he'd either got to go back to the airport, he was going home to bed. So quite often he'd actually just drive off. Because I was stuck trying to get into little tiny apartments with kits of keys and getting people out of bed. So he'd clear off and leave me there. So I was stuck miles from my car, having to get a taxi. My guests wouldn't get checked in properly. But he decided that he had to go. I was taking too long, and he would just go.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: I can tell you something that is kind of a little bit rep related, but it's not exactly rep related. And for the people in charge, I won't use the names, not for legality reasons, but really for their own self. And hopefully no one else is listening that's related to this. But this is a bit of a story where things don't go as planned. As you know, if someone passed away in resort, I'm pretty sure you might have had it. I don't know. But actually, I'm going to tell you a different story. There's another story. I've got two really good ones of Wesley now. Yeah. Mr. Honey was this chap. I can say his name, Mr. Honey. Lovely bloke, lovely man. And he was on his own and thinking about this one anyway. Used to go to the pool every day and sit and he would read his books and he'd have his drink.
He'd lost his wife quite a few years before and this was his habit and he really loved his two weeks in the sun. Anyway, he's sitting there by the pool one particular day and all kids and families playing around in balls being frozen. You can imagine it was a busy hotel. Anyway, he must have passed away, bless his heart. Just a natural heart attack or whatever, by the pool.
But he must have done it quite early because he always went down early to avoid. To get ahead of the Germans sealing the beds around the pool. So he'd go down with his towel very early, which would have the british flag on it, and he'd stick it there and he'd come after breakfast and go down and that was his spot.
I loved the gentleman. He was a wonderful character, really old school. He'd been in World War II and everything else. It was a really old school chap. Anyway, he passed away, bless his heart. And so for the dust from 10:00 in the morning, really, when the sun was beating down on that pool, until late at night, he was cooking.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: Because.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: He only had a speedo on, turned over and his son quivered anyway, like Ross friends.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: So it was like 730 at night. The sun had gone down, 08:00 at night. Whatever time it went down, the sun went down. And the hotel barman, he came and found me. He says, wesley said, your customer's still helped by the. I said, who? He said, well, Mr. Honey, what's he doing out there? He said, I don't know. So I walked out there and his drink was still Mr. Honey. And I realized straight away, bless his heart. But what made me laugh is all these families have been kicking the ball around. And later on I found out one of the kids in the pool had been throwing their ball at him and he was bouncing off of him and they thought he was just playing silent and not moving. And so, you know, the blow up balls you get in the swimming pool and they'd be bouncing the ball off an hour from the swimming pool and this poor man would be dead.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: He won the musical statues competition.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Anyway, the story I was going to tell you, which is, it's a funny one, but it does have a little bit of an edge to.
Dear, here I go. Okay, so this poor man had passed away. And as you know, when you pass away, in result, you have a repatriation team in the UK and the repatriation team in this case, I was actually involved with that. So I was involved with that.
And what happened with that is, you would take charge. So you look after the family on the phone and everything, and you'd speak to the funeral directors and you would arrange everything so that the body is picked up. It goes. And as you probably know, and if you don't know, and if listeners don't know on a charter flight, often when you have an empty seat coming back, when there's only one flight a week, that empty seat, they are there. They're just underneath you.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: A lot of airlines won't allow you to travel with them psychologically.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: In the old days, they didn't know it was underneath. They didn't know. You see, that was the thing. Yeah. So anyway, so that's interesting. That must have been a change. Well, we were different. Maybe we were different. Anyway, so that's taken away from the story. So don't distract me, Randall. I'm on a roll here. Sorry, I'm on a roll. Anyway, so this particular family were adamant. They wanted to take control of everything. And we said, well, look, there's a lot involved with it doing this. Let us do it.
No, you just arranged the flight back. So we arranged all the conditions. The body went in its lead coffin to the airport and then on the plane a month later, there's a phone call.
Oh, no, I'm not going to use a victorious name. Now. Where's our Jack?
Well, what do you mean, where's your Jack? You've had him a month.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: No, we haven't got him. I said, well, who's got him? We haven't got him.
I said, no, that's what you took over. You took over the situation. This is not me speaking. There's other people. Anyway, yes, and it turns out that Jack had been sitting in East Midlands airport in a hangar.
This box would come in. No one picked him up.
There was no smell or anything at that point. And they pushed him to the side, this lead box, and they've been putting all stuff on top.
He was there, covered in engineering gear and everything, sitting there a month.
Horrific story.
Horrific story, but very.
The funerals directors came and had to fumigate the.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: I bet they did. You wouldn't want to take the lid off.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Very morbid.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: No, we had some horrible things as well. In Goa, when people were taken to the mortuary, you'd have to sign disclaimers because there was rats and parts of the body would be.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Oh, it was horrific.
[00:30:46] Speaker C: Horrific because, obviously, refrigeration is very different. There was power cuts, all sorts. We are going back a few years as well, and, yeah, it wasn't nice at.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: One. A lot of these smaller islands in Greece, they didn't have, like, malteries like we do. And so they used to put them, from what I understand, they used to put them on a marble slab and you had to sort of deal with the body very quickly. So if the body wasn't repatriated within a day or so, you had problems.
Interesting. Really interesting.
[00:31:21] Speaker C: I didn't work on a little greek island. I worked in Cyprus.
We didn't have that situation, but we had it in Ibiza. And I worked for an irish travel company as well.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Did you?
[00:31:35] Speaker C: Yes. No, panorama. Which.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: Oh, panorama.
[00:31:38] Speaker C: Panorama and guests. We had a gentleman that passed away in the nighttime. And, of course, as you probably know, in Spain, you can't move the body until Corinne has been processed everything in prison.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Did you say prison?
[00:31:55] Speaker C: No, processed and declared them actually passed dead. And so this gentleman had a cover over him, but he was laying on the floor and his poor widow was there as well. So the police had arrived at the Guadesaville. However, we hadn't got the coroner yet, so I was trying to help them and obviously help this poor lady, who's really distressed. And so they asked me for this gentleman's passport. So I had to step over his body and go and get the passport, which was in the drawers next to the bed. And as I opened the drawer, his teeth are on top of the passport. And I was like this. And irish people bodies are in wake. They used to see. I'd never seen a dead body at that stage in my life. So they just kept pulling back the covers and for ages that stayed with me. But, yeah, we finally got here.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: I think when you see a body, I don't want to stop your story, but when you see a body, it does change it.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: No? And then I was left with this poor widow beside herself. So I was taking her out for dinner, trying to keep her, do the arrangements, take her to place paperwork, and then family flew out and of course, they automatically blame us straight away. And she was lovely. She was really happy with the service that I'd given her and things. Yeah, I did a lot of that. So I don't know whether I've got that empathetic face, whereas you've got your harsh face. I think I'm the nurturing, caring person. So I always was sent to resort to pick up families that were coming out for sad occasions, be it accidents, illnesses, all sorts of things. So, yeah, I was like the head of that.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: Was it you?
[00:33:41] Speaker C: I was talking to about counseling, hence why I had counseling.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Oh, yes, it was actually. You mentioned a few episodes back, you said about counseling. Yeah.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: So I had grief and distress counseling, but I was okay, to be honest. But at the time, you've got busy job anyway, and all sorts of going on, and it was the year of September the 11th, and I'd had really bad weeks of things. And the counselor was actually sent out for some guests, but they felt that it would be necessary for me to have it, too.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: How amazing is that?
[00:34:18] Speaker C: We did counsel our guests that needed it.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Did you ever have any changing a subject. Let's get off the morbid subject now, because it would make everyone depressed if.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: I carried on subject when things don't go as planned, which is true, isn't it?
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Did you ever have any transfer, major transfer issues, like customers missing transfers all the time.
[00:34:47] Speaker C: Absolutely, yes.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Any good ones?
[00:34:51] Speaker C: I was mentioning those overnight ones when the transfer was leaving the night before. Because when you do think of like, 130, you automatically think that as the nighttime of your night, don't you? So if I said Monday, 130, you're thinking Monday night, Tuesday morning, but it's not 130 on a Monday is Sunday night, Monday morning, Tuesday, isn't it?
[00:35:11] Speaker B: So it should be like Tuesday, three in the morning.
[00:35:14] Speaker C: Yeah. So people would miss those because the wrong dates, but, yeah. Lots of mistransfers and things I think.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: I might mention before. I don't know if I've mentioned on an episode before. I think one of my worst ones was, and I felt terrible about that, was I had an apartment complex that was very small, a family run complex. I know you did a couple like that as well.
So it wasn't one that I was regularly to. I'd visit only once or twice a week. I didn't need to be there regularly. And you really didn't see the customers there. But I put up a notice board, and the notice board fell down, and the all was taken down by another rep. I don't know. From another country, maybe, I don't know. And they mucked up the transfers and they put another one down. I think I told you before, actually. And the coach turned up and the customers weren't there. The customers knew they were going that day, but they weren't there. They were all going down to the beach. They thought they were on the evening transfer at 10:00 but it was actually at 02:00 in the afternoon, and the coach was there, and I got a phone call at my hotel. I was doing hotel service that day, and in a different resort, and said, where's your guest wears? And I said, well, why are they not there?
So I came over on my little moped, shooting along, and got there. And I've got some funny stories to talk about that as well. And I literally ran down to the beach in my uniform and found them. I actually found them on the beach. I said, sorry, guys, you got to go. The coach is waiting for you. And they packed up. Lucky they'd all packed up anyway, so their cases were in reception and they came up and we found them. But that was the most horrific. I mean, I felt really bad for know. I think it was eight people in.
[00:37:05] Speaker C: No, absolutely. We had similar stuff.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: I was lucky there, Miranda, because they would have missed their connections and everything. It would have been was.
I guess it's my fault because I didn't check that day, the transfer, but I shouldn't need to go to that resort to check it, but it come off the wall. And to this day, I still say that was malicious, what happened, because it never happened before and it never happened after.
[00:37:32] Speaker C: Yeah, sadly, that sort of thing does happen.
Yeah.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: I'm going to tell you a quick story.
[00:37:40] Speaker C: It was a change of bus.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Yeah, true.
Very quick story. This is a rep story. So I'm driving my moped and I had a bit of a problem with my moped, and I'm shooting down these. You know, some of the roads in Spain.
You've been Spain, you've worked Spain, haven't you? Have you been to know. So, you know, some of the back streets, they'll go straight and then they'll just turn straight around. There won't be like an angle around the corner. It'll just be like a straight right angle. Yeah.
So shooting down this road, there's cars both sides, and at the end of this road is this shop front.
Empty shop front, but big window and everything else. And I'm coming down. Then I realize something's gone wrong with the moped. And I'm doing about 30, 40. Okay. I can't stop it, Miranda. It's stuck. The accelerator is stuck. Well, throttles are open.
I've got these glasses on. Real 1980s. Got these glasses on and I got leather around the sides. I look like biggles.
[00:38:41] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: And I thought, well, the only way. All I've got in front of me is a window. And I can't just jump off because it's like road. I thought, what am I going to do? And I thought very quickly, I thought, I'm just going to bounce off, going down and see if I can make it down there. And I hit one car, hit another car, hit another car. And I'm, like, wrecking these cars and their side mirrors are going flying. And I get down and I smash right into the window. The window cracks, but doesn't break.
And I'm laying my knees, like, massive. My knees swelling up instantly. My left knee, even today, I have problems with it. I must have ripped all the ligaments. Anyway, I stop and I'm there, and I'm sitting there for about a minute or so, and I look, and no one's come out, because it's like siesta time. No one. There's not one person at a window, no one on the street.
And I did the naughtiest thing I ever done, and I got the moped, I'll stop this. And I'm off. And I pushed it around the corner, dog right?
I left this trail of destruction all the way down the road.
[00:39:43] Speaker C: You've been affected by this story. Wesley's to blame.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm the one that smashed your cars up. God. Terrible. And another instant we were in Barcelona. Another totally different thing. Totally different motorbike, everything else. And I was in Costa Brava then, 92. It was my final year repping, and Barcelona won the. Won the Champions league football, and this was the best bet. And what I did was I decided to go out on this moped, and everyone was just driving around the streets, were celebrating everything. It was just like a big fiesta.
And all people on the motorbikes were just driving and putting their little horn on. So there was this big stretch of road that I went into the town driving the moped, and I used to fuckle it fall down. And if I pressed the horn, the light would dim. So go like that. The light would go down and my horn would go down. So I was the only one with this rubbish horn. So I used to have to pedal my bike. I was pedaling the moped and doing this just to keep this to haunt. And all these Spanish were coming past, hooting, and then they realized I was british and this hall was done. And they were, like, giving these the strangest look, like, who's this loot?
[00:41:00] Speaker C: I bet.
Days that shaped our future, they.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Days that shaped crazy memories. Nice thoughts. Well, okay, I think on that note, we should probably say goodbye to our listeners, and hopefully we've given them a laugh or bored.
[00:41:15] Speaker C: You've cheered up as well, Wesley, look at you.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: I have. I was a bit impressive this morning, but, yeah, that's happy memories. Well, thank you for joining me for this one, Miranda. And on to the next one in the future.
[00:41:28] Speaker C: Always a pleasure, Wesley.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Take care.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: Absolutely. Take care.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: As we wrap up for another episode of Journeybound stories from overseas travel representatives, we're reminded of experience and adventures that connect us all. The world is truly an expansive place, yet stories like this bring us closer together. Join us again next podcast for more captivating narratives from across the globe. And until next time, safe travels, wherever your journey may take you.
