I never got my blog finished on Saturday so here is the update from Tuesday now the dust have has settled a bit! I’am on my 4th Cliffs tour in a row and we were busy right over the weekend, I fact we were caught by surprise with some late bookings yesterday morning and ended up with a few overloads so Chris gave up her day off and helped – bless her! It was lovely having her company and we made it through the bank holiday unscathed for another year!
I must admit to not having my best day on Sunday I was doing my first of our new half day tours and again we were busy thank goodness but I did have a few pick ups and it was hard to get everyone picked up from hotels etc but everyone was ready and we were even a little ahead of time at The Cliffs, unfortunately that is where my misery began, I had a customer who didn’t think he should have to pay the one euro facilities charge to Clare County Council and then proceeded to tell me that my tour was bad as I was late etc etc, now this was one person that we picked up at the University which meant we had to make special arrangements and I had to leave early to oblige them but despite this fact this young mans’ hatred for me knew no bounds and I must admit to feeling a bit insulted particularly as this is one aspect of the tour that we cannot change!
Normally when I have a customer complaint (they are few – honestly!) I try and resolve it by trying to see it from their point of view and doing my best to pacify them by chatting and (hopefully) making them feel that they matter but this fella hated me and I must admit to being defeated! Normally this would trouble me a bit but I have to confess to being furious when I got back home after dropping everyone off, I was cleaning out my coach for Mondays’ tour when I became aware that there was a lot of bits of rubber foam around the rear which I thought strange until I got to the back and saw where my friends group had sat, one of them had decided to attack the foam moulding around the rear crash rail with a knife and throw the bits around! Now we really do care about our coaches, this felt really personal and I was a bit sore, I have never had anything like this happen in 13 years of running tours, even when we have carried school kids in the past!
I vowed not to let this get to me but I have to admit that the thought of it is still a bit sore, as regular readers will know we do get quite attached to our coaches and they really become a home from home for us, over the years mine has developed into a bit of a shrine, I have my Chinese cat from Thailand, a miniature pair of Dutch clogs that was given to me by a lovely lady from Holland years ago, my Thai Budda and garland, my mascot TJ (a reclining Sylvester the cat) a lovely homemade silk butterfly given to me by a Chinese lady last year and last but not least my Guardian Angel given to me by Chris years ago. In this respect we are not just another bus company, everything about us is personal and Chris’ coach has similar trinkets of hers, so all in all damaging my coach is a bit like damaging my living room. I harbored thoughts of trying to contact where the group was staying but what good would it do? Instead I’am relying on Karma, so to the gentlemen in question, prepare for some bad luck!
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