ANYWAY, some times my job is pretty fun... though most of the time, it's a total pain in the arse with not all that much of a reward. People working in Safeway earn more than most of us. You see, we get to do all the boring bits for people... and then they get to go off and do all the good stuff. The greatest irony of all is perhaps how unfortunate it is that people who love travel soooo much, actually can't afford to go anywhere ever again, once they start working in the travel industry.
Everyone thinks... ohhh, you're a travel agent, you must get heaps of free holidays... Hmm, not quite. Occasionally you will win an incentive, and get a free holiday... but because we work on commission, the time you take off to go on said holiday, ends up costing you more than you physically spend. You end up missing the majority of the month you're away and therefore, dont make budget and wont get a bonus that month.
So, it's easy to get a but cynical about the old job... a bit jaded and perhaps even bitter. This may surprise you, but people are MEAN when they're going on holidays! They're mean about money, they speak to you like shit and threaten 'legal action' (my favourite) when you tell them they can't do something they want to. Nothing is ever their fault. They complain. They want compensation. And it really takes the fun out of everything...
Oh, so you want to go do your working visa in the UK?
Oh, so you want to backpack around Europe?
Oh, so Cambodia changed your life?
Oh, so you're going to Vegas to party?
Oh, so you're going to price beat me? On what, a Virgin Blue flight to Cairns?
Oh, you're going to go work on the ski fields in Canada?
Oh, you want a package to Phuket?
Oh, BALI?
Oh, you want a ski package in Queenstown?
Oh, you're doing the Inca trail?
Oh, you want to go to NYC on NYE?
Oh, you're going to Carnivale?
Oh, a full moon party!
Oh, you want to go from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh?
Oh, you're a student going back to Delhi? You want it what...? Cheap?!
Oh, BANGKOK!
Oh, LA!
Oh, LONDON!
Oh, BUENOS AIRIES!
OH!!!!!!!!! HAVE ANY OF YOU EVER HAD AN ORIGINAL IDEA EVER?!
I'm yet to meet anyone who's not passionate about travel. Everyone wants to go somewhere, it'd have to be pretty rare for someone to go somewhere, hate it and never leave home again... But, like anything good... when you're around it all the time, it gets a bit shit.
HOWEVER! Every now and again, I get a glimmer of the passion I once had for the whole deal. I get a little bit excited about a destination... I realise I dont know it all, haven't heard it all before and something really tickles my fancy. And today, it was Africa.
I don't even like animals, but the thought of going on one of those 4 wheel drive trucks and camping in that Ngorongoro crater thing, and seeing the rhinos and elephants and zebras and giraffes n shit got me all keen. I looked up flights, worked out how I was gonna get there and where i was gonna go.
3 weeks teaching English in Tanzania, a week or two at an orphanage in Mozambique, a trip to Cape Town, a safari, see the colourful Masai Mara, hear the animals at night, as i live amongst them, see the pink flamingos things and just be in awe of nature. Witness a cheetah chase down an antelope, see a baby elephant following its family along, hear an elephant trumpet, watch a giraffe gallop with its buckled legs... and at the end, 5 days in Zanzibar. It was going to be great!
Then I got a call, and it was some fuckwit who'd missed his flight yesterday... and i was back to being bitter again.
