I always arrange my own travel arrangements. I find what I want, book everything myself. This time, I wanted to see if travel agents could find better prices than I was able to find . . . I called two "professional" travel agents, the travel dept at the AAA, and the special travel dept. that's part of my American Express plan, where, if their PR was to be believed, I could get all these amazing services and highly qualified travel experts at my beck and call.

And after trying to deal with these "assclowns"™ I have to ask:

How the heck can someone be working in the travel business and not know where places are . . . and especially not know one of the most prominent hotels on the planet????

How???

How is it that people actually get jobs and yet are completely oblivious about what it is that they are supposed to be doing . . .

And this isn't just a single instance . . . all the folks I've called are just unbelievably . . . stupid.

Somebody . . . please . . . kill me now, I can't take the ineptitude of people any longer.

Customer service is dead. People knowing their jobs (or caring about it) . . . doesn't exist any more. The average person having an I.Q. above 13 . . . not.

I give up.

 

I'd answer your question but I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

I once talked to a woman in Detroit that didn't know where Canada was.

I asked "see those buildings on the other side of the river? That's Canada"


She thought I was kidding. Apparently never read a map in her life.

 

Having worked for a travel agency for the last two years (running the IT dept not as agent) I've often wondered why people even use us anymore.

We have over 70 agents but our bread and butter is in arranging conferences, meetings, PR stuff as well as booking corporate travel for VIPs and companies that do extensive traveling. The services we provide are in terms of time savings, reporting, tracking of spending, and yes expertise with meeting planning.

That said of the 70 agents, 3, count em 3 are for personal vacations. They almost exclusively do package deals for trips to Disney, the Bahamas, etc and the excetionally wealthy. They can take a lot of the headache out of the work. These girls know their stuff.

However, they do rely on off the shelf products and the Internet to locate many amenities that people are looking for. I cant tell you how many times MS Streets and Trips has provided the answer we needed for a close hotel.

We cant compete with expedia etc on price. If you are planning an extensive trip these girls are amazing. A simple flight to vegas for a 1 week stay...forget it use the Internet.

My .02 anyhow.

 

When I lived in Alaska a friend of mine called a catalog company, in the USA no less, to place an order. The woman actually told him "Alaska, oh, we don't ship to foreign countries"

HUH??!!

 

Alaska? never heard of it

 

 

Although she probably really was that stupid, it could be that the company list Alaska in the same category as a foreign country . . . she may have just looked at some print out of "places we don't ship", and among the list of foreign countries, there was also Alaska . . . and probably Hawaii . . .

ah hell, why am I trying to cut her some slack . . .

Nope, she was a retard.

Never mind.

 

Okay i feel that we can help kobi out here with a group hug from the night shift. Now kobi i myself am surely not the sharpest crayon in the box but i fell a group hug is in order for you bro. hang on ready folks....



(((((((((HUG))))))))

I hope this helps because stupid people will never go awayunless you make them...

 

That would be to kick them, right?

 

kicking them is one way and i can think of others.

I have a technician here at work that needs a good beating he has got to be the dumbest f&*k i have ever talked to in my life but dam he works hard cleaning and lifting things....

 

Group hug...ok



For you Jim and Kobi

 

:santa:

 

I hear you when it comes to travel. We are going to Cancun this winter and I kind of just wanted to call someone and have them make it happen. Well, I went the AAA route and a couple of other local companies and the service was alright, AAA did a good job but the prices seemed a little higher than I thought they would be.
Now, realize this all happened in a 2 week time span, between waiting for call backs and blah, blah, blah. So I jumped online one night just to check what I was getting literally like 20 minutes later I was saving myself 600 bucks for the pair and had a heck of a lot nicer hotel. I will also say it wasn't from one of the top three online either. I just stumbled on a reputable website and made a great deal.
So, long and short I think only the rich and decrepitly old use travel agents anymore.