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likethebeerIn 1998, I began our end-of-the-season awards for the tour program. Eventually, these awards have been broken down into several parts:
1) We have a listing of various crazy stories that have been collected over the year, such as one person saying to me, "My guide at the Dana house told me that FLLW designed Tal. with rooms for both his wife and his mistress!"
2) general staff awards
3) Awards for the various departments involved in tours: tour guides, house stewards, bookstore staff, office staff, and a new one this year, drivers (in part b/c I got reamed out last year by someone b/c I didn't have a category for them. That's the problem w/giving the awards--someone's always pissy).
4) Answers to the question: "What is the biggest lie you've ever told a tourist?" My answer was, "Our restoration architect was a dream to work with!"
5) Answers to the question: "Aside from 'How tall was FLLW?' what is the most frequently asked question?" Including things like, "Where's the House on the Rock? How late is the HotR open? How much does the House on the Rock cost? Do they have bathrooms there?" and things like, "How do you pronounce this word? Tally... tala... talahassee... talisman... talispin?" etc., etc.
6) And answers to the question, "You know it's late in the season when..."
I had wrestled with the fact that, for the first time, I would not be giving the awards this year.
This was b/c in previous years, I was more involved in tours, where this year, I gave probably 12-15 overall. So I gave the awards to our "new" scheduler, BR (this is the end of her 2nd season, so she's only new to people who have left the VC). I was worried that my contributions to creating this now-set tradition would not be acknoweldged. And, no, the fact that I created them and had previously devoted time & attention to them was not mentioned (as was noted by jujupees, no one was likely to ever understand my devotion to them).
BR did create new categories, which were pretty good. 1 was "person with the best walkie-talkie etiquette," and the request to add memorable walkie-talkie discussions. This included a hyper-bus driver we've had for years (she's mostly quit, finally), who had to communicate via the walkie-talkie that she had been told never to be away from the walkie-talkie, and she never was away from the walkie-talkie except for those occasions when she went to the bathroom, and she did not want to bring the walkie-talkie with her into the bathroom, but that when she did use the bathroom, she would only be away from the walkie-talkie for a few minutes. Several hours later, she called in on the walkie-talkie to announce that she would be away from the walkie-talkie for a few minutes. Those out there who know this woman also know that the above paraphrasing of her was not an exagerration.
Another new category was, "What is CJ's most overly used word?" I FINALLY got to tell him via this category that ARROVE is not a word.
However, BR did convey a kindness on me that I appreciated. One of the awards is for "the person most likely to work on their days off as the situation requires it." (then we give the award to both men & women) BR won the award for women. And she said, "But I figured since I won the award, I have the right to give it away. I'm giving the award to the woman who, without fail, has bailed us out in the tour program every time I asked her this year." Obviously, that was me. I was v.touched, and have put the award on 1 of our shelves. That pretty much made up for any bitterness I may have had over not being mentioned as the creator of this award.
Mmmm--as a side note on an already "heightened" post, along w/BR, there was the attention whore, CJ. Who once again told the tall tale of (WI-C and jaaladay should be able to see this coming) about the woman who came to Tal. thinking that she was at the HotR and ended up spending the entire weekend here, took all the tours, spent $200 in the bookstore, and at the end, asked us to reimburse her for not only the tours/bookstore, but her hotel & meals costs. The story is much smaller than that, but it's certainly grown w/time.
1) We have a listing of various crazy stories that have been collected over the year, such as one person saying to me, "My guide at the Dana house told me that FLLW designed Tal. with rooms for both his wife and his mistress!"
2) general staff awards
3) Awards for the various departments involved in tours: tour guides, house stewards, bookstore staff, office staff, and a new one this year, drivers (in part b/c I got reamed out last year by someone b/c I didn't have a category for them. That's the problem w/giving the awards--someone's always pissy).
4) Answers to the question: "What is the biggest lie you've ever told a tourist?" My answer was, "Our restoration architect was a dream to work with!"
5) Answers to the question: "Aside from 'How tall was FLLW?' what is the most frequently asked question?" Including things like, "Where's the House on the Rock? How late is the HotR open? How much does the House on the Rock cost? Do they have bathrooms there?" and things like, "How do you pronounce this word? Tally... tala... talahassee... talisman... talispin?" etc., etc.
6) And answers to the question, "You know it's late in the season when..."
I had wrestled with the fact that, for the first time, I would not be giving the awards this year.
This was b/c in previous years, I was more involved in tours, where this year, I gave probably 12-15 overall. So I gave the awards to our "new" scheduler, BR (this is the end of her 2nd season, so she's only new to people who have left the VC). I was worried that my contributions to creating this now-set tradition would not be acknoweldged. And, no, the fact that I created them and had previously devoted time & attention to them was not mentioned (as was noted by jujupees, no one was likely to ever understand my devotion to them).
BR did create new categories, which were pretty good. 1 was "person with the best walkie-talkie etiquette," and the request to add memorable walkie-talkie discussions. This included a hyper-bus driver we've had for years (she's mostly quit, finally), who had to communicate via the walkie-talkie that she had been told never to be away from the walkie-talkie, and she never was away from the walkie-talkie except for those occasions when she went to the bathroom, and she did not want to bring the walkie-talkie with her into the bathroom, but that when she did use the bathroom, she would only be away from the walkie-talkie for a few minutes. Several hours later, she called in on the walkie-talkie to announce that she would be away from the walkie-talkie for a few minutes. Those out there who know this woman also know that the above paraphrasing of her was not an exagerration.
Another new category was, "What is CJ's most overly used word?" I FINALLY got to tell him via this category that ARROVE is not a word.
However, BR did convey a kindness on me that I appreciated. One of the awards is for "the person most likely to work on their days off as the situation requires it." (then we give the award to both men & women) BR won the award for women. And she said, "But I figured since I won the award, I have the right to give it away. I'm giving the award to the woman who, without fail, has bailed us out in the tour program every time I asked her this year." Obviously, that was me. I was v.touched, and have put the award on 1 of our shelves. That pretty much made up for any bitterness I may have had over not being mentioned as the creator of this award.
Mmmm--as a side note on an already "heightened" post, along w/BR, there was the attention whore, CJ. Who once again told the tall tale of (WI-C and jaaladay should be able to see this coming) about the woman who came to Tal. thinking that she was at the HotR and ended up spending the entire weekend here, took all the tours, spent $200 in the bookstore, and at the end, asked us to reimburse her for not only the tours/bookstore, but her hotel & meals costs. The story is much smaller than that, but it's certainly grown w/time.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 07:19 pm (UTC)Congratulations on being recognized. I think you're pretty cool.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 07:43 pm (UTC)Crazy people are the norm in customer service. Actually, they aren't, but when you're seeing thousands of people every year the few who are confused, come off confused, or who you meet on a bad day or when they forgot their meds, *really* stand out.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 04:53 am (UTC)