In Trouble....

Had just a little problem today and got chewed out for something that was absolutely NOT my fault! This is the difficult side of my job and since I've told you all about the 'glory' I thought I should share a little about the 'pain' too.

First off today. It was a turnaround day which means our current group of 37 was leaving and our new group of 26 arriving. I was in charge of arranging transport for everyone using our own bus as much as possible. I was completely organized and had arranged an additional coach for the first group of 20 to leave for the airport at 12:45 which would leave our bus to handle the second departure and two of the larger arrivals. Well 12:45 came and went, no bus. I called the transport dept., talked to the head guy and found out that our bus went to the airport instead of the hotel...their error. So I, in a panic, put everyone on our bus and sent them off. It was now 1:15 and I had to do something. I knew I would have to figure out the rest of the day but I couldn't take a chance on twenty people missing their international flight home.

After they left I contacted transport again and he and I worked out the details for the rest of the day. This was all good except that one group of 6 had to wait at the airport for an extra 30 minutes. Which is why I was chewed out. The new group that we have are all "friends and family" of Co-Sport employees and are to be treated as VIP's. Making them wait for 30 minutes was apparently a problem. However, when the group arrived at the hotel, they were fine...no one said a word about the late pick up. But my contact at the main office caught wind of it and had a fit. She called me to tell me that what I did was "completely unacceptable". She was angry because I didn't call her first to get her input/permission. Well, to be honest, the thought never even crossed my mind. I was only thinking of getting these people to the airport as soon as possible...what other option would there have been??? I let her yell at me, apologized when she waited for me to and hung up as soon as I could. You can only imagine what I was thinking!

Then...the President of Co-Sport called me and wanted the 'details' on what had happened. She apparently had informed him of my grievous error! Okay, so now I'm getting a little pissed. I had nothing to do with creating the problem and only tried to resolve it efficiently. I took him through the whole story and said "I'm sorry I didn't call Elana, but my main concern was to get these people to the airport". In the end, his reply was, "you did the right thing"...which made me feel a little better. But geez! It was a hell of a day and this wasn't the way I wanted to end it!

Through it all, I'm still having fun, it's just not always easy.