Actual Comments Fielded by US Travel Agents......Part 1

A woman asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know who's luggage belongs to who? When I checked in, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT. I'm overweight"

The city code for Fresno is FAT, the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

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A man asked, "How do I know which plane to get on? I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

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A woman said "I need to fly to Pepsi-cola on one of those computer planes."

I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane.

She said, "Yeah, whatever."

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A business man asked about the documents he needed in order to fly to China. I reminded him he needed a visa.

"Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those."

When I told him his stay required a visa this he said, "I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

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A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York"

The agent was at a loss for words. Finally, the agent said "Are you sure that's the name of the town?"

"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer.

After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere."

The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!"

The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?"

"That's it! I knew it was a big animal"

Actual Comments Fielded By US Travel Agents......Part 2

Someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn't get messed up being near the window.

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

A woman wanted to go to Capetown. After explaining the length of the flight she interrupted with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts." I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa." Her response ... click.

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did. He expected an ocean-view room in Orlando. I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

A man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I noticed he had a 1-hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

A lady needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand time zones. I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

Job Interviews

Job interviews can be quite intimidating at the best of times but it isn't made any easier when the interviewer asks the most stupid questions or says ridiculous things such as "We expect our employees to give more than 100%". I hate that because there is no such thing as more than 100% effort. 100% is all you can give. Can you eat 110% of a pie? No, because there is only 100% of it.

You can increase effort by more than 100%, but when effort is spoken of as a whole, it is 100% at its maximum. If you suggested this to a potential employer, they would conclude you were not a committed person. So you have to accept their ignorance of the subject.

With a method I have devised, it can be proved mathematically, that is what more than 100% really is. If you allocate a value to each letter of the alphabet, e.g. A= 1, B=2...Z=26, then apply that score to each letter in the word, you find the true value of a word. Here are some examples:

Knowledge = 96%, very useful in a job.
Hard work = 98%, even better.
Attitude = 100%, way to go.
Nonsense = 105%, what can I say?

So when a future employer asks for more than 100% - say for example 105% - you'll know what he is talking.