FRONTLINE
colin burns branch manager, Hays Travel, Washington, Tyne & Wear
“Hello, reception? Can you help, I have
my knickers jammed in the safe!” This was the panicked call our foreign exchange sales person Val made while on her recent holiday in Tunisia. Following a night out in her all-inclusive hotel she had returned to her room and was getting undressed. She took her cash and some jewellery, put it in the room’s safe and slammed the door shut – not realising that she still had her knickers in her hand. Unfortunately, they had become stuck in the safe door, jamming it shut. After a few attempts to remove them she had given up and called for help. A tittering maintenance man had managed to free them and gave Val a wink, leaving her red-cheeked and vowing never to try multi-tasking again. This was the first of three
underwear stories that have come along recently. We had three generations of ladies who are regular customers and flew out to Greensboro, in North Carolina for the World Dance Championships last month and unfortunately all three of their bags were lost en route. After three days, they called me to see if I could help find the missing luggage.
I asked them what they had been doing for clothes during the last three days and they were really
32 20 JUNE 2019 AGENT
Safe problems, lost luggage and support knickers; it’s been a pretty pants kind of week for Colin’s team
quite proud of their ingenuity as they explained: “Well every night when we get back to the hotel, we wash our knickers in the sink then hang them over the lamp shades to dry. The only problem is, nana can’t sleep with the lights on”. There were some obvious health
and safety issues here and luckily, after I called the airline (and it was investigated), the ladies were reunited with their bags later that day. Our third underwear problem
came as we were supporting a local charity at their annual fundraising ball. All the girls from the branch
travelweekly.co.uk
wanted to look their best in their fancy frocks and our Nicole had decided to enlist the help of some “hold me in” knickers. Just after the starter, Nicole had become quite uncomfortable and was actually struggling to breathe. “These knickers are killing me,” she said. “I wish I could take them off”. Being too much of a lady to go commando, she came up with a plan B and asked at the bar if they had any scissors. They didn’t but, clearly not knowing what she was going to use it for, were able to offer a lend of the knife they were using to cut the lemons. Nicole disappeared to the ladies
and returned a few minutes later looking a whole lot more comfy having used the knife to cut out the extra support section! My next trip to the bar went something like... “A gin and tonic please bar tender” “Ice and lemon sir?” “Errrr, actually, I’ll just have a
bottle of lager!” I hadn’t expected knickers to
affect so many different sides of what we do at the shop in such a short space of time, but as the old saying goes: things come in threes.
CUSTOMER GETS IN A BIT OF A THER
A couple were booking a late deal and the hubby suggested they travel with just hand luggage to keep costs down. The wife objected as she wouldn’t be able to take her favourite brand of shampoo and insisted they add one case for £60.
“Just buy it when you get there”, the hubby said.
“If we get there and they don’t have my brand you’ll be sorry,” she warned. “Or buy travel- sized bottles,” I suggested. “No no, add a bag, keep her happy”, said the hubby.
The wife then went to buy her special shampoo and, to our surprise, came back with a bottle designed for hand luggage. She wanted it to fit in her handbag in case her luggage was lost!
Sharon David Sarah Kim diary
Colin
PICTURE: Shutterstock
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