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jawnbcHave I mentioned that I worked “on” Wall Street in the late 80s?
Not as a trader or financier or nothing. In fact my role was merely a new permutation of my “career” (if you stagger, not even fall, into a line of work it seems disingenuous to claim it as a career) in The Travel Industry. And from where I started out--working as a tour reservations agent and dealing with every 2-bit retail travel agent in America--selling out to Da Man was just fine and dandy. Plus it meant a 40% salary jump, from $13k a year to $18k. Which meant I could continue to slowly drink myself to death and pay my rent. Woo hoo!
I started out as a general admin person, whose primary job was to hand out airline tickets for staff travel. The Firm was one of the old money houses in NY, though like most of the the Street it was increasingly being taken over by new money, also known as weasel scumbag bastards (WSB). From the way The Firm operated when I arrived (1987, just before the crash) and how things got by the time I left (1989), I acquired a begrudging respect for the WASPs. They were, without exception, polite, humane, and reasonable. WSBs, divas, dirtbags, assholes. To the man.
One of the reasons The Firm did so well was its unabashed meritocratic environment (a concept I didn’t understand, let alone appreciate, until grad skool): if you performed well you were rewarded with wage increases and advancement. But if your performance faltered, management also tried to resolve issues rather than merely shitcanning a person. In other words, The Firm saw its employees as an investment. The benefits were also among the best in America at that time. Within a year I became a trainee agent; by the time of my departure I was even, on a limited basis, permitted to arrange travel for the executives of the Management Committee. For the first time since my teens, I was in a stimulating environment; and I fairly flourished in it.
Most of my colleagues were 20+ industry veterans, mostly former airline VIP agents. They had worked many years to get the gig I fell into. Which meant they were more than a little dubious of me, and my not having gone to any airline or “travel school” training prior to my appointment. But as long-term veterans, most were also disinclined to take advantage of our incredible travel benefits. Me? I lapped them up! So when an airline rep popped in our office on a Monday and said “we’ve got confirmed Business Class seats and le Meridien Picadilly booked for this weekend, who’s free for the 9pm flight this Thursday?” I was at the front of the queue. Often by myself. I was on a plane once every 5 or 6 weeks. Everything--flights, hotels, car rentals--was free or nearly free. So my meagre salary wasn’t a big deal (though that kept increasing as well, eventually to a point where I was making as much as my college peers with “real” jobs). Instead of furnishings I acquired some decent luggage.
Years later, when I moved to Canada and began working in “real” travel agencies--even corporate ones--I learned just how grotty the whole “travel business” in fact was. Tiny margins of commission, a pittance for wages, all rationalized by “travel benefits” that never came close to those I enjoyed at The Firm--and which shrank and shrank and shrank. With the move to agencies I learned about the pressure of performance benchmarks as a “sales person.” I wasn’t a feicin’ salesman, I was a travel agent. In NY I easily made the “millionaires club” of agents who issued more than $1,000,000 a year in airline tickets: our travellers rarely travelled in economy, and often were in first or even Concorde class; much of the travel was long-haul international. When you’re selling tickets to local businesses travelling within BC, staying in hotel rooms above the local pub, the millionaire’s club is a tough measure--but I did it.
Eventually I ended up at a agency where the management were much like the WSBs of the Firm: wanting to make a buck any way possible, even if that meant sticking it to clients. If someone showed up who looked like a student we quoted a “backpacker” fare; if they were in a suit we didnt’ offer any discount on the same bloody flights, same days. It struck me as unethical and stoopid: Vancouver’s not that big a town and no doubt some consumers would cotton on to this rather odious practice. Having never worked in an environment where staff were expected to shut up, I wouldn’t. When things got ugly, I got a lawyer--and they fired me. Eventually I took them to court and we settled for exactly what I thought I was entitled to for my sales--which, paradoxically, were among the highest in the company.
A couple of years later I could avoid it no longer and went back to uni for grad skool. I had been working at one of those “travel schools” but could no longer, on Day One, comfortably tell the students a career in retail travel was in any sense rewarding. Shortly after my Day One in class, I came across some readings that finally allowed me to make sense of my career in the private sector: I wasn’t a capitalist, which makes working as a commission sales person extremely dicey.
Only problem is I totally got hooked on the travelling part...which I still do quite a lot. Except now I pay (as little as possible), and obessively collect frequent flyer points (as many as possible). And travelling, more than any job or any schooling, has enriched my life the most.
Not as a trader or financier or nothing. In fact my role was merely a new permutation of my “career” (if you stagger, not even fall, into a line of work it seems disingenuous to claim it as a career) in The Travel Industry. And from where I started out--working as a tour reservations agent and dealing with every 2-bit retail travel agent in America--selling out to Da Man was just fine and dandy. Plus it meant a 40% salary jump, from $13k a year to $18k. Which meant I could continue to slowly drink myself to death and pay my rent. Woo hoo!
I started out as a general admin person, whose primary job was to hand out airline tickets for staff travel. The Firm was one of the old money houses in NY, though like most of the the Street it was increasingly being taken over by new money, also known as weasel scumbag bastards (WSB). From the way The Firm operated when I arrived (1987, just before the crash) and how things got by the time I left (1989), I acquired a begrudging respect for the WASPs. They were, without exception, polite, humane, and reasonable. WSBs, divas, dirtbags, assholes. To the man.
One of the reasons The Firm did so well was its unabashed meritocratic environment (a concept I didn’t understand, let alone appreciate, until grad skool): if you performed well you were rewarded with wage increases and advancement. But if your performance faltered, management also tried to resolve issues rather than merely shitcanning a person. In other words, The Firm saw its employees as an investment. The benefits were also among the best in America at that time. Within a year I became a trainee agent; by the time of my departure I was even, on a limited basis, permitted to arrange travel for the executives of the Management Committee. For the first time since my teens, I was in a stimulating environment; and I fairly flourished in it.
Most of my colleagues were 20+ industry veterans, mostly former airline VIP agents. They had worked many years to get the gig I fell into. Which meant they were more than a little dubious of me, and my not having gone to any airline or “travel school” training prior to my appointment. But as long-term veterans, most were also disinclined to take advantage of our incredible travel benefits. Me? I lapped them up! So when an airline rep popped in our office on a Monday and said “we’ve got confirmed Business Class seats and le Meridien Picadilly booked for this weekend, who’s free for the 9pm flight this Thursday?” I was at the front of the queue. Often by myself. I was on a plane once every 5 or 6 weeks. Everything--flights, hotels, car rentals--was free or nearly free. So my meagre salary wasn’t a big deal (though that kept increasing as well, eventually to a point where I was making as much as my college peers with “real” jobs). Instead of furnishings I acquired some decent luggage.
Years later, when I moved to Canada and began working in “real” travel agencies--even corporate ones--I learned just how grotty the whole “travel business” in fact was. Tiny margins of commission, a pittance for wages, all rationalized by “travel benefits” that never came close to those I enjoyed at The Firm--and which shrank and shrank and shrank. With the move to agencies I learned about the pressure of performance benchmarks as a “sales person.” I wasn’t a feicin’ salesman, I was a travel agent. In NY I easily made the “millionaires club” of agents who issued more than $1,000,000 a year in airline tickets: our travellers rarely travelled in economy, and often were in first or even Concorde class; much of the travel was long-haul international. When you’re selling tickets to local businesses travelling within BC, staying in hotel rooms above the local pub, the millionaire’s club is a tough measure--but I did it.
Eventually I ended up at a agency where the management were much like the WSBs of the Firm: wanting to make a buck any way possible, even if that meant sticking it to clients. If someone showed up who looked like a student we quoted a “backpacker” fare; if they were in a suit we didnt’ offer any discount on the same bloody flights, same days. It struck me as unethical and stoopid: Vancouver’s not that big a town and no doubt some consumers would cotton on to this rather odious practice. Having never worked in an environment where staff were expected to shut up, I wouldn’t. When things got ugly, I got a lawyer--and they fired me. Eventually I took them to court and we settled for exactly what I thought I was entitled to for my sales--which, paradoxically, were among the highest in the company.
A couple of years later I could avoid it no longer and went back to uni for grad skool. I had been working at one of those “travel schools” but could no longer, on Day One, comfortably tell the students a career in retail travel was in any sense rewarding. Shortly after my Day One in class, I came across some readings that finally allowed me to make sense of my career in the private sector: I wasn’t a capitalist, which makes working as a commission sales person extremely dicey.
Only problem is I totally got hooked on the travelling part...which I still do quite a lot. Except now I pay (as little as possible), and obessively collect frequent flyer points (as many as possible). And travelling, more than any job or any schooling, has enriched my life the most.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 11:33 pm (UTC)I am strangely at ease in airports and I love the faint chaos. I like seeing unusual people and it makes me think of one of the early scenes in the movie, "Murder on the Orient Express" where there are sultans, geishas, gypsy beggars, Englishmen, and African royalty. I always thought as a kid, "now that is travel." I usually get my fantasy fulfilled at LHR.
I shouldn't enjoy looking at travel websites the way I do.