Its been a while since I last posted on here but I've decided to start it up again as I embark on my years placement away from university, in the hopes that it will aid my creative process when it comes to actually writing up the necessary report.
After a long period of stress with all my lovely course friends receiving placements early on, I finally received an offer at a travel agency Tropical Sky. I took a couple of days but when realizing it was my best option confirmed it for the coming year. Tropical Sky is an agency that does not have an office front, it deals with holiday bookings over the internet and phone. My title is General Assistant. In other words, office bitch haha. In all seriousness though, I am involved in three departments, Accounts, Ticketing and Documentation, and Marketing. I've been working there for a week now and it has been an interesting start. I arrived at the offices and there was not a lot of order to my first day. I expected a period of training in each department however arrived to a first day, and week, of no structure. Upon arrival I walked upstairs and stood there awkwardly for a couple of minutes, and when I realized no one was reacting to my presence shyly walked over and told someone it was my first day.
I was then asked to sit and wait for the supervising manager to arrive. Twenty minutes later she arrived and seemed very flustered, as if there was just not time to deal with me. I was told to sit and watch someone in Accounts and try to learn some of the processes. Apart from the sheer disorganization, everyone was very friendly and understanding when I asked new questions every ten seconds and I learnt (almost) how to pay invoices. Day two was much the same, except I moved into documentation and learnt how to send tickets and vouchers to the clients. I stayed in this department for the rest of the week and am feeling slightly more confident in my abilities here. I've been told that as things calm down I will get into more of an organised schedule, spending two days in Accounts, two days in Docs and one day in Marketing each week. For now though, I just need to learn the many MANY processes involved in each, so I can eventually just get on with things on my own.
I am happy I chose this placement though as I'm learning about a very different side of the tourism industry that I have yet to be exposed to. I've experienced F&B, front office and even housekeeping, so by the end of this hopefully I will have a better idea of what I want to actually do with my life after uni. And the people are all so friendly, I feel more and more comfortable every day, making less difficult to be far away from everyone I know.
My placement is based in a town called East Grinstead, its about an hour and a half south of London. It definitely has the small British town feel and will definitely take some getting used to. One thing I am loving though is my cute little room and house. I've moved in with a lovely girl here as a flat share, which is only about a five minutes walk from work. I finished unpacking and decorating and love my new big double bed, obviously decorated with all my little cuddly toys, still a kid at heart, and walls covered with pictures of the past. The town I'm still undecided about, give me some time to explore and I'll keep you posted!
Bye for now! x
After a long period of stress with all my lovely course friends receiving placements early on, I finally received an offer at a travel agency Tropical Sky. I took a couple of days but when realizing it was my best option confirmed it for the coming year. Tropical Sky is an agency that does not have an office front, it deals with holiday bookings over the internet and phone. My title is General Assistant. In other words, office bitch haha. In all seriousness though, I am involved in three departments, Accounts, Ticketing and Documentation, and Marketing. I've been working there for a week now and it has been an interesting start. I arrived at the offices and there was not a lot of order to my first day. I expected a period of training in each department however arrived to a first day, and week, of no structure. Upon arrival I walked upstairs and stood there awkwardly for a couple of minutes, and when I realized no one was reacting to my presence shyly walked over and told someone it was my first day.
I was then asked to sit and wait for the supervising manager to arrive. Twenty minutes later she arrived and seemed very flustered, as if there was just not time to deal with me. I was told to sit and watch someone in Accounts and try to learn some of the processes. Apart from the sheer disorganization, everyone was very friendly and understanding when I asked new questions every ten seconds and I learnt (almost) how to pay invoices. Day two was much the same, except I moved into documentation and learnt how to send tickets and vouchers to the clients. I stayed in this department for the rest of the week and am feeling slightly more confident in my abilities here. I've been told that as things calm down I will get into more of an organised schedule, spending two days in Accounts, two days in Docs and one day in Marketing each week. For now though, I just need to learn the many MANY processes involved in each, so I can eventually just get on with things on my own.
I am happy I chose this placement though as I'm learning about a very different side of the tourism industry that I have yet to be exposed to. I've experienced F&B, front office and even housekeeping, so by the end of this hopefully I will have a better idea of what I want to actually do with my life after uni. And the people are all so friendly, I feel more and more comfortable every day, making less difficult to be far away from everyone I know.
My placement is based in a town called East Grinstead, its about an hour and a half south of London. It definitely has the small British town feel and will definitely take some getting used to. One thing I am loving though is my cute little room and house. I've moved in with a lovely girl here as a flat share, which is only about a five minutes walk from work. I finished unpacking and decorating and love my new big double bed, obviously decorated with all my little cuddly toys, still a kid at heart, and walls covered with pictures of the past. The town I'm still undecided about, give me some time to explore and I'll keep you posted!
Bye for now! x
