Ugh, I hate Tuesdays.

On Tuesdays, I wear my International Hat in addition to my Help Desk Hat and my Group Hotels Hat and all the other little hats stacked on top of my noggin.

So I take calls from travelers who will be flying outside of the US, and they’re a fussy, demanding lot. The regular international agent is always off on Tuesdays – she works a 4 x 10 week (4 hours a week, 10 hours a day).

Some of the work is interesting – fares, routes, and so on. Much of the work is tedious – there’s a lot of extra steps and documenting. Much of the time, I’m talking with nice people who are making minor changes to existing trips. Part of the time, I’m talking with not-nice people either starting or totally changing 12-segment trips that go around the world. And all their hotels.

And next week they’ll change it all again. And they’ll need to get a multiple entry visa for China (these are now difficult to get). And they’ll call and wonder where their documents are (because they got delayed while we tried to figure out how to get the aforesaid difficult to obtain visa).

::grumble mode off::

However, it’s Wednesday now, so I just have a little followup to deal with….

::grumble mode temporarily back on::

… except for the asshat that called and asked for me by name and totally changed his 12-segment yadda yadda need to re-fare and re-ticket, instead of speaking to the regularly scheduled international agent.

Grr. The wages of competence is talking to asshats who decide you’re the only one that can help them (which is so not true).

::grumble mode resolutely off::

And now, lunch over, it’s back into the fray. I’m wearing yet another hat today – I’ve got a spiffy little “Techie Drone” propeller beanie today because I’m part of a team that’s been trained to install some new email software for my group. Which means I get to sit at everybody’s desk in turn while I do the install.

Which isn’t so bad, until I get to the one desk inhabited by someone who’s such a heavy smoker that there’s a sticky film of residue all over everything.

To which I am allergic, so that sitting at that desk makes my hands itch and my eyes water…

::grumble mode stubbornly back on::

On the other hand, once everybody has the new mail software, I will never again have to walk certain people through getting their link rebuilt to the web-based “email” product they had. For the umpteenth time per certain person (and I’m unable to kick ass and take names in the modern business environment). These certain people could never “get” the fact that the links eventually became corrupted because they were relying on them too much and letting the system remember their passwords for them. So I’d get the call “I can’t get into my email again” about twice a month from them.

Since I’m really happy about never having to talk anyone through this tedious process again, I’m not ending the day in grumble mode.

So, bonus points for me.

::happy mode on, goddammit::