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There is this new trend with my clients that I don't like one bit - parents and spawn calling me to bitch at me for the arrangements that I made for their children or parents. Now, in both examples - the people booking the arrangements are fully grown, lucid adults.
example 1:
Dad calls to tell me I'm "irresponsible" because I booked a legal connection (meaning the airline has determined that 50 min is plenty of time to get from gate A to gate B) - his son's flight was 2 hrs late and he has to wait 24hr for the next one. (it happens, heck it happened to me just last weekend - 10hrs in JFK - not fun) The son is a full grown responsible adult who was actually great to work with because he was a well informed traveler - he had done his research before coming in. Bonus - he was traveling to a South American country. So the Dad is yelling about an airline misconnect when his kid is going to be traveling around a small country that he somehow thinks won't have any kind of transportation problems - seriously?! If South American buses are anything like Latin American buses then I would say there is more to worry about there - but I wan't going to feed the fire (or poke the bear) by mentioning that.
example 2:
A couple is going back East to a state I know well (most of my family is there). The prices are redunkulous so I suggest flying into another airport (one I use most often when going back myself) - the price is much much better and the airport is easier to use and just a freeway hop to the town in question. Lucid grown adults purchase the tickets and are on their merry way.
Then the phone calls start from their spawn about how difficult this is going to be for them blah blah blah. Seriously? You don't trust your parents - who seemed intelligent to me - to rent a car, follow road maps and directions? They somehow managed to do just fine in the functioning department seeing as how you reached a mature age in order to call me muliple times about the same issue.
The ones I don't mind are the parents that call because their kid has been robbed or something (thank goodness for electronic tickets and embassies) - they are understandably freaked out. But the thing is, as long as their kid is safe and in contact - they just need help trying to get home earlier or whatnot - they are pretty much of the "it goes with the territory" attitude.
example 1:
Dad calls to tell me I'm "irresponsible" because I booked a legal connection (meaning the airline has determined that 50 min is plenty of time to get from gate A to gate B) - his son's flight was 2 hrs late and he has to wait 24hr for the next one. (it happens, heck it happened to me just last weekend - 10hrs in JFK - not fun) The son is a full grown responsible adult who was actually great to work with because he was a well informed traveler - he had done his research before coming in. Bonus - he was traveling to a South American country. So the Dad is yelling about an airline misconnect when his kid is going to be traveling around a small country that he somehow thinks won't have any kind of transportation problems - seriously?! If South American buses are anything like Latin American buses then I would say there is more to worry about there - but I wan't going to feed the fire (or poke the bear) by mentioning that.
example 2:
A couple is going back East to a state I know well (most of my family is there). The prices are redunkulous so I suggest flying into another airport (one I use most often when going back myself) - the price is much much better and the airport is easier to use and just a freeway hop to the town in question. Lucid grown adults purchase the tickets and are on their merry way.
Then the phone calls start from their spawn about how difficult this is going to be for them blah blah blah. Seriously? You don't trust your parents - who seemed intelligent to me - to rent a car, follow road maps and directions? They somehow managed to do just fine in the functioning department seeing as how you reached a mature age in order to call me muliple times about the same issue.
The ones I don't mind are the parents that call because their kid has been robbed or something (thank goodness for electronic tickets and embassies) - they are understandably freaked out. But the thing is, as long as their kid is safe and in contact - they just need help trying to get home earlier or whatnot - they are pretty much of the "it goes with the territory" attitude.
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