TVC Office - Day # 17 - Batman Lives!!

Tuesday was my 17th day working in the TVC office, and by now it has become, more or less, "old hat".  I still learn a new thing here and there, but for the most part I am up to speed with our reservation system, just as TLE is.  By the way, Tuesday was TLE's second training day for opening the office.  She'll have one more training day next Tuesday, and then the following Monday we'll be on our own as Bill and Debby will be leaving to attend "Burning Man" out in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.  That week our schedule will change to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday until we depart on September 2nd.

We lived the day with a 50% chance of rain hanging over our proverbial heads, but the rain never game.  The weather forecast for the next week looks pretty bleak here in SLT and as a result we had a number of campers call to cancel their reservations for this coming weekend.  As I have written before, the weather is difficult to forecast here in SLT....seemingly more difficult than other areas.  We often see the chance of rain exceeding 50%, but rarely see the rain.  This past week has been the exception to the rule, but once again Tuesday proved it is just a guessing game.  We did get very cool weather, and for just the second time this summer I wore a jacket to work.

TLE's shift began at 7:30, and mine at the normal 9:30, so she was off work at 4 pm, whilst I travailed an additional 2 hours to complete my 8 hour shift.  Up until 5 pm things were actually kind of slow and those of us still on duty (Bill, Billy and I) were able to clear a small backlog of stuff that needs to be done, but cannot be done while we are busy with customers.   Then, suddenly, at 5 pm it seemed as if the roof had fallen in.  A gentleman walked in who had made reservations a few months ago using the RCC* in Orland, FL.  He had requested two side by side Premium spots for he and his adult son. His son had arrived just before 5, and it was then that we began to realize there was a problem with their reservations.....we only had one Premium site reserved for the two of them.  To compound the problem the reservations were for 14 days.  Trying to find 14 consecutive days in one site anywhere in the park right now is virtually impossible, but not totally.  

While Billy was attempting to find 14 days anywhere in the park, let alone right next to the man's son I took the next customer in who, as it turns out, had just gotten off the line with Encore (they own this park, along with many others across the USA) as they turned into our park, and had just been told there was a spot available for their 40' motorhome (site #393 specifically).  I went to that site in our reservation system and found that a "HOLD" had been placed on it for someone with a name other than that of the customer standing in front of me.  There was no other 40' site in the entire park with full hookups.  Ultimately I had to call the Encore reservation line in Chicago to find out what happened.  While I was on hold for about 20 minutes it occurred to me that maybe the agent who talked with our customer inadvertently typed in his name instead of the customer's name when he placed a "HOLD" on site 393.  When, at last, I was connected to a live person (we'll call her Natasha, because that was her name) I asked if there was an agent there by the name of the person showing on that site.  A few minutes later she returned to advise there, indeed, was an agent by that name and that the "HOLD" had been removed........mystery solved!  The agent had mistakenly typed in his name!

Those two problems took us up to and past 6 pm to resolve, but solve them we did.  While I was on the phone with Encore Billy was able to accomplish the seemingly impossible, move a couple of customers to other similar sites, and clear a space for 14 days for the heretofore unhappy customer, and get him within 3 sites of his son......like I have said many times before......Billy is "Batman"!

While the aforementioned drama was unfolding there was the usual flurry of last minute customers buying things in the store........we finally closed the doors on the day around 6:20 pm.

We hope to pick up the VW on Wednesday.....we'll be off duty Wednesday and Thursday, then back to work our normal 3 day weekend shift.

Thanks for stopping by!

* RCC = Reservation Call Center