Finally in the evening we reached to Nis in Yugoslavia, the country united under Tito’s leadership at that time. In other words, today’s Serbia was where we were going to have our first night stay.
According to my instructions at the reference file, I was going to check in the group with all the passports, coupling the singles according to the agreed on match at the passenger list. Then I had to make sure that I announce to the group the dinnertime and location while handing out the keys. The dinner should be 30 minutes after the check-in, not later, as the group needed the rest for the next day when we would be having a very tiring drive, the longest, crossing Yugoslavian plains through mostly corn fields all the way down to Italian border to have our 2nd night stopover at Ljubljana, a beautiful green town within vineyards.
Here we go! To my surprise, as not mentioned in my reference file, nobody spoke English at the reception. Thanks God, the group was busy sorting and picking up their luggage at the bus while I was rushing to the reception with the passports in my hand. It was German, to unlock the communication problem that they can speak as foreign language! Again at my college days, I had one year of German. There I forced my memory to build a meaningful sentence to express my needs but found out that the reception was very familiar with our paperwork, passenger list as coupled. They immediately started to write down on the copy the room numbers and handed the keys over to me. Great! I moved in my mind to the next task of setting up the dinnertime. Then I asked the elderly guy auf Deutsch “Wann konnen wir zu Abend essen?. He looked at the big clock hung on the wall of the reception and replied “ Um halb acht”. It was a couple of minutes past seven and he was telling me, the way I translated in my mind, “At half past eight”. That was a problem! How would I negotiate to take it at most half an hour after the check-in? The group was already behind me waiting for the key distribution and the announcement of reasonable time for the dinner!
I decided to postpone the solution to the time when I would be alone with the reception hurdle. So, I made a quick announcement to my group “ I will distribute your room keys now, please have a rest, take shower. I know it has been very tiring day today for all of you. We have a slight issue for dinnertime; however, I will go and see the manager to sort it out. Currently, the dinner will be at 8:30. I know it is late and my aim is to get it as soon as possible. I will call your rooms to let you know if there is any change. Thank you.”
Once all are gone. I went back to my elderly reception supervisor and very kindly asked him with the best of my German mixed with “pantomime” “ Um halb acht! No!” indicating my stomach “Wir have hunger”, releasing my shoulders down with arms loosely hanging down “Wir sind tired” and begging “Wir mus abend essen um halb sieben, bitte”. He looked at me, looked at the wall clock behind and once again looked at me if I was looking at the clock with him! It was almost 7:20pm.
I nodded my confirmation of the time awareness. He looked confused and decided to use my way to communicate. He took a piece of paper and a pen, drew a clock. He then put the arms of the clock indicating 6:30 and said to me “Halb Sieben!” interrupting me to say anything, drew another clock showing 7:30, said loudly and slowly “ Halb acht!” and added “ Bosphor Tourism dinner! Um halb acht!” Smiled back.
I smiled back and said “Danke schon!” thinking that he was wrong at the time even auf Deutsch, nevertheless we have agreed on the same time on the paper as at 730 dinnertime!
Great. Of course, I did not know at that time the way to say the time is different than English in German which I learned later on.
I called the group rooms one by one telling them my success story and inviting them to the dinner hall.
It was about 17 hours day for me, but felt like never ending one! I had still 15 days to go with this group with my lies! I judged very quickly that it would not work out, to carry my duty with all the lies, trying to cover up at every moment, fearing that it will burst out any moment. No way!
Next morning, after breakfast, we all boarded our dear bus, Mercedes 0302, to head for the crossing of Yugoslavia. At my morning announcement, I gave the summary of our daily agenda and told my group that I have a personal addendum to my speech. I told them the truth of my first trip with Bosphor Tourism and more my first time abroad! However, I confirmed my commitment, accountability to make this trip a pleasant experience for them. I had got all the training from my manager, have all the empowerment from my company to assist them, lead them and help them.
That day onwards, I was my real self with the confidence, dedication to complete my task and achieve my objective of making the tour a marvelous experience for my group. We ended up having a great 16 days with no specific issues. This also showed up at the survey where the group rated me as well. On the way back, I told my boss that I told them the truth but completed my task. I added “if you will fire me because of this, you have all the rights to do so. At the end of the day, I’ve got a great life experience to lead people at a journey that I never had before but well equipped with the preparations and guidance references.”
I kept my job, became the most experienced tour leader with all happy groups and later learned the importance of networking at my last tour that had helped me to go back to my university studies. However, this story will be another episode later.
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