Africa-Press – Gambia. FIRST PERSON Ruthe Ege has been a holiday rep for nearly three decades, and now works for Tui in Turkey. The 53 year-old tells Nick Duerden how she manages to survive a 60-hour week.
“I’m from Lincoln originally, but I’ve lived in Turkey since 1994; my repping career brought me here. It was my fourth year in the job, and I’d already worked in Corfu, Tunisia, Ibiza and the Gambia, and picked up malaria. But it was Turkey I fell in love with. I fell in love with the people and the culture, and then I met a tall, dark handsome Turkish man, and, well, the rest is history. We have two children, and we’re living happily ever after.
“When I was 16, I went on a school trip to Russia. The first people that greeted us there were Thompson reps, and they were amazing. It made me think about the work they did, and I liked the idea of doing it myself.“My job initially was to greet people at the airport, to stand there with a clipboard, and to see them all on the right coaches. I’d then get on one of the coaches myself and, while we made our way to the resort, gave them a welcome speech, and all the vital information they needed about the country: what they needed to avoid; don’t drink the water; whether or not to put the toilet paper down the toilet, that kind of thing. And then there would be another, proper welcome meeting at the hotel, attended by anywhere between 20 and 100 people, giving them more useful information, tips and ideas – and of course selling them excursions.
“It’s hard work, repping, and you do have a lot of responsibility, a lot of people to look after, but it’s very much a job where you work hard and play hard. The average working week is 60 hours so, you know: a lot. It doesn’t feel like a holiday, no, but there is a holiday atmosphere, and the sun’s shining, of course. But it’s a very group-orientated profession, so the reps would always get together after work, eat at different restaurants each night, and then just go out and swing your pants, have a good time, a bit of a dance.The biggest daily challenges are managing expectations. People can have a lot of expectations. They arrive expecting a champagne holiday for a lemonade price, and so our job is learn to manage those expectations, to talk to them, and to show that we are listening. If, for example, they were expecting a seaview room but had booked a land-view room, what can we do? We can see if anything else is available. But if there is, there’ll be a price. We’re good at offering alternatives.
“Sometimes, though, people are angry, and very rude, but there is almost always a positive, happy outcome – even with the drunk and disorderlies. And, you know, not everybody complains. They’re on holiday, they want to have a good time! And that’s where we come in. Our job is to make sure that their holiday is as good as it can be. And we do. I’ll give you an example.
“Someone came to me just the other day saying he wanted to propose to his girlfriend, and do it romantically, a big gesture, all that. So we arranged for him and his girlfriend to go out on the jetty – which is normally closed at night – on a couple of daybeds, at sunset, bottle of champagne, 15 red roses, the whole lot. Long story short: she said yes!
“There’s always romance on holiday, and so holiday romances – even amongst the reps – can happen, yes. But then, there are a lot of men with dark brown eyes who’d be happy to whisk anyone off their feet… The summer season tends to run for six months, and the winter three months. When we do get our time off, we tend to go home to recuperate and decompress. And then it’s back out into the sunshine.
“It’s a great job, and a great lifestyle, and it definitely helps to be a people-person in a profession like this. You need a lot of patience, a lot of tolerance. And that tends to run out, a bit, as you get older. Do you normally see 53-year-old reps, like me? Probably not. The more natural progression is that the younger reps will fall in love with that tall dark handsome man I mentioned earlier, and end up picking olives for the rest of their lives.”
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