September 23, 2008
Travel agent = low stress job?
Yahoo jobs is recommending travel agent (along with mathemetician, archivist, and conservation scientist) as a low stress job:
Travel AgentsI am slightly surprised - I would have thought being a travel agent does get stressful fairly often. Of course that brings up the whole thing about card mills and real travel agents... If you can figure out the meaning of the last comment left on that entry I just linked, I'll owe you one. Posted by James Trotta at September 23, 2008 6:50 PM | TrackBack
Some aspects of this profession include computing costs of travel and accommodations, booking various tours, and selling travel packages. Although accuracy is paramount to success on the job, least stressful aspects include a comfortable pace and low frequency of conflict situations.BLS notes the average earnings are $29,210 and Shatkin points out this job affords flexibility to be self-employed or work part-time.
"Stressors of any job include the duration of the work week, dealing with angry people, confronting situations and competition. People should look for a job situation where normal work hours are encouraged."
Being a travel agent for 14 years, I can tell you fro, personal experience it is not a low stress job....I worked in leisure travel for many years and people want the perfect vacation and the majority of them wanted it cheap. I've been yelled at because the wind blew on the island they vacationed on. I now do Corporate Travel which is still stressful. I'm listening right now to the agent next to me trying to get a VIP client rebooked because his departing flight's airport is flooded. The admin is screaming at the agent "that we are leaving him hanging out to dry" Um no, talk to mother nature...all the flights are cancelled.
Not sure who wrote that is a low stress job but come try it for a day or 2 and see what we deal with day in and day out. Yes it has it rewards too, and fortunately, I am making quite a bit more than that figure. That figure is about what I made about doing leisure (vacation) travel and yet the stress was higher in that end of the business.
Travel agent is a hard job. Everybody knows that the most difficult job in the world is probably dealing with human beings. There's also one Korean old saying, "Don't even confront with black-haired animals." It's very true, for black-haired animals are humans who causes a lot of trouble and problems; Travel agent is a hard job for he or she has to deal with black-haired animals everyday listening to complaints and curry below the need with boss and customers.
For example, last year, I met my brother almost in two years, who lives in Thailand now and who is a tour guide in Phuket. He used to have a good personality, he didn't even care if I bothered him. But, meeting him in two years, I felt that he has changed to another person. He was easily tempered even if there was nothing really to be angry. I asked my brother why his personality has gone so bad. He told me that's because of the great stress he had from trying to ingritiate with tourists and his boss. Seeing his change in personality, I have realized travel agent is a hard, stressful job. A Korean internet news, Kyunghyang, made a research against 896Koreans who were suffering from occupational diseases, such as sore throat, extreme headaches, strokes, and digestion problems. Among them, 29% of teachers were suffering from the diseases most and the next top were 23% of 896 people who were suffering from diseases--people with jobs dealing and consulting with other people, such as consultant and travel agents. Either way, teachers, travel agents, and consultants, are all the jobs that require one to deal and confront with other people. This statistic clearly showed how stressful a job can be and how people suffer with disease from those stress when one has a job that has to deal with black-haired animals, such as travel agents. Park Sang Woo, president of Hana hospital, suggests people working in the field like travel agent that has to meet a lot of people to drink more than eight cups of water and do aerobic exercises to relieve stress. He says, "People can easily get stress from their occupations. If these occupational diseases continues, it can cause severe disease such as cancer. Therefore, it is very important, especially for those with jobs that has to deal with a lot of people, to relieve stress." This travel agent occupation is a job that has to deal and ingritiate with black-haired animals, which can cause a lot of stress and diseases. A job that can even cause a severe disease surely is not an easy job, but a difficult one.
I heard travel agent is a hard job. People want and need a perfect travel plan and program. And the travel agent has to satisfy them which is the hard part. If something is wrong at the travel place or something's impress favorably the people turns the charge to the travel agent. And the travel agent has to deal with this. So they have many stress.
But I think every job has a hard part. And if you have a job you really want you will be happy even if it has a difficult part. Therefore People who loves being a travel agent will have low stress.