Nice colleagues but low salary, difficult hours and limited benefits
Pros
My colleagues were very nice, experienced and cared about their customers. Line managers were supportive especially when dealing with difficult customers. The training and information required to do your job is excellently organised. If you are prepared to travel off-peak to less popular destinations, standby staff travel discounts are excellent.
Cons
Hours were difficult as staff on the new contract are rostered on five 8.75 hour shifts (1.25 hours breaks) between 07:00 and 22:00 Monday to Sunday. There is no guarantee that the two days off will be consecutive and only half the days off are weekends. Whilst shifts are released on average 4 weeks in advance, there is a requirement to work one reserve week in six. A reserve week is the same as any other week except that the company reserve the announcement of your schedule until the Thursday before. Illness and lateness policies were very strict. There is an in-house attendance unit who oversee this policy for the whole Manchester office. They were unemphatic to problems with roads and public transport unless it affected large numbers of staff. A number of staff in the attendance unit seemed to get pleasure from others misfortune when they arrived late through no fault of their own . This had an impact on the morale and health of a large number of my colleagues. The level of mathematics required was high to calculate prices of tickets and taxes on complex itineraries. The reservations software was frustrating to use as it was slow. The pay did not adequately reflect this challenging level of work. Few staff are unionised as they do not understand the benefits of membership.