Appreciate them!

Ah, the early morning and sweet smell of coffee. Too bad I’m already at work and have been for the past thirty minutes. Yep, you read that right. It’s 7am on a Thursday and here I am, sitting at work. The baby is asleep, the dogs are snoring and the birds are chirping away outside. Almost sounds perfect, right?

I guess for some it kind of is. In this current time I am lucky that I’m still working, I’m lucky my husband kills bugs for a living. I know there are many out there that aren’t working now and may not be for a while, for that, I’m truly sorry, because to be frank, it sucks!

I’m also a travel agent, so you know how that’s probably going for me. I love being a travel agent though and I love helping people book their vacations. Just last week I spent over two hours on the phone getting money moved from one cancelled booking to a new booking. Also last week I spent twenty minutes on two different cell phones (one to each ear) getting something fixed on a clients booking. And the other night, I spent another hour on the phone getting money transferred again from a clients second booking to their third before taking over the booking for another guest.

None of this easy. For any travel agent. It’s long hold times, frustrated customer service reps, lots of back and fourth. I commend my fellow agents for doing this full time. But I also feel for my fellow agents who do this full time. They are spending more hours on the phone, more time dealing with reps, dealing with clients and for what? For free right now. They aren’t getting paid commissions that were due because of everything, and that is shitty! Yesterday was Travel Agent Day and I personally didn’t feel very appreciated and I definitely didn’t feel up to celebrating. It’s a hard line of work under normal circumstances, under these those, it’s downright dirty!

I’m also an author. And while some may think that now is the best time to be an author, let me tell you, it’s really not. Sales are down over 90%. Why? Because other authors are out there giving their books away for free! Yeah, free is great, who doesn’t love something free? But if there are 100 authors and 70 of them are giving their books away for free, those other 30 are suffering.

As an author I take pride in my work. I take pride in the work my publishing company does, our editors, our marketing team, our badass leader. We work hard and long hours to provide readers with a little bit of enjoyment. Why should we work for free? Think about that for a minute.

Would you work for free at your job? Would you spend hours, days, weeks, months, even years working on something and then just give it away for free? If you answer no, then please don’t expect authors to do the same.

My days are never easy. They are long, tiring, and packed from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. No matter what I’m doing, I’m working hard for others. Always.

Then you have others. The Military (who hardly ever have time off), the EMT’s/Firefighters, the mail/package delivery, the people who deliver your food, the auto shops, the tow truck drivers, the service techs, the TRUCK DRIVERS, and the PEST CONTROL! The people that everyone seems to forget about.

Appreciate them. They are working on the front lines too. They are working JUST AS HARD to provide you with services. James hasn’t stopped working. He’s still going in and out of numerous houses and businesses. He’s still there when someone screams at a spider (like me. I do that a lot). He’s still starting services that can take an hour or more in your home.

Appreciate your travel agents, appreciate your authors, appreciate ALL of the people who haven’t stopped working. It’s people like them that provide you enjoyment and services. 🙂