I hate booking flights. There, I’ve said it. I admit one of my biggest weakness is booking a flight. Somehow I can manage a team of 50 staff, pull off an annual office party of 3000 folks but I can’t book a flight without going crazy.
I know there are a million and one reasons I can tell myself not to panic when booking a flight. After all, worst that can come to me is that I have to fork out more money and if a problem that can be solved by money, it’s never going to be a problem (quoted my mentor…but then again, he is filthy rich). Does that affect my work? Yes, it does because I do need to go on business trips sometimes and I always hovering around booking my flight, sometimes dragging until the very last moment. The conversation will go like this:
Boss: Aren’t you going to Thailand tomorrow?
Me: Yup. I’ve got all my keynotes prepared and I have also made sure that I got the address of our branch office there. My schedule is packed back to back for the three days that I am going to be there.
Boss: Great! You are very organized.
Me: Thanks! I even source for the cheapest hotel around the office vicinity so I don’t have to spend too much time traveling to and fro. My luggage is all packed and ready to go!
Boss: Smart move. So what time is your flight?
Me: ……………
Boss: Don’t tell me you haven’t book your flight?
Me: I’m just going to wait until after lunch to buy my ticket. (Grin sheepishly)
At this point, one of my best pals in the office will pop up suddenly and drag me to the nearest laptop and watch as I book my ticket. See! It always helps to have great pals in your workplace, they always make sure your back is covered or in my case, force me to book my ticket.
Then I moved into a much bigger company where they have specific team just to help with your flight, hotel and taxi bookings even when it is a personal trip. Absolutely love their service! No more worries that I’ll book the wrong flight, or wrong connecting flights, or get the wrong airport, or get the dates and times wrong, or muddled up with the different currency rates. No more booking of flights and realized that you just booked a flight that has 12 hours stopover in a tiny airport that has no duty-free or free wi-fi signal. What they will do is to ask you to fill out all your criteria and they will do the search and planning for you, providing you with 3 options. Ahh.. Bliss!
You may be curious to wonder if I have such a problem booking something else. I never need to book a long distance train before. For long distance coaches, I have no problem booking them. And no, booking of movie tickets or concert tickets are a breeze for me. So it is only subjected to flights. I have no problem flying, in fact, I relish in-flight food so much that I wish I could fly more often.
The point is to all this, I learnt to accept that I will always be jittery when comes to booking of flights and to counter that, I make sure that someone will sit down with me to complete the booking and that someone have the right to ‘whack’ me in the head should I panic over nothing. I think over the years, the slight improvements I have made that I could now book a direct flight on my own without unnecessary drama. Now is to conquer the multi-cities flights (groan)!
Learn to identify what are your strengths and weaknesses and work on your weaknesses. If you can’t improve much on your weakness, find a walk-around solution to your weakness. Everyone including yourself that you have flaws, imperfections and learn to acknowledge and accept that as being a part of who you are.
Have you conquer one of the things you hate or fear lately? And how did you do that? You’re welcome to share it with us under Comments!
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