How busy are TAs these days?

[ontheweb]

I e-mailed our TA and let him know of a cruise we were interested in and asked for a price. That was a little before 3 PM yesterday afternoon. When I checked my e-mail this morning, there was an e-mail that he was working on it. The time stamp was 3:42 AM this morning, not only very late at night, but basically 12 hours later!

 

Is demand so high these days, that TAs are working all night? In case it matters, he is the president of his agency. But still well past 3 in the morning is awfully late to be working. (I just realized that because he is in Florida, he might be doing some recovering from the last hurricane.)

[NotADopey1]

Maybe he is on a trip or cruise.  Or maybe he doesn’t sleep well 

[Mum2Mercury]

Yeah, I don't think this means anything -- people can work from home now, and some people are night owls.  I don't think it means he was working 'round the clock. 

[leaveitallbehind]

With the current cruising demand I'm sure they could be quite busy. Have you tried calling them?  I always prefer to talk in person regarding travel plans versus email.  JMO.

Edited October 4 by leaveitallbehind

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

With the current cruising demand I'm sure they could be quite busy. Have you tried calling them?  I always prefer to talk in person regarding travel plans versus email.  JMO.

I do generally call him, but I just wanted a price quote and if there were still good cabins available as the cruise is well past final payment. Also would have to discuss it with DW once we had a price.

[ldubs]

Could be his work from home staff are impacted from Hurricane and he is trying to keep things together.  Pure guesswork.  Could be anything.   

Edited October 4 by ldubs

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, ldubs said:

Could be his work from home staff are impacted from Hurricane and he is trying to keep things together.  Pure guesswork.  Could be anything.   

I thought of that, and I did e-mail him back not only acknowledging I received his e-mail but also asking if the hurricane had hit hard where he was in Florida.

[Pyrate13]

Emails do not always get sent the second they are written either. It's not common but occasionally there can be delays. I've had emails with times like yours and when I asked the sender what was up, they indicated the message was actually sent from their computer mid to late afternoon, but it was delayed by the carrier for unknown reasons. Glitch in the system or something like that.

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, Pyrate13 said:

Emails do not always get sent the second they are written either. It's not common but occasionally there can be delays. I've had emails with times like yours and when I asked the sender what was up, they indicated the message was actually sent from their computer mid to late afternoon, but it was delayed by the carrier for unknown reasons. Glitch in the system or something like that.

Well, I have another e-mail from him now with the price quote we asked for. And its time stamp is 1:52 this morning. So, he is either doing things very late, or the same glitch came up twice.

[CDNPolar]

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Well, I have another e-mail from him now with the price quote we asked for. And its time stamp is 1:52 this morning. So, he is either doing things very late, or the same glitch came up twice.

Or his laptop or computer is in the wrong time zone.  That is possible.

 

I have travelled and manually moved my laptop to the new timezone and forgotten to move it back when home.  If you have manually moved the time zone, it stays on that until you move it back.

[ontheweb]

5 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

Or his laptop or computer is in the wrong time zone.  That is possible.

 

I have travelled and manually moved my laptop to the new timezone and forgotten to move it back when home.  If you have manually moved the time zone, it stays on that until you move it back.

Could be. If so, it has now been corrected as the invoice for the cruise I booked today has a time stamp that is correct.

[Pyrate13]

I didn't say that was what happened, just that it could be. 🙄

[ontheweb]

5 hours ago, Pyrate13 said:

I didn't say that was what happened, just that it could be. 🙄

I understood that, and was just saying if it happened it was fixed the next day.

[ldubs]

Well, this is starting to read like a whodunit.  Some pretty good sleuthing too!  

 

I suppose one could just ask the TA why the early morning emails.  

[CDNPolar]

I am a very early morning person... often up at 4am my local time.  To anyone that I email on the West Coast, that would show as 1am.  Typically the email shows the local time where it is received, not the local time from where it was sent. (that is derived from knowing the time zones that each party are in)  This is my understanding of most email systems.

[ontheweb]

10 hours ago, ldubs said:

Well, this is starting to read like a whodunit.  Some pretty good sleuthing too!  

 

I suppose one could just ask the TA why the early morning emails.  

I thought of doing that, but if he is that busy I did not want to waste his time.

 

We did speak twice as he called me answering an e-mail including why the hold was 1 day. We were ready to book, but I reminded him of the 15% off coupon that was supposed to be attached to my DW's Latitudes account. He called NCL, and got the discount and we saved a few hundred dollars.

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, CDNPolar said:

I am a very early morning person... often up at 4am my local time.  To anyone that I email on the West Coast, that would show as 1am.  Typically the email shows the local time where it is received, not the local time from where it was sent. (that is derived from knowing the time zones that each party are in)  This is my understanding of most email systems.

Same time zone (unless he was traveling). He's in Florida and I'm in NY.

[ontheweb]

On 10/6/2024 at 8:33 PM, ldubs said:

Well, this is starting to read like a whodunit.  Some pretty good sleuthing too!  

 

I suppose one could just ask the TA why the early morning emails.  

I spoke with him earlier this morning. He says his hours are crazy, and that as an example someone called him at 5:30 this morning. Went on to say if he knew maybe he would no longer be a travel agent. I replied that he said the same after Covid, but at least he is now getting paid. He agreed and said now his mortgage is paid off.