Avenging Angel

Madrid, Saturday 17 October

A few of us went out for Tapa’s last night before going our separate ways again. I have had a great couple of weeks particularly due to my three new Australian friends and to the playful angel that has been looking after us. It was good to let our hair down… just a little bit. I got the long straw as I didn’t have to leave the hotel to get to the train station until lunchtime. The others have early starts, I will be thinking of them in my luxurious dreams.

This my payback (edited version)…all in a make-it-up good fun way. Of course I did not send this anywhere, it comes with as many disclaimers as you can think of and is all a complete fabrication. I would send my Mother on one of Angel‘s trips and go again with him anywhere, anytime, that is if I can’t tempt him and his event management skills to enzed where he will be adored.
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Dear er…Angel’s boss

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to evaluate your representative Lucifer, (commonly referred to on the tour as Angel). There are many many special traits that Angel has that make his tours so unique and I wanted to write to tell you about them.

I am sorry that I am writing this on a separate form from the official feedback version. Unfortunately mine disappeared mysteriously when they were being distributed to everyone. I think it flew out the bus window. It just kind of slipped. Poor Angel tried to save it but the cigarette he was smoking at the time connected with the paper and of course there was no hope of retrieval.
We have all had a fabulous time learning about the secrets of the Spain, Portugal and Morocco from Angel and there have been some very special highlights that we wanted to draw to your attention:

1. We love the idea that we can change our profession to anything we want in order to entertain the lovely men in uniform who have such boring jobs stamping people into new countries. We really do want to do our best as cosmopolitan tourists and so we were as imaginative as we could be. The Apiarist, Nightclub bouncer and Cable TV repairer have all used Mr Omar’s address for their residence details to give extra authenticity. Please continue this practice.
2. The ‘secret visits’ are a very special highlight, we love the way you market these special moments as ‘events for which someone could be fired’. This makes the moments even more meaningful to us especially when they involve such important and esteemed brands as Cartier, Chanel, Versace and Prada. Please continue this practice.
3. We have been constantly amazed at the value you have provided us; the five star in Fez was most memorable and will provide an unforgettable experience for us all. Please discontinue this practice.
4. Angel’s concern for keeping our documentation safe was also extraordinary and beyond the call. His focus on taking our passports to the man in the little shack to copy them so there was always a backup was thoughtfulness to the extreme.
5. We admire very much that the company values such things as employees keeping in touch with their friends and family at every opportunity. We were very pleased to see Angel ensure he had his allocated hours on the mobile phone and that he was so happy when he did this. In deed his productivity following phone calls improved 410 per cent. Please continue this practice.
6. We also commend you for seeing the value in balancing ones personal and professional life. Angel’s substantial agricultural interests take up a lot of his time and we delight that he can grow his animal holdings with the click of button and harvest his many acres of orchard fruits. Naturally you appreciate his learnings in this area are passed on to us, for example today we learned that asparagus is used to make paper and poplar trees are picked at night in Spain. Please continue this practice.
7. Angels focus on saving us money is hugely appreciated and highly commendable –it is especially valued by the males in the group. “Stop shopping”, “Lyn what have you bought now”, and ”how many bread rolls did you make for lunch?” all demonstrate his caring and empathetic nature.

We really do consider ourselves very lucky to have such a super Tour Director and I have been asked to make this very very clear. However, on a personal note though I do though have several matters of teeny tiny criticism that I would like to bring to your attention:
1. I am not entirely sure I condone the selling of the lovely young redhead to the Fezian marketer. Really she is worth more than the $6 million Angel endorsed as a good price. I know he is a supreme negotiator but one must be careful of developing greed.
2. I do think it is unrealistic for your organization to expect its tour guides to have only 8 hours sleep a night. On learning that the average Spanish person sleeps 20 hours a day and works four solid hours we were all very pleased that Angel took as many opportunities as possible to sleep. The tour group was always exceptionally quiet as he had asked us to be so he wasn’t disturbed and while we tend to agree with Angel that 16 hours a day might not be enough (we know this because he was very grumpy with us after his sleeps) we were nevertheless happy to assist him meet his quota.
3. I also want to commend you on your innovative initiative to have Tour Guides smoke as many cigarettes as possible each day to relieve stress. We would have been very happy to purchase duty free products for Angel to help him meet his quota but as he insisted the Moroccan products he was purchasing were more than adequate and made him feel very very very happy, I do apologise that we couldn’t be of further help.
4. That he needed to leave us in the hands of another guide for five whole days while he made the deeply complex arrangements required for our group was unfortunate. Perhaps the head office staff needs to work a little harder at doing their job properly so Angel isn’t so bothered with work.
5. We have learned to appreciate and enjoy his charm, his cute puppy face and his Disney sense of humor, demonstrated in the affectionate nicknames he calls us such as Nightmare, Trouble and Messy (and that’s just one of us). However I do think it a little over the top that your company requires photographic evidence when someone is eating on the bus and that the punishment is for the whole bus to be incarcerated in Fez for three days. A more modern approach might be to just vacuum up the crumbs.

I do so appreciate the experience we have had but must ask for a refund/discount (Angel wouldn’t let us on the bus if we didn’t get a good price). I would be happy with a 50 or 60 per cent discount but will await with great patience your response.

May the good lord provide you more than $6m for your daughter, a decent night’s sleep and food that doesn’t give you diarrhea.

Yours very sincerely