The new job

I've been meaning to tell you about my new job, but just haven't had the time yet. So here it goes:

I LOVE MY NEW JOB!! It worked out so much better than I could have ever imagined. As you may know, I was layed off by Air France on September 30th. All summer long I looked for a new job and must have applied for 200 different positions. Finally, two weeks before my last day at Air France, I got a call from Gohagan and Company for an interview. I interviewed the first time on Tuesday, the second time on Thursday, and on Friday I had an offer that I gladly accepted.

Gohagan is a wholesale tour operator that specilizes in trips for non-profit organizations. This includes mainly University Alumni Associations, such as Harvard, Yale, and about 200 others, plus a few other organizations, such as the Chicago Art Institute, Smithsonian, and National Geographic. Our clientelle is very well educated, very well off, and in most cases very old. My title is Program Operations Manager, and my job is to plan the trips :)

Let that sink in for a minute.

I get to plan trips for a living (and if I may add - it's a better living than at Air France). The programs I am responsible for in 2008 are a cruise of the Western Mediterranean, a cruise down the Danube River through the old Habsburg Empire, a trip to experience village life in Malta and Sicily, and a cruise down the Russian Waterways from Moscow to St. Petersburg. So what exacly do I do? I arrange for everything from the time a passenger gets to the airport until they leave again (except for airfare... I don't do that). That includes a minute-by-minute itinerary with excursions, cruise times, meals, hotel nights, lectures, etc. It's a very detailed job, but it's really fun! And the tours all sound amazing!

For 2009, which we have started planning already, I will have a cruise down the Danube again, but this time from Vienna to Istanbul, a different cruise through the Mediterranean, a one week stay in a French Chateau in the Loire Valley, all the programs from 2008 that will be repeated again, PLUS a cruise around Australia and New Zealand. This one I am especially excited about, but I haven't started it yet.

Do you ever dream about work at night and wake up either pissed off or feeling like you forgot to do something? When I dream about work now... I wake up feeling like I just went on a trip and saw the world! :) I love my job!!!