The river tour guide exam - Lifestyle Monday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
A couple of weeks ago now, I wrote about my experience training as a river tour guide with Scudamore's Punting Company in Cambridge. If you haven't read that post yet, I would recommend that you do because it explain the process behind becoming a river tour guide and my thoughts on the experience I had whilst training with the company. I will leave a link to that post here. However, if you have already read that post, you'll know that quite a lot (sh*t) went down. 😂💜 You see, I went into this whole training completely unaware of how difficult everything was going to be. I knew there was going to be information that I would have to remember and quite a lot of physical exercise involved in the job, but I didn't realise just how much information I would have to remember and just how much physical exercise was actually involved in the job 🤣. Hence why initially I got my punting pole stuck in the bridge, I crashed the punt on multiple occaisions, I forgot the information about the colleges, and (everyone's favourite story) I also managed to hit a customer in the head by accident with the punting pole (yes I did apologise profusely and I did cry to my parents at the end of the day) 😂🤦♀️🤦♀️. If I sounded like I wanted to quit the job at the end of my last blog post, it's because I genuinely did want to quit! However, my mum just said to me that I should at least finish the training sessions and see how I felt afterwards. Well, I did finish the training and from that I saw a tiny glimmer, a shred of light that maybe, just maybe, I might get this job. So somehow, I found the will to live and I continued.
Before that though, I did have to reschedule my initial river tour guide exam date because I knew that there was no way I could have finished my training on the Friday and would have taken my exam on the Tuesday of following week, even with a full day of punting practice on that day. So I told Marcello, the station manager, that I would have to postpone the exam until I had enough practice on a punt by myself that I felt I was ready to go. Luckily, Marcello understood and said I could let him know when I felt ready to take the exam. So off I went on my own, nearly everyday of the week after the formal training was complete, on a punt talking about the colleges to the air. Did I feel like a complete idiot as I passed other punts full of customers? Yes I did 😂😂💜. After a few tries by myself, I did eventually ask my mum and dad to come with me whilst I practiced just so I had an actual person to talk to and just so I could practice properly. This kind of boosted my confidence about the information side of things because although I had forgotten a few dates, I did actually retain a lot of information and both my mum and my dad were very pleased with my knowledge. I did still crash the punt into the walls of the bridges a few times whilst my parents were onboard but my steering did improve quite significantly after a few tries. It was quite funny because whilst I was taking my dad out on the punt, we passed James, one of the guys I was training with, talking to the air, practicing his tour on his own. I guess I wasn't the only one doing that! 😂💜 My mum took a video of me punting in front of the Bridge of Sighs and Trinity Bridge and I must say that I wasn't looking as bad as I thought I was and this helped to boost my confidence too. You would have seen this video too if you follow me on Instagram.
I was still a bit reluctant to book my test at the end of the week but my parents and some of the people at Scudamore's convinced me that it would be a good thing to do. At that point I didn't really know what level I was at so the only way I could find out would be to do the test. So I booked my test for the following Tuesday.
On Monday of the following week, my mum was going to drive me to Scudamore's for one final training session before my test the following day. This day was a little chaotic to say the least. My dad was meant to be going to London on that day too so my mum was also taking my dad to the train station before she was meant to drop me off at Scudamore's. However, after we dropped my dad off at Cambridge North, a couple of miles down the road, my mum pushed on the gear stick and it came loose completely. We were driving in my sister's 2nd hand car which we got recently and we were having trouble with the gear stick being very stiff to use for quite a while. I think it eventually broke on Monday, when we were driving to Scudamore's. My mum had to pull into the side of the road and call my dad for help. My dad told my mum to call the Green Flag. In the meantime, my mum told me I should get the bus into town since there was still a bit of a way to go and I had my money on me. I caught a bus from Milton Road into the central bus station, then I walked to the punting station at Quayside. It was midday so things were getting quite busy and after a bit of a struggle getting a punt, I was eventually able to get out on the river by myself. It was probably not my best training session because I kept crashing the punt and I got the punting pole stuck in the bridge again!🤦♀️🤦♀️ However, at least I was able to practice and get back into the swing of things after having a couple of days off at the weekend. I returned home on the bus so I could eat lunch. My mum wasn't back home yet. It turns out she waited a good three hours for Green Flag to come and help which was pretty ridiculous. However, thankfully we were all able to get home safely in the end, despite the chaotic day that we all had and it turns out that the gear stick wasn't seriously broken so it was a quick and easy repair in the end. Me and my mum actually both had a cold on that day. I don't know how we got it since it is now summer but we were both sneezing like crazy. It was nice to sit and relax in front of the TV at the end of the day eating a meal that me, Alice, and my mum all helped to cook. It was a crazy day all in all.
Then the river tour guide exam came the next day. I still wasn't feeling up to scratch cold wise so I took some medicine just before leaving the house. I did feel quite nervous on that day but also quite relieved knowing that in a couple of hours, the test would be done. Most of the nerves and anxiety come from anticipation more than anything else. When I arrived at the Bridge station at Quayside, I was met by Eden, one of the trainers and he told me that he was going to be doing my exam for that day. He got a boat prepared and sat on the bench with a tablet ready to listen to my tour. As we were leaving the station Eden asked me "So Juliette, how is your punting coming along?" I said, as I was thinking about the horrendous day I had before, "I guess you'll see in a minute" and he laughed 😂😂. It turns out that I didn't bump into anything on the test. I was perhaps a bit slow as I was carefully and cautiously maneuvering the punt around all the obstacles. But thankfully it was 10am so the river wasn't too busy. My speech was okay. I remembered most of my dates and the information and I saw Eden nodding at some of the things I was saying. As I came back down the river the information wasn't very coherent but somehow I made it to the other side and before I knew it, I was back at Quayside awkwardly mooring the boat at the station. As I got off the punt, Eden said to me "Well, Juliette congratulations you passed the test." Not with flying colours I must add, I got a score of 65/100 which out of the standard, good, and excellent rates of pay puts me at a standard rate of pay 😂. But hey, I passed. Eden did give me some feedback which would help when I take a retest. I basically need to link my colleges together more so that my speech has a bit more of a flow to it because at times it was pretty choppy. I also need to only talk about the things that are visible to the customers at that particular time because sometimes I was going back to information when I was at a different college. I also needed to give a complete explanation into the founding of the colleges because at times when I forgot what to say, I wasn't being clear about how some of colleges were founded. I also need to remember the dates of some of the bridges like King's bridge because I think I gave the wrong date for that. However, after the test, I was officially allowed to give tours to the customers and Eden said to me that my tour will likely get better as I deliver it to more customers.
Eden did say to me at the end though that if I continue punting the way that I just punted up the river, I will break my back. Rather embarrassing not going to lie!🤣🤣💜 However, he did give me another quick 10 minute lesson on how I can refine my technique a bit more. Basically I need to lean back as I push down on the pole instead of leaning forwards to push the punt forwards. I had a go at doing that and I must say it did feel a lot better and I was going up the river a lot faster. Plus I was facing the front a lot more instead of looking behind me to see where the pole was landing so I could project my voice a lot more. I did notice as I was practicing the week before that some of the tour guides were standing more upright when they were punting and now I know that it does actually make a difference! That was a very helpful little lesson that I had at the end.
Eden did also write down all my feedback on an email so I now have something to refer to when I'm practicing. I am also still allowed to take a punt up and down on my own to practice even though I've passed my test. I think i'll definitely do this, especially since I can practice for free as I'm a part of the company.
Now I'm just working a couple of shifts each week. I've already done Wednesday and Saturday last week and I'll be working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week. Marcello walked past me on Wednesday and said well done for passing my exam, which was nice of him. It's quite a full on job. You have to be always willing to talk to people and I'm noticing that touting and sales is still something that I have to get used to. But I'm trying and that's what a gap year is all about, experiencing the real world, taking risks and trying your hand at something, even if you're not that good at it. Thankfully this job is very well paid and you can choose the days you want to work, so there are a lot of benefits to all the hard work that you put in. Plus, everyone at the company is really nice and they give constructive feedback because they do actually want to help make things easier for you and they do want to see you succeed. Honestly it is such a contrast to the environment I was working in when I was doing Saturday shifts at Project 21 because they really weren't willing to go the extra mile there when some of us needed help. Although me, Maia, and Teresa all worked really hard and tried to turn up on time to work each week, the one time we couldn't go, everyone just refused to help and left us in the dark. Although I find working at Scudamore's to be a real challenge, at least everyone is treated fairly - you get paid well for your training and everyone tries to make you become a better river tour guide. You're treated as if you're a part of the team which is a nice feeling.
Comments
Post a Comment
Thanks for leaving your comments! I really enjoy reading your positive and constructive messages. They really make my day! 💜