The road to becoming an excellent punter - Lifestyle Monday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
As I am sure many of you are probably already aware, if you've been following my Instagram and my blog for the past few months, recently I have been working as a river tour guide with Scudamore's Punting Company in Cambridge. In May, I trained with the company where I learnt how to punt, deliver my tour, and sell tickets to customers out on the street and in June, I took my river tour guide exam, which enabled me to get onto the job. If you want to hear a detailed account of that experience, then you can you can read my blog posts here (River Tour Guide Training & River Tour Guide Exam). However, as I'm sure you've read, I found the whole training experience to be quite difficult at first and I definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way (like accidentally hitting a customer in the face for one!). But, in a way, I was glad that I challenged myself because I notice now, just a few months later, that I'm already in such a different place.
In the river tour guide exam, you get a grade, depending on the score you got for your tour, and this grade determines how much you get paid. Every score is out of 100 and the grades you can get are either standard, good, or excellent. Once you pass your first exam, you get re-tested every 50 tours to see if you can get a higher pay grade. In my first river tour guide exam, I got a standard grade because at the time, I wasn't as confident with my tour and I forgot to include a lot of key information because I was just starting out. On my second river tour guide exam, I got promoted to a good pay grade because I was more confident with my tour and I remembered to put in more information. To get an excellent score, you need to score 85 and on my second test I got 81, which was very close but I didn't quite achieve the grade because I didn't talk enough about key alumni. But more recently, I got invited to do yet another re-test and like on my very first test, it was Eden who was going to examine me. He said, "Right Juliette, you got good last time, let's see if you can go up to excellent this time." And so I got on my punt with Eden and I started my third re-test.
Unlike my other exams, where it was just me and the examiner on the boat, this exam was done on an actual tour with customers on board. At first, I was a little bit nervous because I thought I wouldn't be able to include all the information I need if customers started asking questions on the tour. However, Eden told me beforehand to just stick to the tour that I normally give to my customers. He said "People start to fuck up when the do something different to what they normally do." So I gathered that I would be graded not just on my information but how I would interact with the customers as well. When I got onto the punt, I tried to implement this. I introduced myself to my customers, I gave the health and safety, and I asked where they were visiting from and if this was their first time in Cambridge. There was one Chinese man on my boat who wasn't quite as chatty as the others, but the family at the front of my boat were from Australia and they were lovely to speak to. The first half of my tour felt very laid-back and relaxed. However, as the tour went on, I fell naturally into the habit of trying to give a very informative tour so I didn't give a lot of breathing room for people to ask questions. At the end of my tour, Eden said that I needed to be a little bit more relaxed because it seemed as though the Australian family wanted to ask questions. On my next test, I'll definitely keep that in mind as I noticed I was getting super-informative towards the end. However, he did also say that I got a score of 87, which meant that I was moved up to an excellent pay grade as of that day. He did also say that it was very well presented and that I was clearly very knowledgeable. I'm just not the best at staying calm during tests so the next time I get customers of my re-tests, I'll take it easy a bit more and treat it like any other day.
However, like I said, if I look back to where I was a few months ago in comparison to where I am now, there is a stark difference. Never before did I think as punch-drunk and shy as I was after my exams, that I would be delivering close to 3 or 4 tours every shift to a group of customers or that I would be shouting across the street to customers in an attempt to sell them tickets. Now I look at myself, and I notice that I am a far more confident individual and I can see that I am beginning to discover myself through this job. Granted I'm not great at everything. The other day, I was speaking to Calum, another river tour guide, asking how his touting was going and he said that he was a bit like me on that day, it hadn't been going well for him. However, I also know that he is used to making £1,000 worth of tout tickets a day so his bad day is probably making £600, whereas my bad day is probably making £300. But, it's difficult to judge yourself fairly against other people. If I compare myself to myself, I am a completely different person and I have really grown into my role now. Had I not challenged myself back in May to do the river tour guide exam when I didn't think I could, I would not even be here today. It just goes to show that stepping out of your comfort zone, doing something that challenges you, really shapes who you are. And hey, I've also met some nice people along the way.
Have you ever been punting before? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
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