Until recently I was a rep for one of the big TO in the UK, I'm an older male and didn't start repping until I was 42.

Initially, already working for the company in another department, I was turned down as being unsuitable for the job - having just won the "Best Customer Service" award for the entire company, I followed this up...was I too old to be a rep, because my customer service skills were second to none!?

They eventually agreed to me going overseas as a rep, and with my husband living in Gran Canaria I was lucky enough to be sent there for my first season.

Firstly let me state a few facts about pay - people do not become reps to get rich. The basic Pay is around £280 per month - BUT an extra £280 is given by the Government towards pay, because the basic is so low. Even though reps are working for British based companies, they DO NOT get the minimum wage and so so TO are being allowed to pay SO low and being subsided.

As for commission on selling trips there was no percentage given as a bonus - each guest at your hotel had a cost given to them (this escalated as the season went peak) - so you may have had 200 arrivals and you had a target of £10 per head - so you had to sell £2000 worth of trips/extras - but that would only hit the basic target and the minimal bonus of £250, to get the full bonus you would need to get 21% OVER that target in order the secure the top bonus £450 - so earning potential was there, but tough to get without becoming the archetypal "give me your money" rep.

Throughout training reps are told time and time and time again - The Customer is key - customer service is the main focus, it's paramount - but if you don't hit targets we'll have to have words with you.

Unfortunately for so many reps the Customer Service Vs Sales is a very tough balancing act - for me I found I sold trips because of my customer service, but I was very honest with people and told them at welcome meetings about trips, but also how to get their on their own steam if they wanted to - people had faith and confidence in me because I offered them the different options (although whenever I was assessed this was always a negative from managers as it wasn't a "positive" thing to say.

I was lucky that the accommodation I had was always good and for the first year I ate in the hotels I worked in, however that has now changed. My TO used to pay the hoteliers a supplement for food eaten by reps - but this stopped 2 years ago as a cost cutting exercise and because the supplements are no longer paid, many hotels do not allow their reps to eat.

The downside of this is that the reps are not seeing or eating the food on a daily basis, therefore they can no longer see when errors, faults or other problems occur - especially the general standards.

Some reps are approached by outside agencies with backhanders to get them to send people to a bar, restaurant etc - this is highly inappropriate and anyone caught would be dismissed - but many reps do succome to this unfortunately.

I myself was approached once by a medical agency, if anyone needed treatment, if I sent them to a certain hospital I would get thanked to the tune of €25 per person - I reported it immediately and they were reprimanded severely and the particular agent who approached me no longer had any contact with the To and it's staff.

Overall I adored my life as a rep, but I was in my 40's and during training, alongside going on all the excursions, learning about presenting welcome meetings, dealing with MOUNTAINS of forms, procedures etc, there was something pretty big omitted....how to trouble shoot, deal with problems and resolve them and for an 18 year old, overseas for the first time, away from their friends and family, this could sometimes been excruciating to watch - and many reps left the job within a few months of starting because of this very reason.

In all the years I've worked in customer service I have never seen such a poor poor backup system in my life, it's the reps job listen to a complaint, assess what they can do and resolve it - sounds pretty straight forward, but not everything is solvable unfortunately. In the peak season rooms are not available to move to if someone is unhappy, they can't just be sent to another hotel - who's going to pay? What's wrong with the room? Not a great view, don't like the curtains? Don't like the colour? Too high up, too low down?

This was a daily occurrence, and sometimes the reasons behind complains would dumfound the very best of us.

For more serious complaints, the rep would have to phone the travel agent or head office, do all the groundwork and try to get things sorted out - and whilst they had a company phone, they were only allowed €15 on it per month...that usually went in one phone call to the UK, so the reps used to top up their mobiles with their own money, because the TO certainly wasn't going to pay for it.

Working days varied, but generally a Rep would be at their hotel for 9am and work until 1pm - some reps had one large hotel, others had up to 10, then between 1 and 5pm they would be in training, organising paperwork, writing out departure cards, writing out welcome cards, putting together airport packs, following up on phone calls, excursion booking etc - then back to the hotel between 5 & 8pm - so they days could be very long indeed.

Having settled very comfortably in Gran Canaria, with my husband, during my 2nd year the TO made big changes - overseas staff could not stay more than 2 years in one sector (Spain, Greece etc) - that decision caused so many great, experienced staff leave the company - managers, area managers, reps, team leaders...it was a disaster. Many people were married, had children in schools and had lived where they were for years - I lost so many great colleagues when that news broke - only to be replaced by new, cheaper (because payscales went up the longer you were with the company) and inexperienced staff.

I had to leave Gran Canaria and ended up in the Algarve - that was in 2013 and things just from bad to worse. By this point reps had to send 4 text messages a day to their manager with sales figures, gross, net and profit, and if that wasn't piling on the pressure they had the audacity to ORDER us to raise money for charity in our hotels AND gave us a target for what should be achieved.

And once again, where was the time for customer service here?

That was the beginning of the end of me because I refused - people don't come away on holiday to raise money for charity, we shouldn't be sticking collection pots in their faces - we were even expected to take them to the airport and collect on the coaches and in the queues...I point blank refused and 2 weeks before the end of the season I was sent to Cape Verde, my contract extended without my consent and was told, you'll do what we need you to do and when we need you to do it - your season ends when we tell you it ends, not when we told you it would 4 weeks before.

Alas, I ended up venting on facebook, though the name of the company nor any individuals were used, but was instantly sacked.

Unfortunately, because the job is so sought after, by so many young people expecting one big party and hardly any work at all, everyone is instantly replaceable, customer service, knowledge, experience count for nothing.

As for reps no longer being on coaches, never in hotels....In Gran Canaria, within 2 years the number of reps went from around 40 to 25 - in the Algarve, just 18 reps covered the entire area last year - that means that there just aren't the numbers to go on the coaches anymore and each rep will have more than one hotel and therfore travels between them and maybe gets 1 hour per day to see guests - That's not the customer service guests expect and please believe me when I say the Reps aren't happy with it either.

The joy of my job was meeting so many wonderful people, having great holidays and asking me for information or just having a general chat - reps aren't even allowed to sit down with guests and talk over a cup of coffee, it's not professional, you don't see it when you go to a bank.

No...but being on holiday isn't like going to a bank, it's about people escaping the norm and relaxing.

Repping used to be fun, involving and we used to get real satisfaction out of seeing our guests happy and smiling because we had the time to spend with them - and I'm sure many reps still do, but for me, when the customer service becomes a very low standard second best to hitting targets for trips/extras (You can pre-book your extra space seats and your pre booked seats so you all get to sit together on your flight home..all in resort now...just come and see us).

I'm not bitter because I really did relish my repping days, and am happily living in the Algarve with a job that I adore and relish everyday...and I don't have to sell a thing.

I hope this gives some insight into repping today - I know that many people complain about us or don't want to see us, but if we could wave a magic wand and make everything wonderful when a problem arrises, we really would, because some of us actually appreciated that problems needed to be dealt with, but red tape, T&C's...we were just the dogsbodies giving the bad news, Reps don't have any power, no matter how much our TO said we did - empowered? Not at all anymore.