During the 2010 Football World Cup period I worked for an airline that had brought a lot of Argentinian football supporters out for the World Cup. As a result, we were glad to see their team exceeding initial expectations at the start of the tournament.
As Argentina won match after match, our office would be flooded by happy, handsome Argentinian boys asking us to extend their stay so that they could continue to support their team.In a very short time our whole office became afflicted with Argentinian fever, fuelled by boys queuing up in reception every morning with teddy bears, balloons, flowers and chocolates to coax our reservations consultants to amend their air tickets as affordably as possible.
While we were happy to assist with flight re-bookings, seats were selling fast. It got to a point where there were absolutely no seats available around the final match dates. We were forced to tell these eager-faced boys that we could not extend their tickets again and they would have to go back without watching their team compete in the semi-final. With this news the tide turned instantly and these charming men became angry, aggressive and even tearful on occasion.Shouting matches ensued, one guy tried to take a swing at our area manager and we had to move extra security officers into our reception area to handle the situation.
It was a sad turn of events both for the Argentinians and our reservations teams. The dreams of packing up and moving to Argentina that half our office shared were crushed along with Argentina’s chances of making the semi-finals when they were eliminated in the quarters later that month.
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