My friend Lucy works at a large finance company in data systems. She frequently has to travel overseas to do on-site support/setup at various branch offices.
Her boss expects her to use certain preferred vendors for travel and lodging. That's not a problem.
Sometime the preferred vendor cannot accomodate Lucy's itinerary and she needs an override from the admin of her division. That can be a bit of a problem when the admin doesn't approve the override in time for Lucy to get rate she orgianlly quoted to the admin. But it's not a big problem, just somewhat painful.
But one time Lucy booked a hotel in Santiago, Chile which was on the approved vendor list and got the company's usual rate. The next day the admin got back to Lucy and asked her to try for a lower rate. Lucy called and tried. That was it. Oh, well.
That wasn't good enough. The admin then told Lucy that she would have to try for a lower rate while she was checking in.
Lucy asked the admin how she was expected to do that. The admin replied that she should threaten to walk out. Like the front desk is going to believe for one second that a business customer who doesn't speak Spanish would willinging strand herself thousands of miles from home without a hotel. Right.
Lucy plans to just tell the admin she tried, but they wouldn't budge. Which means she'll ask the front desk once and believe the first "no."
Her boss expects her to use certain preferred vendors for travel and lodging. That's not a problem.
Sometime the preferred vendor cannot accomodate Lucy's itinerary and she needs an override from the admin of her division. That can be a bit of a problem when the admin doesn't approve the override in time for Lucy to get rate she orgianlly quoted to the admin. But it's not a big problem, just somewhat painful.
But one time Lucy booked a hotel in Santiago, Chile which was on the approved vendor list and got the company's usual rate. The next day the admin got back to Lucy and asked her to try for a lower rate. Lucy called and tried. That was it. Oh, well.
That wasn't good enough. The admin then told Lucy that she would have to try for a lower rate while she was checking in.
Lucy asked the admin how she was expected to do that. The admin replied that she should threaten to walk out. Like the front desk is going to believe for one second that a business customer who doesn't speak Spanish would willinging strand herself thousands of miles from home without a hotel. Right.
Lucy plans to just tell the admin she tried, but they wouldn't budge. Which means she'll ask the front desk once and believe the first "no."
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