Reflection on Interpersonal Communication Conflict

This incident occurred whilst I was working at a tourist attraction which shall remain unnamed for privacy purposes. I work as an attraction host and we are rotated around many duties, one of which is to be at the ticketing gantry.

Some of the job scopes at the gantry include greeting guests when they enter, keeping count of the number of guest entering to prevent overcrowding, and most importantly to check the ticket of each guests entering the attraction. At the start of my shift, my manager told all of us to pay special attention to the tickets due to the tight schedule of tour groups on that day.

I went about my duties when a tour guide came in told me this in a rude manner: ‘Eh boy, I left the tickets on the bus. You let them in, I come back and pass you later’. I knew that the tour guide will be moving on to other attractions and the chances of him turning back to pass me the tickets was as much as striking the lottery. Hence, I informed him politely that I would need authorization from my manager for this as I did not want the guests to be waiting in the hot sun, paying for his mistake. It would have been considered as fraudulent entry and the tickets that he kept (and the guests have already paid for) can be kept for entrance on other occasions.

Just as I turned around to reach for my walkie-talkie, he pushed me aside and opened the gantry for the guests to enter. The course of action that occurred to me immediately was to stop the entry of all guests (at the expense of ruining the image of the attraction because of the mistake of the tour guide). In the end, I did not do it as I felt that the guests should not be stopped and paying for the mistake of that particular tour guide.

What would you have done in this scenario?

Commented on:

Yun Yue

Samuel Chong

Samuel Koh

Edited 28th February 2018