Part One: Let's say you own a whale watching company that you sold a few years ago. The buyer trashed it, you took it back after a prolonged legal battle, and you made the tough decision to revive the business that had lain dormant 9 months after being largely ignored by the goof you sold to. Your beloved boat looked like hell, so you lovingly nursed her back to sparkling health, including new paint, engines and a lot more.
You also own Trinity River Adventure Inn, a hopping business on the Trinity River 6 hours to the north. You and your partner are really good at covering all bases and doing a great job at most things you undertake.
The Trinity company is in its busiest month of the year with cabins rented back to back. You're running your river trips with the raft and kayaks. The Sanctuary Cruises crew is doing fine and things are looking good all-round.
Then the captain available the most of the 3 ships off to Alaska with 3 days' notice. Your senior naturalist heads out on a must-have vacation for a week.
And the world discovers the whales of Monterey Bay are here as usual most summers and falls, but in fat numbers, especially the blue whales.
Suddenly everyone wants to see a blue whale NOW. Not just your old fans, not just the lovers of sea life and nature, the thoughtful ones who take the time to read a few pages on your web site, then send in an online reservation. But also the ones who figure there is no reason to read a well-crafted web site's home page when there is a phone number and they can call (cell phones have eliminated much of the world's reasoning abilities). They're the ones who expect whales to do tricks at sea as they do in Marine World.
Your partner, let's call him Steph, has gone to Moss Landing to work with your new captain and the marine biologist who has signed on in Kate's absence. You are handling the Trinity operation, including greeting guests, river runs, tending both companies' web sites, handling reservations and phone calls; watering the properties in 100 degree heat. Caring for the animals. Suddenly all hell breaks loose.
The morning trips fill for days ahead, so you add afternoon cruises. Those book, so you add Dawn Patrols. The phone rings constantly. You're out of food and subsist on Triscuits and what's left of the hummus. Cold canned chili dumped over what's left of the salad greens and broken tortilla chips constituted a very late dinner.
The cats are looking owly. For some reason they don't think a half empty bowl of their fancy kibble, available only in Redding, an hour away, is also a half full bowl. Their organic, wildly expensive canned food? Won't touch the crap (their term, not yours; you paid for it!). The beloved cat who was on chemo all winter is thin. He has shown an affection for sour cream, so you give him his own tub on the floor as you rush by. Can Animal Protective Services be far behind once the cats figure out how to dial 911?
The dogs are no better. Their food supply is fine. They can swim in the river and scrooch on the shady lawn, but what about their morning hikes with you? Every time you even look toward the door, they're scrambling that way, elated to finally be heading out. But no hike. Not today, or yesterday, or the day before that.
You can't take 15 minutes in an entire day from 0600 to near midnight for yourself. Life has narrowed down to PHONES/EMAILS/COMPUTER WORK. The plants gasp as though it may be their last out there in the searing heat, but you're too absorbed to think about them.
An email wafts in from a distant, retired family member who requests action on your part. This could be handled at any time and there is no rush, but the relative would like it SOON. The email ends with: "Loving life, everything's great." You wonder if there is a penalty involving prison for killing someone. If you could be in a quiet prison where you could finish your book, that would work.
Many of the reservations you get online have conflicts requiring more emails.
"That trip is booked; would you like the afternoon?"
"There are 3 spots left on that trip, so we can't take your party of 6. How about the next trip?"
"No, it is not OK to reserve for 2 and bring 3 more."
"Yes, we need a credit card number to hold your spots, even if you plan to pay cash."
"The Coast Guard does not approve life jackets for infants, so we do not have them, only toddler sizes. How's bubble wrap and duct tape sound?"
Each phone call and email adds to the many balls you have in the air, making it ever tougher to keep each cruise straight. You can't overbook and disappoint people who chose Sanctuary Cruises because you don't fill the boat, but only book to 75% of her capacity. Even with Call Waiting, you can only answer one other caller while the first is on hold (another ball in the air). You finally finish one call and when you attempt to phone the sender of an online reservation who is not in email range any more, you hear the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP telling you there are voice mail messages to retrieve.
Halfway through a string of 6 messages, the phone rings again, so you hang up on voice mail and have a variation of this call way too often:
"Ummm...[long pause; maybe this is a member of the Slow Talkers of America Bob & Ray used to talk about] hi...you do the whale rides? [whale watching, yes] OK... [another long pause]...so I'm on your, um, web site... I guess. When's a good time to go? [now] Oh...now. I see. [long pause] What's out there, anyway? [you're thinking the big headline across the top of the home page of your web site that says "BLUE WHALES, HUMPBACKS, ORCAS & MORE!" might be a clue, but you say blue whales, humpback whales, killer whales, dolphins...]. Another pause, then, "When can we see 50 blue whales?"
Okay. By now, we know you aren't in this hell and I am. I drink a little. A couple of beers on a river trip, sometimes some wine. I have been known to whip up a pitcher of margaritas, but I share it. The only reason I haven't gotten sloppy drunk and stayed that way the past week is because there's simply no time.
With each reservation, I've streamlined my procedures. Open the reservation request, check the cruise time, reply to the sender if it's not available, send a confirmation if it is. Confirmations go out with a one page attachment detailing directions, meeting place, how to dress, how to avoid seasickness and a lot more. I wrote each note with the confirmation from scratch, then created a document I left on the desktop with the basic structure. Hit Ctrl C to copy, Ctrl V to paste; adjust name, dates, time and price. Review confirmation, attach the info sheet, hit Send.
Sometimes it takes 2-3 phone calls and several emails before this is complete. Then save the res in a file by date and last name (INVALUABLE for tracking down details later). Forget using the mouse; I hit Ctrl S for Save As, don't even look up, type date with underscores between day/month/year, then last name, hit return bar to save and close. Then highlight res email and drag it to the SC Reservations backup before moving onto the next job.
Several more calls roll in like a tidal wave. People can drown in a tidal wave. I may be one of those people. One is from a woman who received the confirmation email and attachment. She says the attachment absolutely won't open. She announces I am a genius for suggesting she double click on the attachment icon.
A man informs me there is NO WAY he could choose the day and month from the drop-down menus at the top of the reservation form, so he sent in a request for whale watching January 1. When I tell him the form works, as evidenced by several hundred successful reservations, he tells me I am mistaken and anyway, I should have known he wanted the next day's cruise. That would be the one that has been marked as NO AVAILABILITY on the web site for days.
By this time, if I don't go to the bathroom, I will wet my pants. I haven't seen the portable phone in days (the cats are Prime Suspects). Dash into the bathroom, phone rings, finish my business, dash back, answer the call which is immediately walked over by another call ringing through. Click on the receiver to put the first caller on hold to put #2 on hold but #2 is gone. You k#2 calls three times, through several more phone calls from others, hanging up after the first 2 rings each time before sticking it out to actually speak.
Do you get a discount on prison sentences for multiple murders?
Someone emails an article quoting one of our competitors saying they took 450 people out whale watching in two days. Jam-packed boats. The phone rings again: "We're only a family of 4; can't you squeeze us on the full trip?" No, but I know someone who will...
The computer bleeps to announce emails have just come in. 16 hours after I sat down at the desk, I turn off the computer and go to bed. It's 11:45. At 1:30, the phone rings: "Oh... I expected an answering machine. I saw your trailer. Are there really whales out there?"
PART TWO
Meanwhile, Steph has to deal with the overflow of passengers that resulted in my creation of second and third trips. He's training our new captain (and do we think we have struck gold with him!) and working with our marine biologist. He isn't just running cruises, he's teaching the crew how to do what we do: find the whales, enchant and educate people without being pedantic, operate responsibly around the animals and explain to all why this is such a huge deal. Magic must be involved, because it's out there. We feel it, we breathe it.
In addition to training, he's doing the Costco run for snack bar supplies. He's doing maintenance on Sanctuary, as well as trying to track down a rumble I detected running trips over the July 4th weekend (turned out to be minor and an easy fix but until you know, that packs a wallop to the solar plexus; this is our baby, after all)
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Once he realizes Jim, our new captain, is a gem, he really can't relax. Jim has a vast amount of experience all around the world. He is enthusiastic, lively, sweet and gracious. But there is so much to tell him about how we operate before coming home that if anything, the stress on Steph doubles. Meanwhile our marine biologist has blossomed. She already knew an incredible amount, especially about the Monterey Bay, but she needed to learn our methods. I will write more about the crew next update.
To his great credit, Steph garnered a huge pile of stunning reviews such as the ones above. If all he had to do was run the trip, find and track marine mammals and tell about them in his wonderful manner, it would be a huge task. Figuring all of the rest of the balls he kept in the air, he may well qualify for the Barnum & Bailey Jugglers' Hall of Fame. And his reward?
The recycling and trash for the cabins are in sore need of dealing with. As soon as he returns with the truck, he changes his exalted Captain's cap for the Grounds & Maintenance cap and hits the road with the dogs, because they give dog cookies out at the dump and The Red House, where he often swings by for an Alp Accino, the Trinity Alp's version of a frozen mocha.
So the lesson for business owners who would like for their businesses to be super popular and busy is this:
We're Heidi & Steph, people who are passionate about whales and the only creators & owners of a whale watching company we know of to have put themselves between whalers' bullets and whales.
ave room to enjoy yourselves.
Our friendly and personable crew of captains who are talented naturalists in their own right, and marine biologists and naturalists, introduce you to the fascinating sea life found in the Monterey Bay. 
have been warning us to stay back as the pod circled a female elephant seal. The killer whales swooped back and forth under our motionless boat and passengers were entranced. 
Sublime.
