Rick Pays His Staff Out Of Pocket As Travel Shuts Down

Take care of your people, and they’ll take care of you. I suspect most, if not all, of Rick’s staff don’t consider their time at ETTBD to be just a job

And Rick’s not going to be rushing to get his tours resuming immediately. Reduce customers’ anxiety and they’ll remain customers. Thank you for providing this, Girasole! A Sunflower, when we can use sun and flowers!

Thank you, Cyn. I agree. Nice reference about the "sunflower." :)

And to add on to your thoughts: True, Rick is a ray of sunshine for a lot of people. There may be many in the World who don't know about his generosity and kindness. Some just know him as a tour operator. Sure, he is a businessman, but it is apparent he often "walks his talk." (One day, I hope to take a RS tour.)

Girasole,
If you take a tour, you will have the time of your life. I’ve been on 7 and they are uniquely appealing to a certain kind of person who is interested in being educated as well as entertained by wonderful European sights. You will have lots of free time to indulge your own interests, too.

Thanks Judy. Yes, I would like to explore other countries on a tour. Lots of good reviews written by travelers.

My last few trips were solo (my choice, lol.) I don't mind going solo to Italy as I feel very comfortable in and around. And I make friends easily.

My first trip to Italy was to stay for some time with a friend - born and bred - so I had my own personal guide if you will.

Also, I have a friend who is from and lives in Brazil. She has been inviting me to visit for some time. She became an attorney a while back. Even still, Brazil got hit hard with the virus, so I will wait of course.

Lee, I corrected my message above. Seems either I can’t spell, can’t hit the right tiny letter on the screen at the bottom of my phone, don’t proofread well, or the phone anticipates what it thinks I’m trying to say - and often guesses wrongly, putting in whatever suits it, or all of the above, and maybe even more that I haven’t considered. I get wound up, then stuck, trying to come up with a useful response, and even if I had 8 arms, all typing the whole time, it won’t get me out. I’m left dangling.

So my time on the Web hasn’t made me any better, while I try to spin some addition to a thread. That really bugs me! I’ll have to consider all that. In the meantime, Rick’s still paying his employees who can read and write. For us who are contributing for free, you sometimes really do just get what you pay for.

I'd be surprised if Rick isn't taking advantage of the PPP program. My fiance works for a small non-profit. They've already lost at least half their revenue for the year. It's helped them keep people employed.

Seems either I ... can’t hit the right tiny letter on the screen at
the bottom of my phone, don’t proofread well, or the phone anticipates
what it thinks I’m trying to say

"can’t hit the right tiny letter on the screen". That's why I use my desktop with a real keyboard whenever possible. I hate those "phone-y" keyboards.

"the phone anticipates what it thinks I’m trying to say". I think you did something to the spelling of "consider" so that your phone didn't recognize it and changed it into something it did recognize, even though what it changed it into didn't make sense. That happened to Lola one day when she used two German words in a sentence. Her iPad didn't recognize the words so it changed them into English words in it's dictionary, but the sentence became meaningless.

"don’t proofread well". Again, it's more difficult to proofread with a tiny phone screen than with my 32" monitor (what to do with a 32" flat screen TV when the tuner stops working), but now that you know you need to proofread more carefully .....

Lee, right you are - proofread well for spelling, punctuation, the whole deal. Downsizing has its costs. Cheers to you, to Rick, his devoted employees, and everyone making it through these difficult times.