{"id":46811,"date":"2024-08-21T11:43:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T16:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/?p=46811"},"modified":"2024-08-21T11:43:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T16:43:06","slug":"2023-presidents-award-winner-whitney-shirley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/2024\/08\/21\/2023-presidents-award-winner-whitney-shirley\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 President\u2019s Award Winner: Whitney Shirley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What is your Envoy story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I got started with Envoy almost three years ago when I was 19 as a part time cross functional agent in Watertown, NY. At first, I was only planning to do it on the side while I pursued a marketing degree, but it turned into such a passion for me that I am now planning to make it my whole career! I accepted a promotion to full time customer service supervisor about a year ago and have been thrilled with all the learning opportunities that have come with it. To this day, I still have the supervisor job offer letter hanging up on my fridge because I was so excited about the new position! One thing I really value about Envoy is all the opportunities to develop yourself professionally through course offerings and seminars, which I really enjoy taking advantage of. Envoy leadership always seems very attentive to developing the skills of those below them to prepare them for the next steps, which is extremely important to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you believe sets your work approach apart from others?<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-46813 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_ART_Whitney_Shirley-300x225-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I was growing up, my parents always taught me to live by the \u201cGolden Rule,\u201d to treat others the way you want to be treated. I have done my best to apply this to my professional life, especially in my leadership role. I believe that if I take care of my agents and make sure they are set up for success, they are far more likely to be happy and productive at work. During IRROPs, I always make sure to get enough food and snacks for both the passengers and the agents to try to keep everyone calm in busy rebooking situations. The agents are always so appreciative, and the passengers are much more understanding of the circumstances when they can see that we really do care about their travel experience. Several times, passengers have come up to me to thank me months later when they are traveling for their next trip which always makes me happy that it worked out for them in the end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you stay motivated and maintain high standards in your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A big way that I stay motivated is remembering that I have the chance to make or break so many peoples\u2019 travel experiences. I once encountered an obviously distressed woman waiting outside security who disclosed to me that she was undergoing chemotherapy and felt extremely unwell but had to fly that night. I worked with her to change her seats to places she would be most comfortable and made sure she had the proper edit codes for when she reached her connecting destinations. When she was concerned about having to throw away her ginger ale in security, I checked and ensured she would be able to buy a new one as soon as she crossed the checkpoint and spoke with the flight attendant to make sure she knew that this woman may need extra care on the flight. When she boarded her flight, she hugged me and gave me the sincerest thank you I have ever received. Experiences like that motivate me to care for each of our passengers extra because we never know what battles someone else is fighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is your Envoy story? I got started with Envoy almost three years ago when I was 19 as a part time cross functional agent in Watertown, NY. At first, I was only planning to do it on the side while I pursued a marketing degree, but it turned into such a passion for me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":46812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[179],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46814,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46811\/revisions\/46814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.envoyair.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}