Tales from the Departure Lounge

 Frequent Flyers Club (Your Stories) May 2024

• Andy Plant & Nick Cuthbert • Season 3

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In this short interlude episode we get to know Nat Cole, director of operations at The Ambassador Platform who have been sponsoring the podcast. We discuss the incredible student stories that have featured in recent episodes and Nat's own adventures learning to drive in India. 

Your stories, features the winners of our 'Road Warriors' photo competition on LinkedIn. Thank you all for your entries! We've loved your over-sharing and confessions. Until next time, safe travels everyone. 

Tales from the Departure Lounge is a Type Nine production for The PIE www.thepienews.com

Wow. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Wow.

Andy:

hello everyone. Welcome to the frequent flyers episode of Tales from the Departure Lounge. This is our interlude episode where we talk about the engagement that we've had with the show. And we meet with one of our sponsors and this time it is nat Cole, who is the director of operations at the ambassador platform. Welcome to the show.

Nat:

It's lovely to be here.

Andy:

Uh, where are you today?

Nat:

actually in London. Yesterday we had our, summer party with IDP Connect, so it was quite a big day. Um, pulling up all right today, actually. I don't think the same can be said of everyone.

Andy:

Hmm. Think it's quite interesting to hear about, people's career journey. How did you end up at,

Nat:

I was an EA for about eight years over in the city and I just really wanted to do something different. So I applied for the job at the ambassador platform. Then we were a wonderfully scrappy little start up. And it was just so exciting. and they wanted an opportunity. I just read the job description and said, yeah, I can do all of this stuff. I've never seen anywhere else in my career, where people are so passionate about students, about education, and about learning.

Nick:

We got our heads together with Nick Higgins, one of the founders. And we said, we've got to do some student episodes. We're talking to everybody in the industry but we've got to actually talk to some students.

Nat:

I've loved hearing the student stories, like hearing that from the perspective of a refugee, hearing it from the perspective of an activist.

Nick:

two brothers who escaped from Afghanistan after their mother was killed for being a female judge.

Andy:

by the Taliban.

Nick:

A refugee who came from Kenya. and the most popular episode has been, The former SU president of Oxford university, who basically told us all of the elitist secrets of Oxford

Nat:

It was just something I'd never had exposure to before. again, it's a tap thing. It's authentic stories coming through and they were like, at some points, I'm not going to lie, they were absolutely harrowing, but they're the kind of You turn around and go, right, this is my day job and this is what I do. But mum, you need to listen to this. You're telling your friends, you need to have a listen to it because it's just really, really important things that are coming through. So thank you very much for

wow.

Andy:

We also ran a photo competition called Road Warriors. Professionals within our industry the photos that they've gathered through their time, on the road. And, we had some great ones, didn't we, Nick, that came in

Nick:

I'm always shocked about the things that people are prepared to share

Andy:

a professional network like LinkedIn. Yeah.

Nat:

The first image that came up, I don't know whether this is a broken link or something, was a gentleman who, he's not a large gentleman, I'm not saying that, but he is a male of a certain height on what seems to be a very small horse. It looked quite disproportionate and that flashed up on my screen

Andy:

we, we had a lot of entries and, we're going to take this opportunity to announce the winners who will get some official, incredibly rare Tales from the Departure Lounge merch.

Nat:

What is the merch specifically?

Nick:

We have some exclusive baseball caps that made an appearance at the Pi Live and we'll be at NAFSA as well. People want to get their hands on these. Surf Blue is very much in this summer.

Nat:

Right, you've heard it here first, Surf Blue,

Andy:

we've also got the now legendary Tales from the Departure Lounge luggage stickers.

Nick:

Although I seem to see people are using them to graffiti lampposts or airport toilets.

Andy:

So the winners are, Adam Petty from AECC, he was getting kissed by a giraffe quite willingly by the looks of things. we have Kev Dunn, who you've already mentioned that he was on a small horse, but the one that really impressed us was that he ran the Pyongyang marathon.

Nat:

These are amazing stories. absolutely hats off to these people.

Andy:

the next winner is Sarah Sanford from Edified. She posted a photo of, international student recruiters at an exhibition, all wearing Mexican wrestlers masks.

Nick:

This is a clever construct because people started guessing who was wearing the Mexican masks, really good effort.

Andy:

And finally we've chosen George Chilton he's from Hubber. Blas. There's no really easy way to describe this photo. Every descriptive word you use makes it sound rude. Um, he's a, he's a stride, a giant fallas. Um, he, he, he's riding a, a he's

Nick:

Go on.

Andy:

Uh, how else can you say it like he's sitting on.

Nick:

describe it as erotica art in, South Korea., there is a naked lady. mounted on the phallus of which George is kind of, tucked in as well in this scenario. It's very artistic

Nat:

Tucked in. That's not an expression I expected to hear

Nick:

it's also something that LinkedIn doesn't want to share. this photo only got 133 impressions where most of them are into the. Several thousands. Trying to metatag it as a banana didn't help with the algorithm.

Nat:

Did you try to use the word tucked in? It's just a suggestion again, just throwing it for you.

Nick:

massive respect to George.,

Andy:

A cap is on its way.

wow.

Nick:

There were loads of pictures here. Absolutely. Loads of pictures. I'm just going to reel some off Dev Desai, former guest running the Melbourne marathon., Leanne Lineker teaching English in South Korea. Rachel McSween, with, two armed militia in Nigeria. Imi, a friend of the show, who sprinted up to PP Viewpoint in Thailand in a pair of flip flops., Ian Harrison from Into, Lancaster, looking out across Petra. Michael Mayne in Kathmandu.

Andy:

What's that, app be real, it was those photos that I really liked the realities of the struggle for the people sleeping on floors of hotel lobbies and things like that. That's why I really liked it.

Wow.

Andy:

Which brings us on nicely to perhaps a travel story you might have of your own.

Nat:

Some people know this about me, some people don't, my dad and his brothers were born and raised in India, and they are what is classified as overseas citizens of India, and throughout the whole of, my younger life, spent a lot of time there, got a family house there, real beautiful location in the middle of the jungle, absolutely epic. I was learning how to drive, I was probably about 20 and, It's like, Dad, you'll take me out to drive. And he was like, yeah, fine. Every day we'd go down to the tiny little village and pick up some fried snacks together. Doing it every single day, same old road, literally for about four and a half weeks, same old road. Yeah. Second gear. Yeah. Come off here. And then one day dad was like, Oh, we need to go to the next town. We need to go pick up this stuff. And I was like, amazing. He was like, it's a bigger road. So, you've got to think a little bit more about things. So we're getting, going all the way down here. And he was like, you're doing great. But you might want to get on the other side of the road. And I was like, well, why would I be on the other side of the road? And he was like, well, you're driving on the wrong side of the road, sweetheart. And I was like, I've only ever driven on this side of the road. I've been driving on the wrong side of the road for about a month. And he just hadn't mentioned it. And through the chaos of India. Neither had anybody else. They all just gave me a little beep, they gave me a wave, they were all very happy to see me, no problems at all. Um,

Andy:

In India or something else, aren't they?

Nick:

Can remember an Indian agent and she said, well, thanks to the British, we drive on the left, but we also drive on the right and straight through roundabouts as well.

Nat:

that is absolutely classic. We also had quite a lot of wildlife to contend with down there. There was this family ongoing joke of don't turn left out of the end of the drive, because there's like real jungle. Went left. Literally banged straight into a herd of elephants with babies. And at this point, I should tell you, I Didn't have a lot of confidence in finding reverse. Which was slightly problematic.

Andy:

It's amazing experiences growing up there in the jungle.

Nat:

We had lots and lots of very interesting times. The coolest place I know with the most amazing stories is down there.

Wow.

Andy:

We've obviously partnered with the Ambassador Platform for these episodes and we've talked to students, we've talked to professionals in the industry. I just wondered if you had anything to say about the company and the power of this peer to peer, platform. Hmm.

Nat:

So like really, really simply put, the Ambassador platform, it's empowering students at universities to just share their experiences and build connections with prospective students. And that helps them just make more and more confident decisions about what they're going to do on their student journey. There's loads of other stuff that we do as well, but that's the absolute bread and butter of it. in terms of the values that the TAP team have. I mean, we're a big old global team. We're from a lot of different places. We've got a lot of different stories. So we do have a cool set of values that really, really unite us. um, with my HR head on, culture wise, I think about it all the time in terms of what is the ambassador platform culture? And honestly, we are so diverse that you just can't say we are one thing. I think there is an innate passion in all of us to be lifelong learners. It's really becomes our North Star and we have one in there we toyed Well, the co founders toyed for quite a long time, we have a real strong principle of nag and be nagged and just be unashamed about that. You've got busy people doing busy things. Remind them, nudge them. that's how you move the dial. That's how you continually progress

Andy:

yeah. And you don't mind when somebody nags you, kind of bumps you along, doesn't it? Hahaha. Unless it's my children, God's sake.

Nat:

Yeah, I think it's a real different dynamic when you put the nagging at home.

Nick:

we've recorded with Nick. it's in the bank

Nat:

Nick Higgins I've got so many photos of him arriving in Canada from Bali and he's literally got fluoro pink luggage wearing a pair of really ugly Crocs.

Nick:

Uh, we talked about his open, to fetish.

Andy:

It became a bit of a, suroperty podcast.

Nat:

Yeah, I make the mistake sometimes when I'm down the pub of, telling people that one of my bosses wears speedos to work. I don't mean what the Australians call budgie smuggler but he wears like, the long shorts, but they're made by speedo.

Andy:

Hmm. He's got his own style. I like it.

Nat:

There are words for that. Yes. Style is one of them.

Nick:

Is there a HR policy for that?

Nat:

Absolutely not. No way. Not a chance.

Andy:

Awesome. We have loved working with the ambassador platform for these shows. It's been a lot of fun. We've had a great fun with the competition. Great fun with all the engagement we've done. Thanks so much Nat for coming on and talking

Nat:

Thank you, I really look forward to hearing it.

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Andy Plant

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Nick Cuthbert

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