| Jun012009 | Bribery and Apology |
Air travel is already pretty emasculating. You shell out hundreds of dollars to sit in cramped seats being told exactly what to do and when to do it. Meal times are the only highlight and you can’t go to the bathroom when the carts are out. You watch the tiny seat-mounted TV screen like a spoiled child on a road trip.
I found out recently, though, that air travel can indeed be more humiliating thanks to those talented folks at Qantas.
First our flight was delayed by two hours and instead of giving a worthwhile explanation, they just waved two food vouchers in my face. Instead of $30, I would have preferred if someone just told me why it was delayed, could it be delayed further, what still needs to be done and how I need to adjust my travel plans. My first reaction to flight delays is not “Damn! I am outraged and hungry!”
Second is when I tried to ask a Qantas gate staffer about what to do with our connecting flight. Our gate was a weird one where you board on a lower level but you cannot access that lower level until boarding begins. Hence, there is a knowledgeable employee at the boarding gate but they are on a level you cannot reach. Upstairs, there is a rudimentary table with some phones where a customer service person could theoretically make themselves available but I felt incredibly stupid after two minutes of standing at an empty desk waiting for someone to acknowledge me.
When someone did walk by, she was terse and told me that all this could be handled once we were allowed downstairs. Then boarding began and we were all rushed on to the plane because the flight was delayed 2.5 hours now and Qantas was probably dreading the kinds of customer bribes they’d need to pay if further delays occurred.
So I crawled to my tiny seat and started to sleep some of the worst sleep in my life; waking occasionally to poke at my sudoku puzzle or eat a hearty meal of badly cooked beef (they were all out of the chicken, this is what happens when one meal choice is in everyway superior to the other). This was all standard air travel crap that everyone endures but then at some point, the entertainment system started shutting down and hot chocolate was spilled on to my arm whilst I was asleep.
The hot liquid hit my arm and I awoke startled but dazed. I wasn’t immediately aware of my situation and thought some idiot had just bumped my seat while waddling down the narrow aisles. It wasn’t until I fully awoke minutes later that I realized there were several brown liquid stains on my arm that smelt like chocolate. I sat there humiliated that I had been attacked by some stranger’s clumsiness and I had no recourse. Also, there were no movies to watch so there was nothing to do but reflect on how much everything sucked.
What felt like fifteen minutes later, a flight attendant approached me and apologized for the stains on my hoodie, supposedly caused by a crew member that decided it’s ok to run along the aisles of a 747 with hot liquid in hand. Before I could say anything, she was telling me that she’d bargained with her manager for $50 worth of duty free merchandise. Despite more bribery, I did feel a little better that the crew did finally own up to a mistake, though it was not the person that actually caused the mistake.
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at the duty-free shopping onboard a plane but as I flipped through the products, I realized that $50 is a goddamn insult. It’s really only luxury products that attract duty so giving me $50 to spend is like giving someone 50¢ to go shop at the dollar store.
I begrudgingly picked out some stupid $50 shower radio thing that I knew would suck. I pressed the Call button and… nothing happened. Evidently, the button to call an attendant is part of the entertainment system. After more reflection on how stupid this all was, I got out of my seat, walked over to the galley and asked the lady there to ring up my duty free. She was about to tell me to sit down and wait to receive my voucher first (the voucher system is also part of the entertainment system) when the manager stopped by and confirmed that yes, they did pour hot shit on my arm and I deserve a goddamn shower radio for my troubles. As I left the galley with the lame-ass prize in my hand and the most hollow feeling I’ve felt since being bullied in the first grade, the manager patted me on the shoulder and said, “Enjoy that, buddy!”
No.
Suitable phrases would have been, “Again, we’re sorry”, “Enjoy the rest of the flight” or “I use that shower radio and it is awesome!” However, I am not your “buddy” and you don’t get to talk to me like some child that stopped crying when you handed him an ice cream cone. I don’t know what kind of fucked-up situations you’ve encountered in your lives that have so strongly blurred the lines between bribery and apology but there were some genuine mistakes that you could have turned into positive experiences.
At the end of the day, I bear no grudge. This kind of shit happens and I don’t really care to hold on to these feelings for the rest of my life; I don’t want to be that cranky old coot that refuses to fly with Qantas because twenty years ago, he got bad service. I just want staff to appreciate that customers will find air travel terrifying, threatening, exhausting, frustrating and just plain bureaucratic. It wouldn’t kill you to actually have a dialog with passengers sometimes.
P.S. The shower radio is fucking awful. Do not ever buy it.
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