But I suppose I have to put an end to the creative exhortations for me to post. They were counterproductive though--I was enjoying them too much to give a reason to stop. :P
Well, what's new? I've been watching the Steve Yzerman number retirement ceremony and game tonight. Pretty good, if the production is as cheesy as expected . My favorite moment was the part of his speech where he questioned his reputation as a leader, saying all he did was go out and play hard like everyone else did. In this day of pampered superstar/Terrell Owens crap, that is leadership, especially from your one-of-the-greatest stud players.
What other newness? Applying for faculty jobs again...no word yet. I think most of you know I've been seeing a wonderful woman named Julie for several months now...we've survived family Christmases into 2007. We barely survived United airlines though. I'll repost a diatribe I wrote for elsewhere as a comment in this thread. I haven't decided whether to bowdlerize it yet. I mean, the cursing's creative, but I suppose this is public, you know?
I have taken care of some of my reading list. Cryptonomicon and Bringing Down the Househave been finished, but World War Z and The Last Town on Earth have been added. I've decided this is how I should keep pressure on myself to read--always have a list of at least half a dozen things to shame me into not watching "Celebrity Deathmatch" or some such nonsense.
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2 comments:
As promised...
So, Julie and I were to fly from National to Grand Rapids via O'Hare. Dangerous enough, that sub-hour connection through O'Hare. But it was the only way to get anywhere within pick-up distance of Manistee for less than $350,000 by the time we booked.
We arrive at National at 0415 for our 0600 flight. United does not open their counter until 0445; a line backs up and clogs the gate area, aided by those who missed connections due to the first Denver blizzard's snags. All we need to do is check bags at this point, but I have to hassle an agent just to get a line set up for that, as opposed to those who have to do much booking hassle.
Well, we get through, and it's rather uneventful at first. My insulin pump set off the metal detector--diabetics are security threats, I guess--but fortunately the TSA employee wanding me was equipped with a brain. Anyway we get to O'Hare, start hustling to make our connection--smartly aided by Julie noticing the shuttle betweeen terminals--and they're not exactly getting reading to board the little jump flight to Grand Rapids. This turns out to be because they brought a smaller plane than expected.
Now, the gate agents know what they're in for here, having to work a bunch of people over. So whether it's protocol or just easiest, they re-issue boarding passes by mapping one seat to its corresponding number. So if you're in the back, and that row doesn't exist on the new plane, ooh, too bad. This is the ridiculous situation we found ourselves in. Effectively, bumped despite our confirmed seats. Were we offered anything? Nope.
We stand in line at the Customer Misservice counter, where one employee is trying to direct some of the long line of disgruntled passengers down to another such counter. Instead of, say, getting behind the desk and helping people to make the line move faster. After a year in line, we figure we can still make next Christmas at home and see what we can do. Do they offer us tickets? No. A refund? We asked, and were told they would be we'd have to do that from home, and decided to let it drop. Every other flight to GR is of course booked. Standby ain't going to cut it when 15 other people are in the same situation we are. We suggested getting a rental car that they pay for, since they pantsed us on this one. Nope, that got shot down too. Meal vouchers? We were too distracted to ask, but the losers couldn't volunteer that, either.
We did have the presence of mind to ask about our luggage. Because, you know, we could get it and drive to meet my folks at a slightly more central point between Chicago and Manistee than GR is. Oh, but no--the geniuses put the luggage on the plane. Um, Lockerbie, anyone? And how do you fit the luggage of a dozen or more passengers beyond the cabin seating onto the plane anyway?
Well, we go to standby for an 1108 flight. Which keeps sliding to an 1145 flight, as the plane is not arriving. So we decide to at least get control of our fate and rent a car one-way to GR. Which I am also submitting to the jerks at United to be reimbursed for.
They way back was almost as bad, but not as full of idiocy above and beyond the call of the usual screw-your-customer technique. The plane in GR was delayed by a door that wouldn't close, so we were two hours plus late in taking off. Needless to say, our connection was long gone. Of course, they had one gate agent trying to rebook 60 people, and he kept running off to deal with things from other flights, or possibly pick his butt, instead of working through the line. I tried calling but you cannot actually get a human being at United's number, and Magic Voice cannot deal with something so common as rebooking a flight that is not due to customer option.
Well, I get up to the front of the line...and the next flight from Chicago arrives. So he's got to deal with that instead of me...and then they decide to board our plane. So Julie and I do not get rebooked.
Oh, except we were--United convienently rebooked us. Without, you know, alerting anyone. And expecting us to set land speed records across O'Hare to get there. By the time we got to the front of Customer Laughing-at-and-Mocking at O'Hare, when we found out we'd missed that standby, there was no confirmed seating back to National that night. We got confirmed seats on a flight to Dulles later just to be sure we'd get back. (Julie's family gave us a lift back to Arlington)
Oh, and our checked bags made our rebooked connection. Once again, they sent our luggage on without us. For the record, they were 0 for 2 in getting us to our destination airport, but 2 for 2 with our luggage.
I think the driving time, door-to-door, from NoVA to Manistee is around 16 hours. Both of our door-to-door transit times were around 14.
So I give United a 1 of 10 on plane reliability, 7 of 10 on baggage transit, and negative 7,356 out of 10 on helpful customer service. Next time I hear about an airline bailout, I plan to write Congress with this little story.
Wow! This should have been its own post, and not just a comment!
By the way, how about a little praise for me for keeping your blog interesting while you were gone. Did you read all my comments on the "One Year Later" post? That was not all spam!
Well, I guess it KIND of was spam. It was EVIL SPOON spam!! MUAH HA HA!
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