“WAYMISH”

When we last left you we had arrived home.  But not before we ran into some WAYMISH stories.  I’ll repeat the WAYMISH description from the last blog entry to get you up to speed.  After having a few experiences of not-so-smart handling of customer situations on de”bark”ation day, I was motivated to go into a bit of a rant on what I call “WAYMISH”.  A friend of mine, Ray Considine, who passed away a few years ago wrote a couple books called “WAYMISH (Why Are You Making It So Hard) to Give Me Your Money”.  For Amazon link click here.   It is a collection of real-life stories about companies who did things that made it hard for people to do business with them.  I was even included in the book regarding a situation that Ray and I had renting an Avis car in Denver back in 1995, but that’s another story.  My editor (Margaret) said that this was all too much for the De”bark”ation Post so it is now this next post).  Let it also be said that more frustrating things happened to us on our trip home than is in this post but I picked out the most egregious.

Here goes my first effort at being a WAYMISH advocate.  All of this and more happened to us just yesterday on our way home:

1. Salmon 1 bag tags.  You’ve heard that story already in yesterday’s post or click here.  Ended up with all of us (even the non-Salmon’s) having to swim a long way up stream to get to our flights.  It’s not the best way to end our 65 day Circle South America trip by having to circle Miami International on foot.
2. When we went to check in at American we used the kiosk and quickly and efficiently obtained our boarding passes.   After our bus experience we said, “Wow, this is really good, things have turned around!”.  The kiosk said to take your bags over to the TSA bag acceptance location.  I looked up, saw a TSA bag acceptance location nearby and walked our bag over.  They said I needed to get my baggage tags first. I said, “Duh”.  But why didn’t the kiosk tell me that?  It clearly said to now take my bags to the TSA location.  I went back over to the kiosk bank and patiently waited to have my named called to retrieve my bag tag, like they do at most American counters around the country.  After 10 minutes I politely asked the lady behind the counter, who appeared to be helping customers who DIDN’T use the kiosk, when my name would be called.  She said, “You need to stand in the line over there (pointing to a line with 10 people in it) and we’ll help you when your turn comes up. Turns out that the kiosk has no connection whatsoever with the kiosk checking and number of bags to check question contained in that process.  So, you quickly get your boarding pass sans human intervention, then stand in another line to start another process, go up to the counter lady, give her your name and have her manually enter your name, etc.  Huh?  Since we were tenth in line I politely (like First Class passengers would!) asked her if there was a First Class line.  She said there was but it was about three football fields of walking to get to it.  Huh?  After waiting for another 10 minutes I had my bag tag and dropped it off at TSA.  The TSA process was brilliant!  They took my bag quickly and efficiently. By the way, I have well over 2 million (that’s 2,200,000!) miles and lifetime Platinum on American and over 5 million miles on all airlines (think “Up in the Air”) so I know a thing or two about good and bad airline business processes.
3. OK, we’re on the plane in First Class.  The movie is over (Up in the Air of all things!) and everyone is ready to go to the restroom.  Being the last row of First Class there is a Coach restroom very near me but, being the considerate traveler that I am, I leave that for the 130 other people who desperately need that one and walk up to the First Class restroom.  Just as I am getting there, the guy in row 1 gets up and goes into the lavatory in front of me.  I think, “No problem, I’ll just sit down in his aisle seat and wait for him”.  Nice try.  Just as he is about to get out, the phone rings and it’s the co-pilot saying he has to go number one (I’m just guessing on the number one part, but he has to go and go now!).  So, as soon as the row 1 guy comes out with a smile on his face, the two flight attendants muscle a food cart out and block my path.  I have to go back to my seat without a smile on my face. So, the co-pilot comes out, stretches for a couple minutes and then proceeds to have a conversation with the flight attendants for about 12 minutes.  I’m not kidding here.  This is the WAYMISH blog after all and WAYMISH reporters have to keep track of the facts.  Once he’s had his stimulating conversation with the two middle aged flight attendants, he goes in the restroom and, after about five minutes, comes out with a smile on his face.  He stretches a bit more, has another 2 minute conversation and goes back in the cockpit.The flight attendants start to move the food cart synchronized with me starting my walk to what I think is the lavatory.  However, just as I get there the phone rings and, just as I’m walking to the “protected zone” she tells me that the pilot has to go tinkle too.  Exasperated I just ask her if I can go first.  She says “NO! and you can’t be here…go back to your seat NOW!” as she moves the food cart forcefully in my path with a great deal of satisfaction.  Think, “Take that, you, you, you First Class passenger that has to go to the lavatory and doesn’t understand that the pilot is more important than you!”. I say something to the effect of (nicely of course, sort of), “I can’t believe that you would block the First Class Restroom for 20 minutes and, at the same time, give absolutely no service to all the First Class customers on a 2.5 hour flight so your Pilot and Co-Pilot can go to the bathroom”.  She says, “You should ring your call button if you want service”.  I say, “What are you going to do?  Jump over the food cart?”.  She says, “Good point sir, but, stop being so logical and go back to your seat NOW!”.  I go back to my seat as Margaret normally and justifiably gets really upset when I get arrested at the airport by TSA at the end of our 65 day vacations.OK, Franco, I know that you and Judy are now saying that I didn’t listen to your “Relax” advice at all.  Yet, now the pilot comes out of the cockpit, does the obligatory 2 minute pilot stretch, chats for a couple minutes with the flight attendants, one of which is now glaring at me, satisfied that I have been suitably denied any relief, while Margaret holds me back from rushing the cockpit (just kidding about the last part but she WAS holding me back).  He does his thing for several minutes (enough time for number 2?), comes out, has another short chat and stretch and heads back to fly the plane.  The flight attendant moves the cart at which point six other First Class passengers jump up in sequence to do their thing, blocking my path.  I have been their advocate and they have absolutely no respect for my efforts.  Go figure.  Just as I’m ready to get a spot in the lavatory approach pattern there are a few bumps and the flight attendant (the glaring one) comes on and says that all passengers must take their seat because of turbulence.  In about 10 minutes, the light goes off, another 2 passengers rush the lavatory ahead of me and, just when I’m ready to go, so to speak, they announce that we are in the final approach and all passengers must take their seat.  Ugh!  Is this really happening?  How could Franco expect me to relax at this point?So, in the end I waited until we reached the Admirals Club at DFW happy that I had another WAYMISH story to add to the list and blog material to write for you.  All I can say is, “Thank God I’ve been mostly flying Southwest between my home town and LA for the past six years…I think I would have been arrested and put in jail by now if I had to deal with this every other week!”.  And, Franco, if you read this, yes, I will try to relax.  It is very clear to me that you are  absolutely right!
4. On the final leg of the flight (3 hours) we had a male flight attendant.  He was very nice and attentive.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling Margaret how good he was compared to the previous glareres (is that a word?) on the DFW flight.  When he came back with the food cart to serve our First Class food (he was going back to front and  we were the last row) he gave us our choice of meals as if we were in Prime 7 on the Mariner including wine and roll selections and proceeded to move onto the two ladies to our left.  I once again made the mistake of once again telling Margaret how efficient he was.  At that point he proceeded to have a 10 minute annoyingly loud conversation with the two adjacent ladies about something that I can’t even remember but certainly something that no one on the plane but those two ladies cared about.  I’m not kidding.  Everyone in the cabin is waiting for their dinner and he has a 10 minute plus conversation with them before serving just one of them dinner.  At this rate he won’t be done before the flight lands!  To make matters worse, he goes to the row in front of us and starts up a conversation with a thin, young blonde with an annoying voice sitting in front of Margaret.  They’re talking about skiing, which shuttle to take to the ski area and who knows what at a volume level that would have been suitable for a bar that is cranking up for the night.  Ugh!  I had blog writing to do and this was penetrating even my Bose noise suppressing headsets!  Good thing I was eating dinner or this blog might have been shorter.  This enlightening interchange only took 7 minutes before he moved on and I dedicated myself to not paying attention anymore.  After all, we had our dinners and enough wine to last for an hour!  Of course, the entire time that he was getting to know everyone on the flight except for us he was blocking the only access to the restroom with the only other one at the very back of the MD80 and you had to walk past 100 people who looked at you with that “who do you think you are that you’re so special you get to sit up there with your own semi-private restroom that you can’t even get to?” kind of look.
5. OK, one more WAYMISH tidbit.  It’s not really a company one, more a personal annoyance item but what the heck.  While we were at the Admirals Club in Dallas, we chose (OK, we could have just gotten up, I know) to sit next to a 30’ish professional woman who was sitting adjacent to us, with her megaphone-like mouth pointed right at us (wow, I’m starting to get REALLY cynical now.  I promise, I would never say anything like that about anyone that reads this blog!).  She obviously had on some type of earphone and was speaking on her cellphone to one of her Ernst & Young Associates.  LOUDLY!  Like so loudly that everyone in the room could hear the entire conversation and it was a large room.  After 20 minutes of me clearly glaring at her I could have taken over the GE account that had problems with their tax accounting for the interest expenses on their long term bonds related to the blah, blah, blah project that her associates couldn’t blah, blah, blah figure out.  You get the idea.  First, this was definitely highly confidential information from a major division of GE (I won’t mention the exact division and bonds in question name as I DO care about confidentiality but I DO know the all the gruesome details thanks to loudmouth).  Second, how could she possibly think that 20 other people wanted to get involved in her Ernst & Young accounting problems?  I guess she wanted to impress us with her vast knowledge of complex tax accounting.  Or, maybe she was trying to get one of the guys in the room to come over and start a relationship?  I even started talking loudly with Margaret about my blog plans looking right at her but to no effect.  Apparently, this is standard procedure for Ernst & Young accountants.  Well, actually, this IS a WAYMISH story after all come to think of it.  Because, I used to use Ernst & Young at my Dallas-based company back in the mid-90’s.  But, I can absolutely GUARANTEE you that I will NEVER use them again as I would not want my accountants to be blabbing my confidential information around the Admirals Club.

Wow, I’ve got to go work out now to cool off and then spend the rest of my day relaxing with the mountain of yard work that has to be done.  But that’s how I relax.  And, I DO feel better now that I got all that angst off my chest and into your head!