I’m sitting in the airport pondering how the mechanical delays will add calendar days to my trip home. And here are some things I learned and observed:
- Flip flops aren’t shoes. They’re for the beach or pool. Why would anyone wear them in a public place where you have to do lots of walking, towing your luggage and standing around?
- Sweat pants are for the gym. If you’re wearing ‘sweats’ in public, you’re either a poor student, a jock, or in a committed relationship where you are signalling to everyone that you have let go of your personal standards for appropriate dress because you don’t have to appear attractive to anyone, anymore.
- If you lost your headphones, buy new ones! Don’t walk around holding your iphone or whatever six inches from your head with your music blasting.
- We’re not interested in hearing your doom and gloom economic forecast which you are explaining to the person on the other end of your phone conversation, loud enough for six restaurant tables to hear. Perhaps it’s not the economy. Perhaps it’s your bad manners that are causing your economic gloom.
- Gate attendants, who are chained to a gate delivering bad news about delays that they didn’t cause, have one of the toughest jobs in customer service.
- My friend Bill offered to get the gate attendants a drink or snack, since they were busy resolving the delayed plane situation and couldn’t get a break. They were shocked and awed at his generosity. A real class act.
- Nancy, the ‘in-charge’ flight attendant on the last leg of my flight, greeted boarding passengers who were much older than she was with “Welcome, Mr. or Mrs.”
- First class, as someone once said, isn’t a plane ticket. It’s how you act and treat people, regardless of where you sit.
So, if you’re a flip-flop and ‘sweats’ wearing, music blasting, loud phone talking traveller, please…take the bus.
Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved. Phil Symchych
