November 15th, 2009 by Neal
I’ve had people call the police on me a few times. Usually it’s because I’m having a disagreement with someone and they think (erroneously) that threatening me with the police will get me to do what they want me to do.
It never works. I call their bluff, the police come, and they end up looking like asses. One time it might not, but hell, so far so good, usually because I think before I call bluffs.
Happened a while back when a dude threatened to kick my dad’s ass, then called the police when I told him not to.
I quit the teaching college because a teacher at Woodring threatened to call the police because I refused to, as he put it, “show proper respect.” Meaning I disagreed with him about a matter of minutiae and refused to bow to him, and he was so threatened by this that he contacted campus security.
I am consistently amazed when people think you should call the police because someone disagrees with you and won’t back down. I understand when the police are called when threats are made, when someone escalates a situation. All that makes sense.
I think it’s the bullshit factor. People know they can play it up when the police arrive, and say, “Oh, he was screaming, waving a brick!”
The problem with that theory is that police can detect bullshit. Sometimes they’re corrupt, sometimes they’re racist, but usually they can tell when someone is lying or telling the truth, and when they arrive on a scene and hear, “That man threatened me!” and find a quiet, calm person insisting in low tones that they haven’t threatened anyone, they know where the bear shits. Some day that might fail me, but I have a faith in it and it’s served me well over time.
My uncle died about two weeks ago, on a Friday night. It was a coronary, as far as we can figure, but we didn’t do an autopsy. He had a history of smoking and had just had bypass surgery, and an illness exacerbated the condition, so the family didn’t want to put itself through more hell. That’s neither here nor there, but anyway, about two weeks ago I got a text from my father indicating that my uncle had passed, and I decided that it would be best to go to South Carolina to be with my extended family for a few weeks.
My grandmother and grandfather are saints, and I love them to death. When I was a kid they would fly all the way across the country to spend Christmas with us, and when my mother was going through the worst of her alcoholism, my Grandmother flew all the way over to spend some time with us and help keep the kids taken care of. That meant a lot to me, and I never properly expressed my thanks, and so there was no question in my mind when my Grandmother and Grandfather had experienced such a loss that I would be there in return for them. I hope I did well enough.
My mother took care of the booking, as I was rushing to get north, and we ended up with a two transfer ride to South Carolina. Seattle to Chicago, Chicago to Washington DC, DC to SC. That’s after a Portland to Tacoma train ride. Total travel, we’re looking at 24 hours. If they didn’t screw anything up. And airlines never screw up, right? Uh-huh. Not on UNITED AIRLINES.
Good times.
The easiest part of the schedule would be the layover between Chicago and DC, because we had three and a half hours between when we arrived and when the plane left. We got on the plane, sat down, and began to wait.
Thirty minutes in, it was explained that there was a mechanical defect, should be fixed shortly.
Two hours later, we were told that anyone who had already missed a transfer could get off the plane and make new arrangements, but the flight was NOT cancelled. As they said the flight was not cancelled, we watch them take all of the luggage off and drive it away. We asked the stewardess if they were just removing the people on other planes’ luggage, and they said no, all of the luggage. But the flight’s not cancelled? No.
Ahkay. We get off the plane, knowing that the problem is not resolved and there is approximately fifteen minutes or so between when we’d have to leave and when we’d arrive in time to catch out transfer in DC.
When we got off, there was a mad rush of people trying to find other planes. It took about ten minutes to get down the runway, only to be told as we walked out, “WE’RE LEAVING!”
So we turn around, run our asses in, sit down again, and I immediately call a stewardess, because now if we leave immediately and arrive on time, there’s ten minutes between arrival and when my plane leaves. I ask her if they can hold the plane, inform them that we’re arriving late. She says she doesn’t know if she can, but if the plane is still there, she’ll make sure we’ll get on, and she will call ahead.
This is important, so I ask her twice. Are you sure? Yes, she nods. I say, because if you’re not sure, we should wait and transfer to a direct flight. As it is, we’ll have to book it.
Oh, she’s real sure.
The plane is practically empty, so she even moves us up to first class. I sit in first class for the first time in my life.
We get there with ten minutes to cross the airport. We do. It is not fun.
When we arrive, we see the plane at the gate. They are, quite literally, closing the door as we arrive. I stop, I say, “We’re the ones they called ahead about! Don’t close the door!”
She informs me that the gate is closed and we cannot be allowed on and there was no call. I tell her she needs to call someone, because they were supposed to call ahead, and we need to get on that plane for funeral arrangements.
She tells us to go fuck ourselves, essentially. I point at the plane, and I say that the plane is still there. That she just closed the door. That it can be opened.
She says they do not do that since 9-11. I tell her that I’ve personally been on a plane that did it for me. When I was flying to Florida, I was LATE to the scheduled departure time by ten minutes for a transfer, and because I was running, and because I’d phoned ahead, they re-opened the gate.
And this is true.
She would not open the door. The plane was right there.
We were understandably very angry about this. My dad more so than me, because he has a nuclear temper, and I am a very quiet, patient angry person. I will not explode. I don’t. I simply lay out where someone is wrong and then walk away if they’re not going to listen, something I’ve learned over the years watching folks like my dad get pissed for no reason about all kinds of shit and gain nothing. I think I’ve actually screamed only at people in my own family, and that more and more rarely. Kristen? Yeah, a few times. That’s love for you. Occasional screaming matches. But the point of that? I don’t do it in public. Maybe that’s a dysfunctional trait, but I know it’s supposed to be kept to myself, and I keep my temper.
So we walk all the way across the terminal (take a bus/train) again back to UNITED AIRLINES. I will repeatedly capitalize UNITED AIRLINES so that hopefully people google searching UNITED AIRLINES will see how badly we were fucked and treated by UNITED AIRLINES and cease to use them as a carrier.
This is appx 12:19 EST, And I know this because we got to the plane in DC we were supposed to take at 12:18 and the gate was scheduled to close at 12:21, a fact I pointed out to the gate attendant which was ignored.
At about 12:30, we reach the counter at UNITED AIRLINES. My father throws down our papers and says that his flight that he was on time for wouldn’t let him on even though we called ahead, and says, “FIX IT.” then walks off to let me do the talking, because he’s lost his temper. Wise, because I don’t lose my temper, even though at this point I’m pretty hacked. He knows this, I think, and leaves it to me.
I’ve lost my temper a few times. By losing my temper I don’t mean getting angry. I mean becoming so incoherent pissed that I see red and could potentially end up in jail. It’s real rare, because I’ve seen a lot of shit and can put anger in perspective.
At this point, on a scale of 1 to going to jail, I was probably about a 7. In other words, literally, unless a clown comes out and hits me with a pie and says, “HA HA! YOU MISSED YOUR FLIGHT!” I would remain at 7. And even then I might titter, because hey man, clown!
I explain calmly to the lady that we were denied access to the flight, and how upset my father was given the fact that his brother is dead and he is being suffered by delay, and how we expected the next available flight, given that we had important funeral arrangements to attend to and people waiting on us. I explained that it was awful that we were not allowed on the plane when it was right there, and how I’d been let on flights late before.
The woman was very sympathetic and kind, and immediately printed out two tickets to a US AIRWAYS flight through UNITED AIRLINES that would leave at 1:30. Boards at 1:10. Plenty of time to get there. You’ll have to stop in North Carolina, but it only adds two hours to the trip (I’m already 24 hours in, note, for a five hour flight). Great. Thumbs up and I’m on my way.
I take the confirmation number, which she writes out, with very explicit instructions for the lady at US AIRWAYS, and sends us on our way.
We cross again to the other side of the airport (and that’s literal, not like, we had to hoof aways, I mean the OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT, a train and half a mile or so).
We get to the US AIRWAYS counter, and there is no one in line. We hand our itinerary and confirmation numbers to the woman we had just heard confirming our flight over the phone to the woman at the UNITED desk, and she shakes her head and apologizes and says she cannot issue tickets at the US AIRWAYS counter for a flight booked through UNITED.
I ask her to call the UNITED AIRLINES desk and have the lady give her the information through the phone. It’s now 12: 35.
She says she can’t, and that in the time it took for us to walk over, the flight has been booked solid. We’ll have to go back to the UNITED AIRLINES desk (across the airport) and get a ticket printed there for the plane at the US AIRWAYS desk, provided the itinerary really exists, and she can’t see it.
Sounds convoluted, I know. I only remember all this shit because I wrote it down.
So we walk a half mile (more run), get on the bus/train thing, cross the airport, hoof it back to UNITED AIRLINES customer service.
I hand the stuff to the new woman (the woman who issued the tickets is of course gone), and my dad stays about twenty yards away, pacing. I tell him to do this, because I don’t want him to get arrested. He’s at 11. I’m at 8.
I explain that the tickets she gave us were unsatisfactory, and that we need tickets on THAT VERY PLANE, and now, because it’s 12:50 and the plane is going to board in twenty minutes.
She spends ten minutes making calls, and hangs up the phone, and then informs me that only a US AIRWAYS counter can ticket a US AIRWAYS flight, she can’t help us. Must be a computer error.
I ask to speak to her supervisor. She calls, lets the supervisor know that it’s urgent, and that we need to see her now.
Ten minutes later, 1:00, the supervisor arrives, and from the minute she arrives her attitude is what!? I’m busy! I can’t be here right now! She’s mad I’ve asked for her aid, basically, and thinks I should keep dealing with the people who are making us miss our flight.
She turns to me and asks how she can help me. I explain to her the whole story, we’re heading for a funeral, our plane was delayed four hours, we were at the gate when a plane was there and they wouldn’t let us on despite the fact that we asked them to phone ahead and the stewardess said she would, and then we were sent across the airport twice to a plane we had confirmed tickets on, supposedly those confirmed tickets cannot be issued at either counter, and we need tickets immediately to get on the plane, along with, likely, a shuttle to get us there on time.
1:05.
She looks at the computer, explains that the tickets must be issued at US AIRWAYS. This is extraordinarly frustrating, given that I have just explained to her that they said this to us the first time, and then when we went there they wouldn’t issue them. In other words, she hasn’t heard what I just told her. She says that she’s sorry, but we have to go back to the US AIRWAYS desk and take it up with them.
I tell her that I want her to call them and confirm the tickets will be there if we go there. She refuses. I ask her why. She says she can’t. Right after her subordinate just DID, the lady who disappeared. I watched her do it. I explain this to the supervisor.
I say we need tickets on that plane. She nods, then starts typing, and prints us tickets. My dad comes over and says, “This needs to get fixed. Now. I’m late for a funeral, and you guys need to fix this, now.” He’s got a loud voice about it, but he’s not SHOUTING, per ce. He goes back to his pacing. It’s a typical snit you see people having at an airline counter, not anything violent.
Throughout all of this, I’ve maintained my calm tone of voice and reasonable explanation, note. She looks at my dad when he walks away, actually rolls her eyes, and then hands me tickets tucked into a packet. That’s when she started getting overtly hostile with me. I remained calm. This too is important.
I ask her if these will get us on the plane. She nods, and starts to walk away. I ask her to wait, and tell her I’d still like her to call the US AIRWAYS desk. She says she can’t again. Then she tells me that I need to watch my attitude or I’ll just have to wait for the next plane. This attitude she speaks of is asking her twice to call ahead and confirm, not any shouting or threats or the like. This, contrasted with the fact that I’ve been completely calm and forgiving, rankles me. Inside I’m getting really angry, outside I am projecting calm. I’m very good at this.
9.
She says that it was the computer’s fault, not her fault, and we really didn’t need to call a supervisor to deal with this situation, berates me for escalating, essentially. I explained to her that we’d been trying to get a straight answer from someone for almost an hour, and that the problem wasn’t so much how badly we’d been dicked, but more that we weren’t being told where we stood, that’s all we need. I mean, if they’d said we had to wait an hour or two, fine, but they said we could get on a 1:30 plane, and here my father has had to call his father and explain that he’d be late by hours and hours repeatedly when time was an important factor. I just need some straight answers, and her lower staff wasn’t accomplishing that, and that’s why I called for a supervisor, because time was off the essence.
She says she has to go, and I tell her that this hasn’t been resolved to my satisfaction, and I still need to speak with her. She says no. I ask to speak to her supervisor, given that she’s not resolving the issue. Now, I know what you’re imagining, because even typing it I see the image. A dude, yelling unreasonably at a person behind a counter, getting more and more angry. That’s most people. It’s not me. When I get angry, I get calm and quiet. That might be more scary than loud and boisterous, who knows, but it is still, I emphasize, calm and quiet.
She explains that she is the manager, and that there is no higher supervisor I can talk to. I tell her that’s not the case, I know it’s not. (Because I’ve seen my own mother, in the above mentioned kind of tirade, go to a manager’s manager’s manager).
She refused to get her manager for me. Then she walked up on me (and I don’t mean walked up to me, I mean walked up on me, in the street “we’re gonna fight” sense), and put her chin in my face and said “You need to watch your attitude.”
10.
I shake my head, turn around and start walking away. I walk off and say, “Fuck you” as I go. Like, “Take my attitude and shove it up your ass.” or more appropriately, “I’ve had enough of you, goodbye, thanks for nothing.”
It’s in a calm tone of voice, casual. Like, eh, fuck you.
Ironically, she’s the first one to scream in all of this. She runs out into the big hall and yells, “FINE! YOU CAN GO TO JAIL, THEN! POLICE! POLIIIIIIIICE!” This wonderful representative of UNITED AIRLINES.
I keep walking away. I am not pursued or slapped into cups for use of the word “fuck.” Amazing.
We get on the tram, we go to the other side of the airport, that’s when I’m finally calm enough again to look at the tickets. Back to 7.
4:30 flight with a transfer, not the 1:30 that’s leaving in 20 minutes now.
I get to the other side of the airport, get on the bus again, and go right back to the UNITED AIRLINES desk.
The underlings are still there, and when I walk up an underling looks concerned and picks up a phone. I hold up a hand and explain, “Look, I just want to reassure you all that my intentions are in no way violent, and when I said fuck you to that lady it was in regards to her behavior, not a threat of any kind. She gave me a bad ticket, and I don’t want to deal with you guys any more than you want to deal with me, but I still have to fix this. It’s obvious I can’t work to her, so I need to speak to her manager’s manager and I would like you to accommodate this, please. Or, you know, call the security people because I used a curse word. I’d like to think the first amendment still protects that, though, so long as I’m not threatening to hurt anyone. We’ll see.”
She picks up the phone.
In ten minutes, the manager’s manager arrives. Wow. He really did exist.
He asks what the problem is. I explain the whole situation, and explain further how much it truly takes to make me lose my temper, and that yes, perhaps I shouldn’t have said fuck you, but then, why is it okay for his company to press and press on people and then get upset when we demand a recompense, and yet when we push back calmly, the police get called.
All I really wanted, I told him, was to get to a damned funeral. I didn’t care when, I wanted the fastest flight I get, but no one could be straight about it. I explained I hadn’t been violent, I hadn’t yelled, only his employee had screamed in this whole affair.
He said that the only flight I could now get was the one in my hand, and we weren’t being accommodated in any way because I was threatening and malicious. I asked him how I could be threatening and malicious when I never raised my voice.
He said because I said the word. He wouldn’t even say it. I said, “You mean fuck? The word fuck?”
He looks at me like I should stop saying it. I say, “You know, I could have said ‘I think you are ignorant in this matter and are behaving more egregiously,’ but I found fuck you to be more effective. It conveyed my point clearly. Given that your rep was badgering me for my supposed attitude after your company has delayed us for the better part of seven hours now, I think I’m entitled to one polite fuck you. Do you disagree?”
He says, “What do you want me to do?”
I shrug. “I’d like an apology from her, and I need like the soonest flight out, which is all that I wanted in the first place. And I want to be assured the flight will ticket us.”
He refuses both and leaves, saying I’ll have to take the ticket she printed or fuck off. Of course, he didn’t say fuck off, he said make other arrangements, otherwise I would have called the police on this representative of UNITED AIRLINES. Because the word “fuck” is far worse than separating family from their loved ones at a time of need with ineptitude and attitude.
That’s how they get you, with a wink and a technicality. Imagine how badly people who don’t have my patience are regularly FUCKED.
We still have the tickets, so we go to the gate and sit. One of the ladies at the counter comes and finds us and apologizes FOR the lady, says that she was terribly upset by what she saw, and complimented me on only saying fuck you.
And that’s how a trip to South Carolina took 32 hours for what is a 5.5 hour flight.
Thank you, UNITED AIRLINES!
No, wait. I mean
FUCK YOU.
