stuck inside on a nice day....

[callmeslick]

....at least for a while, double checking tax paperwork before sign and send. At any rate, it could be worse: I could be flying United.













yeesh, what an absolute PR disaster. Dragging paying customers off planes to allow for United employees to make connections? Lovely visuals.

[callmeslick]

Southwest is changing their slogan. Seriously, any of you travel and/or have an opinion on this latest incident?

[Vander]

I love this story. The airline loses their overbooking gamble, and instead of paying out, they send in the goons.

[callmeslick]

....and then the CEO praises his employees!!

[Ferno]

Because the employees are so much more important than a doctor trying to get to his patients.

[callmeslick]

even if the guy wasn't a doctor, and the urgency was made-up, there is utterly ZERO justification to force a paying customer off a flight in which the overbooked seats are occupied by the airline's own employees.

[Tunnelcat]

That's why they were technically overbooked. United had 4 standby employees that needed to get to another location, so they bumped 4 of their paying customers just to make room. Talk about NOT being in business for your customers. The slimebag CEO may have praised his employees, but his employees washed their hands of the mess by resorting to using the airport air marshals to drag off that one recalcitrant customer, not United employees to do the actual dirty work, nor did he offer any apologies to that one customer, a doctor who ended up with a bloody mouth.

[callmeslick]

[Spidey]

As much as this story really sucks, and as much as the policy is a really bad one…I can’t sympathize with someone who was forcibly removed…if you are told to leave the plane…then you must leave the plane…because it’s not going anywhere with you on board.

You have every right to take it up with customer service or even get a lawyer if you think that is the way to go…but you must leave the plane when asked to.

[Top Gun]

All hail the Corporate States of America!

[Ferno]

And now of course they're saying 'but but but he has a criminal past!'. Who gives a ★■◆●. They going to tell us he was mean to other kids when he was in elementary, aswell?

Yeah we're not falling for that one. They should try their deflection somewhere else.

[Vander]

As much as this story really sucks, and as much as the policy is a really bad one…I can’t sympathize with someone who was forcibly removed…if you are told to leave the plane…then you must leave the plane…because it’s not going anywhere with you on board.

This is a fair point, but I think making a special case for a planes is wrong. (if that's what you were doing) We subject ourselves to the airport security state with an understanding that it is done for safety. That's a perfectly valid social contract. When that security apparatus is used to enforce airline-favorable terms to what was essentially a business negotiation, it's a betrayal of that social contract.

[Tunnelcat]

You know, Americans brought this on themselves. The banking, airline and telecom industries were heavily regulated before Reagan started us down the road to changing all that. Customer service used to be at the forefront and it was consistent across the all these industries because it was mandated. But once we elected Reagan, we were assured that all this deregulation it would spur growth, innovation and competition. Well, we got all that.....for a while. But as time marched on, mergers were allowed that soon whittled down our choices in the banking, airline and telecom industries. Sure, we got all that great innovation and growth that was promised, but now, we're at the mercy of a bunch of heartless and greedy monopolies who do what they please because they CAN, the customer be damned. All that promised competition eventually went by the wayside as well. We have only a few mega corporations in all three of these industries that only care about their bottom dollar, not the satisfaction or the good service to their customer.

In the airline industry, we've grown used to being treated like cattle all in order to get those cheap fares. But wait, those cheap fares are just an illusion. Now people are bombarded with extra FEES, which are stealth ways to increase those cheap fares. Idiots. We've also allowed ourselves to be herded around and strip searched all in the name of security. There are signs that people are getting fed up. The incidences of air rage are growing.

In the telecom industry, they now have claim to the worst customer service in America. They charge steep prices because most of these companies are monopolies in their respective regions and refuse to upgrade their own infrastructure to stay modern because of the capital costs. You'd think with what they charge us, they'd have plenty of capital to work with. Nope. Profit baby, profit.

Then there's the banks, who caused the worst recession since the Great Depression because they were allowed to dabble in securities and trading. They soon gambled people's money and homes into the nothingness. Wells Fargo is now on the same list as the telecoms for the worst customer service because those at the top told all their peons (wink, wink) to sell their customers something, I mean cram, no matter what, whether they needed or even wanted it. Need I say more?

I guess what I'm asking is whatever happened to social responsibility in business?

[callmeslick]

you touched on something I feel is an issue with US culture: we expect cheap, fast, but mainly cheap goods and services. That demands industries and businesses to race to the lowest cost options, not the ticket to stellar service.

[Tunnelcat]

Then we get what we deserve.

[Krom]

You say it is a race to the bottom, but I don't really believe it. Other developed countries were able to deliver both cheap and fast service, it is clearly possible, even some places within the US have managed to do it. The real problem is painfully obvious crony capitalism, observe:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... on-instead

[Tunnelcat]

I really need a emoticon for that one Krom. The time has come to neuter the telecoms. The internet is just a vital today as the interstate highways were when they were built decades ago.

[callmeslick]

interesting story, but I was talking about service businesses with human employees delivering services. When you have to cut corners to make a quarterly target, it tends to directly result in diminished service. I saw it for a couple decades in the Laboratory end of Medicine. Telecoms are sort of a different model, but the financial motivations are similar, no doubt.