Airlines are the epitome of jacked up customer service

I got up bright and early to catch my 10:15am flight. Being a seasoned traveler (read: being someone who is thoroughly disappointed with the state of air travel these days), I check my flight status before leaving for the airport. Beautiful day out here in Denver and equally lovely day in Atlanta, so what could possibly - crap delayed flight. Says the flight will depart at 11:30 am. Of course, no one for one instant believes the first delay time. No way this flight is leaving at 11:30.

Sure enough, check back in an hour and the flight is now delayed until 1 pm. Checking for reason for delay - and none given. No reason to leave for the airport now, best to stick around the house for a while. Check back in an hour - now it says the flight will depart at 12:40 pm. WTF...they moved it up. Now I'm hurried and must get on the road right away. Thanks for the notice United.



Got the airport and tried to check bags. Costs $15 per bag now - feels like a huge friggin ripoff. Why do airlines have to charge for every friggin thing? Next thing to go or be charged will be that 2 oz cup of juice they serve. Sky cap guy says he can't check our bags and we will have to go to "Special Services". Only thing "special" here is that they treat you "special" - not like a VIP, but like a retard. "Are you sure you want your bag to go to Atlanta?" "Please don't ship it on the short bus".

So we get to Atlanta, and I'm hanging at the carousel. Wondering if they call it a carousel to make it sound more fun than it really is. No bags. Check with the United service desk. Our bags aren't on the short bus, but they sure as hell aren't on this flight. Turns out our bags decided to take the next flight out of Denver and will arrive around midnight. United will drive them to my Dad's house the next day.

I'm not too wigged out surprisingly, but the wife - well, she's not too happy. Turns out girls are really high maintenance when it comes to things like a fresh pair of underwear, toothpaste and a toothbrush. Quick trip to Target and I'm out about $45.

So $30 to fly my bags and $45 at Target, I'm not feeling too complimentary about our air travel system and United in particular. When these guys fly to Washington later this year to beg for a bailout, I hope the bastards have to turn their undies inside out because their luggage arrived in Topeka. If they ask for $15 billion, I for one think it should be at least $75 less.

Supersize that bug for you?

So... my son drove over to Del Taco the other night to grab a quick take-out. That alone is an amazing statement since I was not even aware Del Taco was still in business. I thought everyone had uniformly exited and were now seeking their fix for cheap shitty Mexican food at Taco Bell, Taco Bueno or from eating out of trash cans.

After placing his order for a burger and fries (equally amazed that they serve crappy American food too), he drove home. He sat down and consumed his burger and eyed his fries - crinkle-cut fat laden and limp (reference picture above). As he poured his fries out across his flattened burger wrapper something peculiar caught his eye.

Maybe it was because this fry wasn't fried, or because it's cut wasn't crinkled or because it wasn't as fat-laden or limp - or maybe just because it was dark and had legs. This, my friends was a roach (la cucaracha).

Although getting a bug in your food at Del Taco isn't the end of the world - in fact, it might even be relished compared to the food. What was quite annoying is the response from the staff. Upon taking the fries (and said roach) back to Del Taco and revealing the prize to the 16-year old manager, my son was asked:

" Do you want another order of fries?"

Sure, maybe I'll get luck and get a box of roaches with only one crinkle-cut fat laden, limp fry in it.

Another example of how low customer service has fallen. An appropriate response would be something like this:

"Oh my God, I am so sorry that happened" - showing appropriate empathy
"We really value you as a customer - thank you for bringing this to our attention" - show appropriate respect
"We pride ourselves on cleanliness and will assure you this will never happen again" - start to rebuild trust
"Let me offer you your money back, plus $50 in coupons for your troubles" - appropriate remedy

So why is customer service so friggin hard to execute when it seems like common sense.

Why can't my camera remember anything?

Just recently I purchased  new digital camera.  A technology growing ever so fast, and changing as many other products in retail.  For a first time shopper in the camera industry, you will come to find many options and features.  Most of these features the typical shopper most likely will have no idea what they mean or do for the camera.  Along this list of foreign details one that can easily be overlooked is the camera memory space.

After a day spent learning what headline features for most cameras on the market today entail, I then chose which one suites my needs and budget.  The following morning I left on vacation, ready to start snapping off my pictures.  Upon the fourth shot the camera memory was full!!

I was shocked to think of all the things I learned, not once was I informed of the camera hard disc memory.  I then had to take the time on my vacation to locate a camera store and find the right memory card.  

Where was my Memory, and why does it need to be sold separately?

 - Wade Cromer

Paying for Convenience

Last week I hopped online to buy a concert ticket from Ticketmaster for a show that was playing that same night.  Anyone familiar with Ticketmaster is well aware of the ridiculous service charge they tag on to the price of the ticket, but the fees don't stop there.  There is an additional "Convenience fee" of $2.50 to print your tickets at home. 

$2.50! Isn't online purchasing more cost efficient for them?  No staffing, no overhead and I print the ticket out on my own paper.  Now you don't have to pay the fee, you can have it mailed to you or pick it up from the ticket window at the venue for free.  But the show was that night so I couldn't have it mailed to me, and I didn't want to wait in the box-office line once I got there.

So Ticketmaster won.  I paid their ridiculous price for the sake of convenience.

Submited by:  Brandon

Industrial Strength Inconvenience

What I feel is a big inconvenience is the industrial strength plastic that now envelopes many of the products we buy.  You can't open these packages.  You have to go to the garage and find a heavy duty blade to open them. 

It is also difficult to try and short-cut by slicing open a small area and then attempting to rip open the package by hand.  This can result in severe hand damage.  

If the product you bought turns our to be wrong, or does not work, you can't just box it up and take it back.  You have to gather all the plastic pieces, the owners manual (which you cut through when trying to get through the plastic), put all this in another plastic bag so you can take it back to the store and return it.

If only the item you were buying were half as durable as the plastic fortress that surrounds it...

Submitted by:  JR

I said dessert, not desert

Dear Waiter:

If you plan to refill my beverage glass only when you see me licking the bottom,  don't give me a tea glass the size of a thimble.  Where have all of the pint glasses gone?  Is their a shortage that they haven't told us about?  Are restaurants actually trying to increase dishwasher pack-out by going to miniature sizes?

Maybe instead of being so intent on saving a few pennies on the wash, you should focus on pleasing your customers and increasing your revenues.  You can make a buck and we'll all be much happier.