Travel and how corporations get over
Written orginally in August of 2011.
Do you remember the time that one went to the airport to buy a ticket, paying either in cash or in check, got to park in short term parking for free for the extent of time it took to get the ticket? I do!! And it wasn't that long ago either.
Well, those days are gone, at least in Nashville. How and why??? Interesting question, and the answers are even more interesting.
First of all, paying for a ticket at the airport is almost a thing of the past. They WANT, nay almost demand that you do it on the internet. How do you have to pay for it on the internet? With a credit card of course. So if you want to avoid that, they proceed to put you though all sorts of grief.
I went today, to get my ticket to go to Florida to see my cousin in September..this is what I had to go through. First of all, it took forever, for me to find a clerk that knew how to take a check...I mean seriously they had a meeting to determine how this "alien activity" was handled. Then they did it, however, it seems my drivers licence wasn't enough id for them, altought of course on the phone that is all I was told was needed. Then of course I had to pay an extra 35.00 for the privelege of writting a check. That fact, also, was not mentioned on the phone. A fact, I might add that I pointed out to them saying, as politely as you please, that it would be NICE if such things were clarified.
Now after this sterneous activity of paying for an already reserved airline ticket, I left the airport. Now in the old days (like maybe 5 years ago) short term parking was free for the first 30 minutes. It seems that in the wisdom of the airport authority that amount of time has dropped to 20 minutes, meaning that I ended up paying 2.00 for being on the grounds for 23 (yes, you read that correctly 23...twenty three) minutes.
Now, did I tell you that there was only one customer ahead of me in line....so the entire 18 or so minutes that I was in the airport (have to discount 5 minutes or so for transit to and from my car) was spent doing the business of paying for said ticket.
It struck me that I am the victim of careful planing. The time taken up convincing someone that they really CAN take a check, is callculated precisely to make sure each victom pays the minimum parking fee at the very least.
So today, I paid 37.00 for the loftly priveledge of writting a check to Delta Airlines. And they wonder why corporate America is falling into disrepute...(sigh)
Of course, one can't really blame the clerks as the staff has been so downsized that they are constricted in what they can handle. And yes, a brief discussion revealed that their top executives were getting like 11 millions dollars to retire, while of course the worker bees got nothing.
Sounds sooo familar.
Do you remember the time that one went to the airport to buy a ticket, paying either in cash or in check, got to park in short term parking for free for the extent of time it took to get the ticket? I do!! And it wasn't that long ago either.
Well, those days are gone, at least in Nashville. How and why??? Interesting question, and the answers are even more interesting.
First of all, paying for a ticket at the airport is almost a thing of the past. They WANT, nay almost demand that you do it on the internet. How do you have to pay for it on the internet? With a credit card of course. So if you want to avoid that, they proceed to put you though all sorts of grief.
I went today, to get my ticket to go to Florida to see my cousin in September..this is what I had to go through. First of all, it took forever, for me to find a clerk that knew how to take a check...I mean seriously they had a meeting to determine how this "alien activity" was handled. Then they did it, however, it seems my drivers licence wasn't enough id for them, altought of course on the phone that is all I was told was needed. Then of course I had to pay an extra 35.00 for the privelege of writting a check. That fact, also, was not mentioned on the phone. A fact, I might add that I pointed out to them saying, as politely as you please, that it would be NICE if such things were clarified.
Now after this sterneous activity of paying for an already reserved airline ticket, I left the airport. Now in the old days (like maybe 5 years ago) short term parking was free for the first 30 minutes. It seems that in the wisdom of the airport authority that amount of time has dropped to 20 minutes, meaning that I ended up paying 2.00 for being on the grounds for 23 (yes, you read that correctly 23...twenty three) minutes.
Now, did I tell you that there was only one customer ahead of me in line....so the entire 18 or so minutes that I was in the airport (have to discount 5 minutes or so for transit to and from my car) was spent doing the business of paying for said ticket.
It struck me that I am the victim of careful planing. The time taken up convincing someone that they really CAN take a check, is callculated precisely to make sure each victom pays the minimum parking fee at the very least.
So today, I paid 37.00 for the loftly priveledge of writting a check to Delta Airlines. And they wonder why corporate America is falling into disrepute...(sigh)
Of course, one can't really blame the clerks as the staff has been so downsized that they are constricted in what they can handle. And yes, a brief discussion revealed that their top executives were getting like 11 millions dollars to retire, while of course the worker bees got nothing.
Sounds sooo familar.