Airline Jobsworths
Airlines have strict hiring policies and will only hire jobsworths. Recently I went to the offices of the Guatemalan airline TACA. Happily I found that I was the only customer there. I walked up to the counter and asked my question. The employee responded that she could not assist me because I hadn't stopped at the computer in the waiting area to get a number. I responded with an appropriate question like "why?" so she called over the other employee, her manager. He told me I needed a number before they'd help me. When I went to the computer he walked over to help me, either out of boredom because I was the only customer or because he felt that someone so dimwitted as to ask a question without having a number needed all the help he could get. I got my number! The employee then asked how she could help me. I told her that I couldn't ask because she hadn't called my number. She pointed to a board that showed the number, so I was able to ask. Needless to say, the answer was no, the airline could not issue the sort of ticket I had in mind.
All this procedural exactitude from an airline that once stranded a friend of mine overnight because the pilot, according to the airline, forgot that he was supposed to stop in Guatemala City after taking off from El Salvador and flew straight to LA instead.
(thatguyjoe, Thu 12 May 2005, 15:56, Reply)