Cathy and I were up early enough that we could make sure to get her suitcases packed and any of her remaining things ready to go. Thankfully, I live only eighteen miles from the airport so it's a quick drive there and we wouldn't need much time. Thus, more time at home before she would have to leave. She had checked in for her flight online that morning to expedite the process once she arrived at the airport. All she had left to do was check in her luggage.
Her flight was scheduled to depart at one fifty-five PM. It was pretty close to on time and it left only ten minutes late.
While waiting in the gate area in the Omaha airport, we both witnessed (as did numerous people in the gate area) a sad example of customer service from another airline representative. Here is the story....
They had a flight departing next door to where Cathy's flight would be leaving. So we heard all of her announcements clearly. She spoke out loud to herself as well. Complaints of not getting her breaks when she was told she would, waiting on people to board the flight so that she could close the door ten minutes early, and an over-all bad attitude of whining were just a few examples of what we heard from her. One of her announcements over the entire terminal loud speakers went something like this: "This will be your final call for flight xxxx. If you're holding a boarding pass you must be on this flight now for an immediate departure. If you're in the security area putting your shoes back on, I suggest you board the flight immediately and put your shoes on, on the plane. I'm missing seven people, you know who you are!"
Wow! Cathy and I were stunned at her lack of tactfulness and ability to keep her personal feelings and thoughts out of the announcement itself! The entire gate area with many people sitting there witnessing all of this was just shocked at her idea of "customer service". I approached a supervisor that I know at Frontier Airlines and asked him if he knew the representative of the other airline. He knew of her but didn't know her personally. Lucky him! He said she is like that most of the time. Really? Oh my gosh!!! I'm very surprised she hasn't been fired by now! It was ridiculous! Apparently, that's normal for her! Wow!!!
Cathy was ready to find a supervisor of that airline and make a complaint. But none was to be found. And that wasn't all that lady did. She was determined to get the flight out even though the last seven passengers weren't on board.
Back at security, a lady (not sure if she was a supervisor) came running to that gate and told the sad example of a customer service (CS) agent, that she had a wheel chair passenger just finishing up with security. The CS agent then spoke out loud, under her breath, and said, "Well, too bad. She should have gotten here earlier." Shortly, the lady in the wheel chair was being pushed to the counter. The lady pushing the wheelchair made sure that the passenger was boarded, much to the chagrin of the CS agent.
I was in shock at the entire situation. I've never heard anyone do that in this line of work before. So sad.
Cathy lives in Woodburn, Oregon, and would be flying through Denver (via Frontier Airlines) to make a connection. I believe she even had almost four hours of time to waste in the Denver airport! (long connection!) She would have flown on Southwest but it was actually cheaper at the time, to book her ticket on Frontier.
We said our goodbyes and she boarded her flight. After making sure her flight departed without issues, I headed for my car to go home. I didn't have anything that needed to be done or anywhere that I had to be. So after I got home, I just kicked back and caught up on some TV shows and even napped! I would be going back to work the next day after an awesome five days off!
It was so fun to have family here for the holidays but we sure missed having Dad and Beverly here with us. They stayed in Tioga and spent Christmas with other family on both sides.
Random photo: It's not very often that I have a view of other people slaving away in my own kitchen! Here, Kevin (head band and all from a gift ribbon!), Susan and Cathy are working at putting away the food from our meal on Christmas day and working on the clean up process. I love having others do that job! ;-)
I hope you had a great Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
