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Now With Charts! ( argh )
Stop trying to fly into a BLIZZARD damn you.
Step by Step
SC: “I can’t believe you’re there so late!”
Yet this disbelief did not prevent you from calling anyhow. This is still a thought process I cannot fully understand nor appreciate. I’ve attempted to analyze this process on many occasions and I have come up with a working framework. Allow me to go over it with you so that we may judge how accurate my simulation model really is:
#1: Dull glimmer of an idea faintly pulses on the horizon of your mind. Rouses you from your bear like slumber.
#2: With a great heave, you shift your nacho cheese dusted body weight off of the couch. Getting just enough of it over the edge for gravity to take over and do the rest of the work for you. Causing you flop onto the floor where years of unmetabolized aerosol cheese cushion the impact.
#3: You spend the next hour on the floor, staring longingly at half a Twinkie that has rolled under the couch out of reach.
#4: Remember why you went through the trouble of moving in the first place and begin to drag yourself towards the phone by pulling yourself along the floor grabbing large fistfuls of lime green shag carpet.
#5: Take a rest for 20 minutes. Tear up a little over lost Twinkie segment.
#6: Resume journey.
#7: Finally reach end table directly next to couch where phone is located. Slowly heave self up to phone level using arm of couch.
#8: Mash keypad several times. Hope someone answers.
#9: Do this for several minutes.
#10: Finally succeed in reaching us. Act surprised that we are actually here when deep down you knew we would be here the whole time and were just desperately lonely for some company. Regardless of the fact we are disembodied voices with little purpose or warmth beyond dispensing lottery tickets.
#11: Order tickets. Act gleeful that tickets could be ordered at this ridiculous time of night. Say goodbye.
#12: Be gripped by overwhelming sadness once the line goes dead and the caring warmth of our closing script slowly fades from your ears.
#13: Spend Christmas alone with your cat. ( ….hey, wait a sec. )
Denial
Me: “Good morning, <company that is clearly not a financial institute>”
SC: “Yeah, can I check on my car payments? See if they received the last one?”
Me: “Your car payment?”
SC: “Yeah”
Me: “I'm afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: “But it says Scotia Bank on it!”
Me: “This isn’t the Scotia Bank.”
SC: “Oh….”
It seems I must seek medical attention at my earliest possible convenience. It appears what I say and what I think I say are two completely different things. I thought I said <tech support company>, but I clearly must have said Scotia Bank. In fact this entire transcript could be wrong. I thought I told him this wasn’t Scotia Bank. But it’s possible what I actually said was an assortment of unpleasant theories about his mother and her disposition towards liquor and members of the genus capra.
Hot Tips For America
SC: “You know Karl Marx was alright but Lenin was a little skinny-“
Right, ok, so Karl Marx had an acceptable BMI but Lenin was a beanpole. Got it. Now, why are you telling me this?
SC: “-and you know that situation in Afghanistan can be resolved with psychological warfare”
….wait, back up. So that was a segue? That wasn’t exactly the smoothest conversation transition in the world you know. I mean, I can appreciate that you’re trying but I don’t really think you’ve quite grasped the art just yet. In order to properly invoke a segue both of your topics must either be similar or have some sort of common point you can exploit. You can’t just go “Oh hey, ya, Marx was a fat bastard but psy-ops would totally work on the Taliban”. It simple doesn’t make sense.
At least not to those of us who are not currently under the effect of psychotropic drugs.
Hot Tips for America #2
SC: “Hi, you know how many years before Christ come backs?
Me: “Four.”
SC: “Yeah.“
Wait I was right? Well hot damn. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to retire to the break room and reward my magnificently correct self with a handful of peanut M&M’s from the candy machine.
Workin' Hard
Me: “Hi, its your after hours service here. Just have a new case for you-“
OC: “Wow! Really busy tonight.”
Yes….busy. You’ve had all of two calls this evening which were over 9 hours apart. So if by busy you mean “I had to actually do my job for 15 minutes more then once within a 24 hour period.” then yes, I suppose you were indeed busy this evening. If I defined my job using the same scale you do then I would refer to this evening as “Unmercifully forced toil that violates Geneva Conventions”. But luckily I do not and would merely refer to it as busy.
Ha Ha, isn't that cute....but its WRONG!
( Bonus points for the reference )
SC: “I would like to cancel the paper.”
Me: “I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: "Oh…….what number should I be calling?”
You know, if this were face to face, I would remain dead silent and stare at you like you were a complete idiot. In the hopes that the combination of visual clues might slowly sink through the remarkable density of your skull and make you realize that you had just uttered a fantastically stupid question. Unfortunately, we are not face to face and I fear that if I attempt to give you the silent treatment here in the hopes dawn will slowly begin to break over the horizon of your mind then we will sit here for the next hour or so. Till you finally grow angry enough with my non-compliance to hang up.
STILL WRONG
SC: “My ma is Marcus”
Hello, Marcus. Pronounced "Maar-coos".
SC: “And ma daddy’s light bill has gone up real high like”
That’s fascinating.
Me: : “I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: “I does?”
Me: “Yes.”
SC: “Well could you give me the head light bill number? Not the light bill place but like the people dat OVER dem.”
…..I’m not even sure where to start with this one. Normally I would chastise you for the sheer stupidity of asking me for such information. However, judging from your comprehension and sentence structure, I really should be commending you for even managing to form that request into a vaguely coherent inquiry. While I am compelled to systematically dismantle you through the application of a verbal flaying I find myself…hesitant in your case. You already seem rather….dismantled. It would be like kicking a sick puppy. There is no challenge in it and I would feel only emptiness and regret after wards.
I will spare you this day, Marcus. Let it be known that even my dark heart can occasionally grant mercy. But I must warn you. I will only spare you this once. Should you cross my path again, you shall not be so lucky. <insert evil laughter and stroking of feline here>.
You Can't Be Serious...
SC: “Ya, uh, I had my passport taken at the border.”
Taken, you say? Hmm…that is most unusual. Very well, I will hear your plea. But be quick about it, peasant. I cannot promise that I will attempt to arrange legal aid, but I will at the very least hear you out.
SC: “I came in on a bus, and they turned me around and told me I was not welcome in the country and they kept my passport. So I got back on the bus and came back.”
Hrm….that is peculiar….what, may I ask, did you do that would prompt such an action?
SC: “They made me feel like I was a criminal!”
Well, to be bluntly honest, you probably are as that’s the number #1 reason for not letting you into our fine nation. So, what did you do? I bet it was something stupid. I’m definitely getting a little bit of a “dumbass” vibe off you. No offense.
Me: “Alright, but you said they confiscated your passport?”
SC: “Yeah. They took it and I didn’t have time to sit around and get it. The bus driver wasn’t going to wait around. So I jumped back on the bus.”
Ah, there it is. I knew I smelled the faint lemony scent of human failure. So your passport was not “taken” or “confiscated”. You voluntarily left it there to catch your bus. This seems like an unwise course of action considering how important of a document it is. I’m guessing you didn’t tell them you had to catch your bus either and just wandered off.
SC: “and now I was thinking about going on vacation and I don’t have my passport. I thought they would send it back to me!”
You thought they would mail it back to you at their expense after you voluntarily left it there and fled? By all indications we don’t even want you in our country. So why would we mail your property back to you that you left there yourself after you fled? They probably thought you’d have enough brain cells to come back and get it or at least call them and ask if they can send it to you. You know, some sort of acknowledge of your stupidity. Either that or they were about to arrest you and you when you took off. So they’ve been waiting patiently for you to attempt to return and claim it.
Still, I don’t’ think we’ve quite reached the bottom of the Mines of Moronia just yet. I sense that there is yet another, deeper layer to your failure.
Me: “Wait a moment, how long ago was this?”
SC: “This was about a year ago.”
Ahhhhh, there it is. A year ago. Wow. This means he seriously left it there, fled, then spent a month waiting for it to magically reappear. When it didn’t, he simply forgot about it for another 11 months till low and behold he actually needed it again. At which point he thought “Oh yeah, I left at the border crossing a YEAR AGO and those bastards didn’t even spend their own time and effort to track me down and send it back to me in a gilded jewelry box as one of my stature so obviously deserves! Imma call dem and give them a piece of my mind!”.
Well, good luck with that. I’m sure it’s gone through a paper shredder by now. Or a beaver. Depending on which border crossing we're talking about. Some of them are a bit more out of the way then others and don't have quite as much funding.
Oh My God
Me: “Alright, and your name please?”
SC: “Kevin."
Me: “K-E-V-I-N?”
SC: “……..uh….I don’t know what that means.”
………right, ok. How about you just put the phone down, step back slowly and take a deep breath. Now, go find a piece of paper ( construction paper is fine ) and something to scrawl with ( as is crayon ) that fits in your gnarled monkey paws and write it down just as I spelled it. Now, hold it up and stare at it for a few minutes and see if anything comes to mind. No? Alright, if it helps you can go get some glue, outline each letter and dump some glitter over it. Now, shake it off, hold it up again and stare at it. See anything yet? Anything about it click? No? Hmm, ok, well tell you what, hang it up on the wall somewhere so your arms don’t get tired and stare at it for an hour or so. If anything starts to itch that shriveled little brain of yours you be sure to give me a call back right away, ok?
Ugh, and So It Begins
( Last minute Christmas travelers + Blizzard = Fun )
SC: “Don’t you have any nicer hotels?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
SC: “You know, something higher class?”
You’re stranded in an airport at 3am holding a coupon for a distress passenger rate at whatever hotel is close to the airport and kind enough to accommodate you on such short notice at a time of day that God himself has forgotten exists and you’re complaining your options aren’t high class enough?
Me: “I’m afraid these are the only options we have.”
SC: “You don’t have anything that’s more then $100 a night?”
You want me to find you something more expensive? How refreshingly contradictory to 99.89% of my callers.
Me: “No, we only handle emergency accommodations. So we only handle hotels close to the airport that offer a discounted rate.”
SC: “Well what about the rest of the city? There has to be something.”
Me: “I’m afraid we don’t handle every hotel in the city, only those close to the airport.”
SC: “Well can I still get this discount at a higher class hotel away from the airport?”
You want to pay more at a “higher class” hotel we don’t even work with and thus would see no profit from but still want to get our stranded passenger discount? Is there anything else you would like while we’re at it? Warm towel? Wine spritzer? Massage while you wait? Here, let me talk to the American Airlines rep there. You know, American Airlines, the refurbished 1971 Ford Pinto of air travel that was apparently “high class” enough for you to fly in on. I’m sure if you let me I can convince her to tongue wash your luggage for you while you’re waiting for the shuttle. Once she hears just how incredibly important your existence is to the well being and happiness of this world she should be on that luggage like a starving dog on a bacon bit.
Now With Charts
Based on all my calls over the last 48 hours I have compiled a series of handy flowcharts for all you would be stranded travelers out there:
The Stranded Traveler Flow Chart:
Step 1: Is operator trying to talk?
Yes: - Cut them off. Lament about every single trouble you have experienced in the last 3 years before I even finish the opening phrase.
No: - Lament about every single trouble you have experienced in the last 3 years before I even finish the opening phrase.
Step 2: Is price of hotel room more then free?
Yes: - Complain about price. Ask for something cheaper.
No: - Complain about hotel quality. As for something nicer.
Step 3: Do you have a pen ready like the recording told you to before you were allowed to talk to an operator?
Yes: - I stole it from the service desk.
No: - Yell at a nearby stranger. Demand their pen.
Step 4: Is the operator trying to tell you how to get a shuttle to the hotel?
Yes: - Cut them off. Demand they send the shuttle for you.
No: - Demand a hotel with a shuttle.
Step 5: Do you realize you just flew into one of the largest blizzard’s the eastern US has had in decades?
Yes: - I had several days notice. I knew it was coming. I fly in anyway because I’m special and it won’t affect me.
The Stranded European Traveler Flow Chart:
Step 1: Is operator trying to talk?
Yes: - Listen politely. Answer their question. Tell them you’re surprised someone is still awake to help them. Be grateful.
No: - Listen politely for the next question.
Step 2: Is price of hotel room more then free?
Yes: - Thank operator for finding something for you under such dreadful conditions. Refer to them as “dear” or “mate” based on gender.
No: - Realize that isn’t possible. Ask operator to repeat that as you didn’t hear it right. Be correct in this assumption.
Step 3: Do you have a pen ready like the recording told you to before you were allowed to talk to an operator?
Yes: - Of course, I was listening.
Yes: - I didn’t have one but I politely asked a nice gent over by the service desk for one.
Step 4: Is the operator trying to tell you how to get a shuttle to the hotel?
Yes: - Listen politely.
No: - Say nothing.
Step 5: Do you realize you just flew into one of the largest blizzard’s the eastern US has had in decades?
No: - Actually I’m calling from an airport on the west coast. I wouldn’t voluntarily fly into the storm of the century.
annnnnd rest.
Step by Step
SC: “I can’t believe you’re there so late!”
Yet this disbelief did not prevent you from calling anyhow. This is still a thought process I cannot fully understand nor appreciate. I’ve attempted to analyze this process on many occasions and I have come up with a working framework. Allow me to go over it with you so that we may judge how accurate my simulation model really is:
#1: Dull glimmer of an idea faintly pulses on the horizon of your mind. Rouses you from your bear like slumber.
#2: With a great heave, you shift your nacho cheese dusted body weight off of the couch. Getting just enough of it over the edge for gravity to take over and do the rest of the work for you. Causing you flop onto the floor where years of unmetabolized aerosol cheese cushion the impact.
#3: You spend the next hour on the floor, staring longingly at half a Twinkie that has rolled under the couch out of reach.
#4: Remember why you went through the trouble of moving in the first place and begin to drag yourself towards the phone by pulling yourself along the floor grabbing large fistfuls of lime green shag carpet.
#5: Take a rest for 20 minutes. Tear up a little over lost Twinkie segment.
#6: Resume journey.
#7: Finally reach end table directly next to couch where phone is located. Slowly heave self up to phone level using arm of couch.
#8: Mash keypad several times. Hope someone answers.
#9: Do this for several minutes.
#10: Finally succeed in reaching us. Act surprised that we are actually here when deep down you knew we would be here the whole time and were just desperately lonely for some company. Regardless of the fact we are disembodied voices with little purpose or warmth beyond dispensing lottery tickets.
#11: Order tickets. Act gleeful that tickets could be ordered at this ridiculous time of night. Say goodbye.
#12: Be gripped by overwhelming sadness once the line goes dead and the caring warmth of our closing script slowly fades from your ears.
#13: Spend Christmas alone with your cat. ( ….hey, wait a sec. )
Denial
Me: “Good morning, <company that is clearly not a financial institute>”
SC: “Yeah, can I check on my car payments? See if they received the last one?”
Me: “Your car payment?”
SC: “Yeah”
Me: “I'm afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: “But it says Scotia Bank on it!”
Me: “This isn’t the Scotia Bank.”
SC: “Oh….”
It seems I must seek medical attention at my earliest possible convenience. It appears what I say and what I think I say are two completely different things. I thought I said <tech support company>, but I clearly must have said Scotia Bank. In fact this entire transcript could be wrong. I thought I told him this wasn’t Scotia Bank. But it’s possible what I actually said was an assortment of unpleasant theories about his mother and her disposition towards liquor and members of the genus capra.
Hot Tips For America
SC: “You know Karl Marx was alright but Lenin was a little skinny-“
Right, ok, so Karl Marx had an acceptable BMI but Lenin was a beanpole. Got it. Now, why are you telling me this?
SC: “-and you know that situation in Afghanistan can be resolved with psychological warfare”
….wait, back up. So that was a segue? That wasn’t exactly the smoothest conversation transition in the world you know. I mean, I can appreciate that you’re trying but I don’t really think you’ve quite grasped the art just yet. In order to properly invoke a segue both of your topics must either be similar or have some sort of common point you can exploit. You can’t just go “Oh hey, ya, Marx was a fat bastard but psy-ops would totally work on the Taliban”. It simple doesn’t make sense.
At least not to those of us who are not currently under the effect of psychotropic drugs.
Hot Tips for America #2
SC: “Hi, you know how many years before Christ come backs?
Me: “Four.”
SC: “Yeah.“
Wait I was right? Well hot damn. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to retire to the break room and reward my magnificently correct self with a handful of peanut M&M’s from the candy machine.
Workin' Hard
Me: “Hi, its your after hours service here. Just have a new case for you-“
OC: “Wow! Really busy tonight.”
Yes….busy. You’ve had all of two calls this evening which were over 9 hours apart. So if by busy you mean “I had to actually do my job for 15 minutes more then once within a 24 hour period.” then yes, I suppose you were indeed busy this evening. If I defined my job using the same scale you do then I would refer to this evening as “Unmercifully forced toil that violates Geneva Conventions”. But luckily I do not and would merely refer to it as busy.
Ha Ha, isn't that cute....but its WRONG!
( Bonus points for the reference )
SC: “I would like to cancel the paper.”
Me: “I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: "Oh…….what number should I be calling?”
You know, if this were face to face, I would remain dead silent and stare at you like you were a complete idiot. In the hopes that the combination of visual clues might slowly sink through the remarkable density of your skull and make you realize that you had just uttered a fantastically stupid question. Unfortunately, we are not face to face and I fear that if I attempt to give you the silent treatment here in the hopes dawn will slowly begin to break over the horizon of your mind then we will sit here for the next hour or so. Till you finally grow angry enough with my non-compliance to hang up.
STILL WRONG
SC: “My ma is Marcus”
Hello, Marcus. Pronounced "Maar-coos".
SC: “And ma daddy’s light bill has gone up real high like”
That’s fascinating.
Me: : “I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: “I does?”
Me: “Yes.”
SC: “Well could you give me the head light bill number? Not the light bill place but like the people dat OVER dem.”
…..I’m not even sure where to start with this one. Normally I would chastise you for the sheer stupidity of asking me for such information. However, judging from your comprehension and sentence structure, I really should be commending you for even managing to form that request into a vaguely coherent inquiry. While I am compelled to systematically dismantle you through the application of a verbal flaying I find myself…hesitant in your case. You already seem rather….dismantled. It would be like kicking a sick puppy. There is no challenge in it and I would feel only emptiness and regret after wards.
I will spare you this day, Marcus. Let it be known that even my dark heart can occasionally grant mercy. But I must warn you. I will only spare you this once. Should you cross my path again, you shall not be so lucky. <insert evil laughter and stroking of feline here>.
You Can't Be Serious...
SC: “Ya, uh, I had my passport taken at the border.”
Taken, you say? Hmm…that is most unusual. Very well, I will hear your plea. But be quick about it, peasant. I cannot promise that I will attempt to arrange legal aid, but I will at the very least hear you out.
SC: “I came in on a bus, and they turned me around and told me I was not welcome in the country and they kept my passport. So I got back on the bus and came back.”
Hrm….that is peculiar….what, may I ask, did you do that would prompt such an action?
SC: “They made me feel like I was a criminal!”
Well, to be bluntly honest, you probably are as that’s the number #1 reason for not letting you into our fine nation. So, what did you do? I bet it was something stupid. I’m definitely getting a little bit of a “dumbass” vibe off you. No offense.
Me: “Alright, but you said they confiscated your passport?”
SC: “Yeah. They took it and I didn’t have time to sit around and get it. The bus driver wasn’t going to wait around. So I jumped back on the bus.”
Ah, there it is. I knew I smelled the faint lemony scent of human failure. So your passport was not “taken” or “confiscated”. You voluntarily left it there to catch your bus. This seems like an unwise course of action considering how important of a document it is. I’m guessing you didn’t tell them you had to catch your bus either and just wandered off.
SC: “and now I was thinking about going on vacation and I don’t have my passport. I thought they would send it back to me!”
You thought they would mail it back to you at their expense after you voluntarily left it there and fled? By all indications we don’t even want you in our country. So why would we mail your property back to you that you left there yourself after you fled? They probably thought you’d have enough brain cells to come back and get it or at least call them and ask if they can send it to you. You know, some sort of acknowledge of your stupidity. Either that or they were about to arrest you and you when you took off. So they’ve been waiting patiently for you to attempt to return and claim it.
Still, I don’t’ think we’ve quite reached the bottom of the Mines of Moronia just yet. I sense that there is yet another, deeper layer to your failure.
Me: “Wait a moment, how long ago was this?”
SC: “This was about a year ago.”
Ahhhhh, there it is. A year ago. Wow. This means he seriously left it there, fled, then spent a month waiting for it to magically reappear. When it didn’t, he simply forgot about it for another 11 months till low and behold he actually needed it again. At which point he thought “Oh yeah, I left at the border crossing a YEAR AGO and those bastards didn’t even spend their own time and effort to track me down and send it back to me in a gilded jewelry box as one of my stature so obviously deserves! Imma call dem and give them a piece of my mind!”.
Well, good luck with that. I’m sure it’s gone through a paper shredder by now. Or a beaver. Depending on which border crossing we're talking about. Some of them are a bit more out of the way then others and don't have quite as much funding.
Oh My God
Me: “Alright, and your name please?”
SC: “Kevin."
Me: “K-E-V-I-N?”
SC: “……..uh….I don’t know what that means.”
………right, ok. How about you just put the phone down, step back slowly and take a deep breath. Now, go find a piece of paper ( construction paper is fine ) and something to scrawl with ( as is crayon ) that fits in your gnarled monkey paws and write it down just as I spelled it. Now, hold it up and stare at it for a few minutes and see if anything comes to mind. No? Alright, if it helps you can go get some glue, outline each letter and dump some glitter over it. Now, shake it off, hold it up again and stare at it. See anything yet? Anything about it click? No? Hmm, ok, well tell you what, hang it up on the wall somewhere so your arms don’t get tired and stare at it for an hour or so. If anything starts to itch that shriveled little brain of yours you be sure to give me a call back right away, ok?
Ugh, and So It Begins
( Last minute Christmas travelers + Blizzard = Fun )
SC: “Don’t you have any nicer hotels?”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
SC: “You know, something higher class?”
You’re stranded in an airport at 3am holding a coupon for a distress passenger rate at whatever hotel is close to the airport and kind enough to accommodate you on such short notice at a time of day that God himself has forgotten exists and you’re complaining your options aren’t high class enough?
Me: “I’m afraid these are the only options we have.”
SC: “You don’t have anything that’s more then $100 a night?”
You want me to find you something more expensive? How refreshingly contradictory to 99.89% of my callers.
Me: “No, we only handle emergency accommodations. So we only handle hotels close to the airport that offer a discounted rate.”
SC: “Well what about the rest of the city? There has to be something.”
Me: “I’m afraid we don’t handle every hotel in the city, only those close to the airport.”
SC: “Well can I still get this discount at a higher class hotel away from the airport?”
You want to pay more at a “higher class” hotel we don’t even work with and thus would see no profit from but still want to get our stranded passenger discount? Is there anything else you would like while we’re at it? Warm towel? Wine spritzer? Massage while you wait? Here, let me talk to the American Airlines rep there. You know, American Airlines, the refurbished 1971 Ford Pinto of air travel that was apparently “high class” enough for you to fly in on. I’m sure if you let me I can convince her to tongue wash your luggage for you while you’re waiting for the shuttle. Once she hears just how incredibly important your existence is to the well being and happiness of this world she should be on that luggage like a starving dog on a bacon bit.
Now With Charts
Based on all my calls over the last 48 hours I have compiled a series of handy flowcharts for all you would be stranded travelers out there:
The Stranded Traveler Flow Chart:
Step 1: Is operator trying to talk?
Yes: - Cut them off. Lament about every single trouble you have experienced in the last 3 years before I even finish the opening phrase.
No: - Lament about every single trouble you have experienced in the last 3 years before I even finish the opening phrase.
Step 2: Is price of hotel room more then free?
Yes: - Complain about price. Ask for something cheaper.
No: - Complain about hotel quality. As for something nicer.
Does imaginary nicer hotel cost more then free?
Yes: - Complain about price. Ask for something cheaper.
No: - Grudgingly accept reservation at imaginary hotel that can’t possible exist. Treat operator like this is all their fault.
Step 3: Do you have a pen ready like the recording told you to before you were allowed to talk to an operator?
Yes: - I stole it from the service desk.
No: - Yell at a nearby stranger. Demand their pen.
Did they give you their pen?
Yes: - Use it. Don’t give it back.
No: - Yell at them again. Obviously they didn’t hear you.
Step 4: Is the operator trying to tell you how to get a shuttle to the hotel?
Yes: - Cut them off. Demand they send the shuttle for you.
No: - Demand a hotel with a shuttle.
Did operator already tell you the hotel had a shuttle?
Yes: - Blame operator for you not listening.
No: - Demand a hotel with a shuttle.
Step 5: Do you realize you just flew into one of the largest blizzard’s the eastern US has had in decades?
Yes: - I had several days notice. I knew it was coming. I fly in anyway because I’m special and it won’t affect me.
Did it affect you?
Yes: - But it’s everyone else’s fault. Woe is me.
Yes: - But it’s still everyone else’s fault.
Yes: - Screw this, why does everything have to happen to meeeeeeeee?!
Yes: - Me me me me me
No: - I haven’t turned on a TV, radio, checked the Internet in days.
Do you even know how you got to the airport?
Yes: - After emerging from my month long retreat into the woods I went straight to the airport. I still blame you.
No: - It’s all a blur. Leprechauns may be involved. But I still blame you and/or the airline.
The Stranded European Traveler Flow Chart:
Step 1: Is operator trying to talk?
Yes: - Listen politely. Answer their question. Tell them you’re surprised someone is still awake to help them. Be grateful.
No: - Listen politely for the next question.
Step 2: Is price of hotel room more then free?
Yes: - Thank operator for finding something for you under such dreadful conditions. Refer to them as “dear” or “mate” based on gender.
No: - Realize that isn’t possible. Ask operator to repeat that as you didn’t hear it right. Be correct in this assumption.
Step 3: Do you have a pen ready like the recording told you to before you were allowed to talk to an operator?
Yes: - Of course, I was listening.
Yes: - I didn’t have one but I politely asked a nice gent over by the service desk for one.
Step 4: Is the operator trying to tell you how to get a shuttle to the hotel?
Yes: - Listen politely.
No: - Say nothing.
Did operator already tell you the hotel had a shuttle?
Yes: - That’s why I said nothing.
Step 5: Do you realize you just flew into one of the largest blizzard’s the eastern US has had in decades?
No: - Actually I’m calling from an airport on the west coast. I wouldn’t voluntarily fly into the storm of the century.
annnnnd rest.
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