Month: December 2007

United Airlines delayed my plane, lied to me, refused to transport my baggage, and doesn’t care.

from Ezekiel Weeks
to UACustomerCare8@united.com,
cc airconsumer@dot.gov,
tips@consumerist.com,
date Dec 20, 2007 11:20 PM
subject Flight 918 to 7140, 12/20/2007

To whom it may concern:

I am usually a Southwest Airlines customer. This Christmas season, United offered a better price than Southwest for my trip from Denver to Pennsylvania on 12/20/2007, so my family and I decided to give it a try.

My original flight, Flight 918, was delayed because the previous flight using the gate took 30-45 minutes after boarding to leave the gate due to baggage issues. Due to this delay, I missed my connection to Flight 7140 (DC to Harrisburg) at Washington-Dulles. A United agent in DC informed me that he could not book me on the next flight to Harrisburg because it was sold out. I asked if a flight to Philadelphia was available, and the agent booked me on one scheduled to leave in five hours.

Somehow, the person behind me in line managed to get a ticket on the “sold out” Harrisburg flight.

I then waited five hours for the flight to Philadelphia, which was itself delayed (first by 26 minutes, then by another 30). Upon my arrival, I learned that my checked bag had made it to Harrisburg on my originally planned flight. The baggage office attendant told me that there was nothing that could be done about delivering my baggage, and that I had no choice but to pick it up in Harrisburg. He spoke in an ambivalent, condescending tone throughout our conversation, and expressed no sympathy or desire to make things right for a customer. Instead, I was told that “We don’t have to do anything because we got the bag to where it was supposed to go” – even though United didn’t get the passenger where he was supposed to go!

Overall, my experience with United throughout the ordeal was thoroughly disappointing. It was completely within your employees’ abilities to load cargo in a timely fashion that avoids delays, to book me on the next flight to my original destination, to have my baggage delivered when I had to divert my flight, or to even just treat me in a sympathetic manner during an obviously stressful trip. Instead, I faced avoidable delays, false information and unequal from service agents who booked the next person for the very flight that I was told was “sold out”, and an indifferent, even rude, baggage attendant who embodied the antithesis to customer service.

When I went online to send this letter, I read about how United recently adopted a new “Customer Commitment” pledge. While your customer relations department and corporate marketing may reflect this, I felt that most of the United employees in the airport lacked any such commitment. The savings made in choosing your airline over Southwest was not worth the trouble I faced. I realize that I have taken their high commitment to customer satisfaction throughout their organization for granted, and I will remember it the next time I travel. I look forward to flying again on United, but will not do so until I know that it has made significant improvements in its customer service.

—
Ezekiel Weeks
Head of Design
http://www.Zeedub.com

Anybody out there?

I can’t decide if I should keep this blog going. I do it for my own benefit, and if people happen to enjoy reading it, that’s a pleasant side effect. I used to keep a private journal, and then moved more towards the blog as a public platform.

Nowadays, I don’t have as much to rant about- I have about 30 really big, completely unpublished posts sitting in this blog’s “drafts” section. Each one is basically me beating a dead horse into the ground for 3 or 4 paragraphs, and then realizing, “Wait, I don’t really care about this subject, and neither does anyone who reads the site.” Then I click “save” and leave it for nobody to ever see.

As for the social aspect… Facebook really gets me in touch with everyone much better than this site. People don’t go out of their way to see what I’m up to, it just shows up in their news feed. If I have a link, video, or blog post to share, I can just put it there for everyone to see.

The real question I have for myself is one about how my own writing habits are changing: back in high school when I was updating this thing daily, what was my real motivation? Did putting my mundane daily life down in written form have any kind of therapeutic effect? Did it help me socialize or keep in touch with distant friends and family? Whatever it is, something has changed to make me feel much less inclined to write all the time.

If I were a “notable figure” in a certain area, or had more interesting stuff to write about, that might make things different. I’d love to write for a music or technology blog. But a blog does nothing for my current professional development. The closest thing to that these days is – gulp – making connections with music industry people on MySpace. Maybe that will change as we start gigging more and have an album out and stuff.

Free EP: The Autumn Film

My friend Aaron turned me on to these guys, and I’m already hooked one hour later….

The Autumn Film photo

The Autumn Film is a band from Boulder, Colorado with music from the same vein of artists such as The Fray and Coldplay – piano-centered rock with introspective lyrics floating over the top. Pianist/vocalist Tifah Al-Attas has an obviously close and deep connection to her lyrics.

And, as a fellow independent musician, I really like how they are promoting themselves:
a free EP download online for anyone, as long as they share it with three other people. The effect multiplies exponentially as it gets shared more and more, which is the exact opposite of the dying record industry’s business model.

A lot stands out to me on the four tracks from the So Loved EP: the fullness yet sheer simplicity of the drums on “Because We Are” makes me want to go back to my own drumming and learn how to do more with less. “Enough” dynamically flows between simple patterns and energetic drives. But the
topping on the cake is “Holding Place”, a leftover track from previous recordings. This piano-only love song showcases all of the idiosyncrasies hidden within Tifah’s great voice, which exhibits an impressive range and strength in all registers.
Oh, and “Holding Place” has lyrics which tug at the heart, possibly the inspiration for the
band’s usage (logo?) of a heart bound in ropes.

So check them out,  download their free EP here. If you like that, get their new full-length album here.

Bill Gates on the Science of Success

Bill Gates wrote a short editorial for BBC News giving his view of the software industry and the factors that influence it.

I find his view of software development as a social process, rather than a solitary one, both intriguing and encouraging.

Also I would hope that more of our cultural and political leaders would start to share his view that a strong understanding of math and science are crucial to success, no matter who you are. (I make no claims to expertise here- I took brief calculus twice and my last science class was a blow-off class called “Insects, Science, and Society”.)

Live your life that that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. (If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.)  Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

—Tecumseh (Shawnee Chief)