Tampa, FL
Airports! Centers of transportation, arteries of commerce and travel! Beehives of activity! ... and institutions of aggravation!
As a flight attendant, I am frequently in charge of welcoming passengers aboard large, state-of-the-art aircraft, bound for far-flung international destinations. For the longest I was completely mystified as to why many passengers coming onto my plane were often in a foul mood.
After many years of travel, for business, pleasure, and as a flight professional I have at last figured out the reasons why the traveling public often displays a less-than-positive demeanor: airports themselves are probably the most stressful places a law-abiding citizen is likely to encounter in their lives!
The average passenger - be he or she a one-timer going to visit Aunt Suzie in Omaha, or a seasoned traveler with multiple platinum cards heading to Lagos for the fifteenth time - and everyone in between - all have to suffer going through a difficult travel process and be in a place that is quite trying of one's patience, annoying, intimidating, time-consuming, and, in short, is anything but conducive to having a stress-free, happy flight.
Nearly everyone stresses over making a flight on time, as if dire consequences would surely follow and woe would betide those who do not arrive well in advance of the plane's departure.
From someone who has missed a plane or two in my day, unless you have a high-power business meeting or other serious reason why you absolutely, positively cannot arrive even a few hours late, missing a plane is not by any means the end of the world. It is certainly not worth going red-line on the being-upset scale. It is NOT - or certainly SHOULD NOT be, I must add, a motive or excuse for abusing every airline employee you come into contact with in your quest to fly the "Friendly Skies!" This goes for your fellow passengers as well: they're in the same boat you are in, so DON'T ROCK IT!
Usually, it's the first-time flyers that are particularly stressed. This is completely understandable! They go from quiet, calm, nice people to jittery nervous-Nellies pretty much from the moment they enter the terminal - if they haven't already psyched themselves up (or down) for a bad day upon leaving their homes that morning. There is a ripple effect as these agitated folks make others around them upset as well.
Other than seeking professional help, pteromerhanophobia (fear of flying) can be conquered often by simply getting onto a plane and arriving at your destination safe and sound - something that millions of other people do every day.
As far as the rest of the traveling public, there is another nemesis that must be overcome: the AIRPORT itself!!
Why are airports so stressful? The entire process - down to every minor detail - is carefully engineered and choreographed to create the maximum level of discomfort possible among the flying public. It's to the advantage of airport personnel to instill fear, doubt, anger, etc. into otherwise calm, cool, collected, self assured people. It gives the airport employees a sense of control and satisfies a hunger for power. They also get PAID to do it.
Your very first contact with that entity dedicated to separating you from your money and your sanity, is the Parking area. It opens the Rocky Sorrow Picture Show with its own set of challenges and unpleasantries. The attendants there have such despicable attitudes and the prices are so high that it makes you want to turn around and forget the whole thing!
When you find a parking spot, and get onto those little park/ride vans, you take your life in your hands as they zip around the access roads in a dreadful haste... only to do it all again, and again, all day long. Why are they in such a hurry?? They certainly do not careen headlong into traffic like a juggernaut for your benefit; they even drive like maniacs when they have no-one on board their bus. BUT if you ask them to drive faster because you are running late, they will most assuredly downshift into SLOW! ... Try it! (But only when you are NOT in a hurry!)
Even if you don't actually take those discourtesy vans, you're likely to have at least one close call with one of them as they wildly cut in front, slam on their brakes, and turn in front of you very slowly. Advice: Don't EVER try to pass one!!! Mario Andretti couldn't get past these guys!
Getting dropped off is like meeting the Grinch Welcome Wagon. There is always some cop (or cop wannabe) who ate gunpowder for breakfast, and is just looking for a fight. Your car pulls up in front of the dropoff zone and he comes up and starts yelling at you - or the poor slob you talked into taking you, and really wonders what the heck you guys are doing there. You tell him you're getting out to catch a plane and he yells back to move the car - to not stay there. (Like anyone in their right MIND is going to hang around an airport - just because...)
If it is not the hassle of queuing up to check in, or figuring out bag sizes and weight limit, or printing out boarding passes, it's looking up one's flight on the board, and on and on.
Looking for your gate? The flight information boards are a favorite spot for people to just hang out. They can spend an hour there standing around - and there's no place better to do that then where they can block your view of a needed source of information.
There is only one other favorite hangout for the young and the clueless: the main entrance to the terminal ticket area... It's a wonderful place to get your deal done (meaning renewing old friendships, planning your vacation in Bali, or repacking your bag while everybody else goes nuts trying to go around you! At the same time, these folks expect the rest of the world to just go around, if there is room, or to go somewhere else! They look at you and right through you as if you weren't even there!
The Security at airports are adventures in themselves. If you like standing forever in line, being made to feel unimportant, being made to feel like a suspect, getting fussed at, and getting a free attitude adjustment, all at the same time, the airport is your kind of place!
Complaints, comments of any kind, and even scowls are not trip-enhancing moves. To the big-wigs, those movers and shakers whose very pompous pontifications send shivers up and down spines of unfortunate underlings at corporate board meetings, it must indeed be an ego-deflater to have to shut up and take orders from people earning a pittance by comparison.
If you defy them and ask in a haughty tone: "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" you might just get a free ride to the nearest Alzheimer's clinic.
Realize: those poorly-remunerated employees have a uniform, a tazer, and Federal authority to remove anyone from a flight, thus the ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!!
The whole process is meant as an intimidation to all would-be troublemakers, and in the eyes of the Security officers, EVERYBODY is a suspect until and unless run through the gauntlet of removing shoes, laptops, liquids, articles of clothing, and one's pride, emerging at the other end of the process frazzled, humbled, annoyed, and quite possibly missing one or more items that have fallen through the rollers at the X-Ray machine, or been seized.
Rule of thumb here: if you are running late, above all DO NOT LET ON that you are! Do not comment about your flight, ask about connections, and for goodness' sake do not look stressed (even though you are by this time a nervous wreck!) Wipe that sweat from your brow.
Remember this: the velocity at which you go through Security is directly related to your need for speed. Got all the time in the world? You are sure to fly through. In a hurry? The area becomes a Jerry Lewis movie, with half the population of BULGARIA standing in front if you - and every one in line ahead of you will set off the alarm with their car keys left in their pockets.
During this whole ordeal, your ears get a battering, although you may well be unaware of it. There is a steady babble of useless information, such as PA's about unattended cars, unattended bags, the USO location, the interfaith chapel location, endless pages for people who cannot possibly understand their names the way they are mispronounced, and several announcements for each and every flight that is due to leave that day.
I am convinced that there is a rule against long periods of silence at airports. Something MUST break that silence in order to maintain a high level of stress. Of course you tune all of this out as you try desperately to get to your gate, but the annoyance is subliminal, and quite effective.
"Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath! Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath, please report to the BlueSky Airlines ticket counter. Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath!" Your name is Rick Smith, but with all the 268 different announcements made that HOUR, and with the lousy mispronunciation of your name, you continue on fat, dumb, and happy while your laptop you forgot at checkin goes on to lost-and-found, and to eternal oblivion.
To add to the din, as you go through the Ordeal of Intimidation that is Security, your poor ears are bombarded by a cacophony of very irritating noises, such as incessant beeps of the scanners, agents fussing at and instructing the cattle, (sorry, the people who are being treated like cattle), the whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth of those poor, down-prodden souls who are trying to get out of Dodge, as well as the PA's and the ordinary hustle and bustle of the airport already mentioned.
You sit to rest for a second, and there is big news on the TV. You draw near to hear about it and, of course, there are several people sitting right below the speaker, and they are all talking very loudly, so as to be heard over the TV that they so brilliantly sat right beneath, thereby drowning out the news completely, so you move on.
You walk to the gate, tired and anxious about your departure. Airports are all WPA projects: Walking Plenty Around. Your flight, no matter where it is you're going, is going to be found at the very END of the terminal - especially if you're late. The later the flight, the more you will have to walk!
Now, you don't realize it yet, but you've just joined a baseball team: the Dodgers! You artfully dodge electric carts, running passengers, food carts, cleaners mopping the floor, construction sawhorses, suitcases in the aisles, little toddlers running right in front of you, and people who walk in front of you and just stop for no apparent reason.
Ahead of you is a group of Millennium People, slowly walking FIVE ABREAST, all talking on their cellphones. They don't think there's anybody but them there, they won't let you get by, and if you try to force the issue, you'll come upon an electric cart heading the opposite way that just HAS to get by at that exact second.
You see a moving sidewalk up ahead and pick up the pace to get to it before a family of seven reach it, but unbeknownst to you, they have been in training for a year in the Puxatawnee Walk-a-Thon, and so they beat you there ... only to stop completely to ride the slow-moving conveyor without walking -- and, oh, yes, you guessed it: they're BLOCKING the whole walkway and cannot understand why you want by.
You poke along, watching as several varieties of garden snail pass you. You break out your deck of cards and get in a quick game of Solitaire, fire up your cell and get the stock market quotes, catch a few Z's... And then, just as you finally come to the end of the slow-moving walkway, the family with whom you've by now become intimately acquainted, suddenly takes off faster than O. J. Simpson in a classic Hertz commercial!! Go figure!
Just like the discourtesy vans outside, the electric carts are constantly sneaking up on you and waiting for the moment that you drift into the midde of the passageway. Then you hear: "Excuse the cart!" You are startled, because he is on your heels, almost literally!
You huff and puff and finally arrive at where your plane should be, only to learn that there's been a gate change, and of course it's in a different terminal - way down at the end, of course.
You finally walk to your plane, agitated, frustrated, tired, stressed, and missing a few items, but at least you MADE IT!
The flight attendant says:"Good morning! How are you?"
You reply: "just like that guy in New York!"
"What guy" you are asked.
"There's this man who jumps off the top of the Empire State Building, see?" you explain. "On the 48th floor, a secretary opens up a window to check the weather. She sees the guy falling and hollers to him: 'How's it going?' He answers her: 'So far so GOOD!'"
HAPPY TRAILS!
Your very first contact with that entity dedicated to separating you from your money and your sanity, is the Parking area. It opens the Rocky Sorrow Picture Show with its own set of challenges and unpleasantries. The attendants there have such despicable attitudes and the prices are so high that it makes you want to turn around and forget the whole thing!
When you find a parking spot, and get onto those little park/ride vans, you take your life in your hands as they zip around the access roads in a dreadful haste... only to do it all again, and again, all day long. Why are they in such a hurry?? They certainly do not careen headlong into traffic like a juggernaut for your benefit; they even drive like maniacs when they have no-one on board their bus. BUT if you ask them to drive faster because you are running late, they will most assuredly downshift into SLOW! ... Try it! (But only when you are NOT in a hurry!)
Even if you don't actually take those discourtesy vans, you're likely to have at least one close call with one of them as they wildly cut in front, slam on their brakes, and turn in front of you very slowly. Advice: Don't EVER try to pass one!!! Mario Andretti couldn't get past these guys!
Getting dropped off is like meeting the Grinch Welcome Wagon. There is always some cop (or cop wannabe) who ate gunpowder for breakfast, and is just looking for a fight. Your car pulls up in front of the dropoff zone and he comes up and starts yelling at you - or the poor slob you talked into taking you, and really wonders what the heck you guys are doing there. You tell him you're getting out to catch a plane and he yells back to move the car - to not stay there. (Like anyone in their right MIND is going to hang around an airport - just because...)
If it is not the hassle of queuing up to check in, or figuring out bag sizes and weight limit, or printing out boarding passes, it's looking up one's flight on the board, and on and on.
Looking for your gate? The flight information boards are a favorite spot for people to just hang out. They can spend an hour there standing around - and there's no place better to do that then where they can block your view of a needed source of information.
There is only one other favorite hangout for the young and the clueless: the main entrance to the terminal ticket area... It's a wonderful place to get your deal done (meaning renewing old friendships, planning your vacation in Bali, or repacking your bag while everybody else goes nuts trying to go around you! At the same time, these folks expect the rest of the world to just go around, if there is room, or to go somewhere else! They look at you and right through you as if you weren't even there!
The Security at airports are adventures in themselves. If you like standing forever in line, being made to feel unimportant, being made to feel like a suspect, getting fussed at, and getting a free attitude adjustment, all at the same time, the airport is your kind of place!
Complaints, comments of any kind, and even scowls are not trip-enhancing moves. To the big-wigs, those movers and shakers whose very pompous pontifications send shivers up and down spines of unfortunate underlings at corporate board meetings, it must indeed be an ego-deflater to have to shut up and take orders from people earning a pittance by comparison.
If you defy them and ask in a haughty tone: "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" you might just get a free ride to the nearest Alzheimer's clinic.
Realize: those poorly-remunerated employees have a uniform, a tazer, and Federal authority to remove anyone from a flight, thus the ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT!!
The whole process is meant as an intimidation to all would-be troublemakers, and in the eyes of the Security officers, EVERYBODY is a suspect until and unless run through the gauntlet of removing shoes, laptops, liquids, articles of clothing, and one's pride, emerging at the other end of the process frazzled, humbled, annoyed, and quite possibly missing one or more items that have fallen through the rollers at the X-Ray machine, or been seized.
Rule of thumb here: if you are running late, above all DO NOT LET ON that you are! Do not comment about your flight, ask about connections, and for goodness' sake do not look stressed (even though you are by this time a nervous wreck!) Wipe that sweat from your brow.
Remember this: the velocity at which you go through Security is directly related to your need for speed. Got all the time in the world? You are sure to fly through. In a hurry? The area becomes a Jerry Lewis movie, with half the population of BULGARIA standing in front if you - and every one in line ahead of you will set off the alarm with their car keys left in their pockets.
During this whole ordeal, your ears get a battering, although you may well be unaware of it. There is a steady babble of useless information, such as PA's about unattended cars, unattended bags, the USO location, the interfaith chapel location, endless pages for people who cannot possibly understand their names the way they are mispronounced, and several announcements for each and every flight that is due to leave that day.
I am convinced that there is a rule against long periods of silence at airports. Something MUST break that silence in order to maintain a high level of stress. Of course you tune all of this out as you try desperately to get to your gate, but the annoyance is subliminal, and quite effective.
"Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath! Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath, please report to the BlueSky Airlines ticket counter. Mister Ree-akk Smee-ath!" Your name is Rick Smith, but with all the 268 different announcements made that HOUR, and with the lousy mispronunciation of your name, you continue on fat, dumb, and happy while your laptop you forgot at checkin goes on to lost-and-found, and to eternal oblivion.
To add to the din, as you go through the Ordeal of Intimidation that is Security, your poor ears are bombarded by a cacophony of very irritating noises, such as incessant beeps of the scanners, agents fussing at and instructing the cattle, (sorry, the people who are being treated like cattle), the whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth of those poor, down-prodden souls who are trying to get out of Dodge, as well as the PA's and the ordinary hustle and bustle of the airport already mentioned.
You sit to rest for a second, and there is big news on the TV. You draw near to hear about it and, of course, there are several people sitting right below the speaker, and they are all talking very loudly, so as to be heard over the TV that they so brilliantly sat right beneath, thereby drowning out the news completely, so you move on.
You walk to the gate, tired and anxious about your departure. Airports are all WPA projects: Walking Plenty Around. Your flight, no matter where it is you're going, is going to be found at the very END of the terminal - especially if you're late. The later the flight, the more you will have to walk!
Now, you don't realize it yet, but you've just joined a baseball team: the Dodgers! You artfully dodge electric carts, running passengers, food carts, cleaners mopping the floor, construction sawhorses, suitcases in the aisles, little toddlers running right in front of you, and people who walk in front of you and just stop for no apparent reason.
Ahead of you is a group of Millennium People, slowly walking FIVE ABREAST, all talking on their cellphones. They don't think there's anybody but them there, they won't let you get by, and if you try to force the issue, you'll come upon an electric cart heading the opposite way that just HAS to get by at that exact second.
You see a moving sidewalk up ahead and pick up the pace to get to it before a family of seven reach it, but unbeknownst to you, they have been in training for a year in the Puxatawnee Walk-a-Thon, and so they beat you there ... only to stop completely to ride the slow-moving conveyor without walking -- and, oh, yes, you guessed it: they're BLOCKING the whole walkway and cannot understand why you want by.
You poke along, watching as several varieties of garden snail pass you. You break out your deck of cards and get in a quick game of Solitaire, fire up your cell and get the stock market quotes, catch a few Z's... And then, just as you finally come to the end of the slow-moving walkway, the family with whom you've by now become intimately acquainted, suddenly takes off faster than O. J. Simpson in a classic Hertz commercial!! Go figure!
Just like the discourtesy vans outside, the electric carts are constantly sneaking up on you and waiting for the moment that you drift into the midde of the passageway. Then you hear: "Excuse the cart!" You are startled, because he is on your heels, almost literally!
You huff and puff and finally arrive at where your plane should be, only to learn that there's been a gate change, and of course it's in a different terminal - way down at the end, of course.
You finally walk to your plane, agitated, frustrated, tired, stressed, and missing a few items, but at least you MADE IT!
The flight attendant says:"Good morning! How are you?"
You reply: "just like that guy in New York!"
"What guy" you are asked.
"There's this man who jumps off the top of the Empire State Building, see?" you explain. "On the 48th floor, a secretary opens up a window to check the weather. She sees the guy falling and hollers to him: 'How's it going?' He answers her: 'So far so GOOD!'"
HAPPY TRAILS!
No comments:
Post a Comment