I'n guessing it's a new policy of the Trump Administration: As soon as airline reservations are made in the name of Mark or Sergio, that flight must be canceled. An amazing gent named Doug Merkle was busier than an I'm-Too-Tired-To-Make-Up-A-Joke today. He filled in for me as moderator on several of the panels I couldn't host because I wasn't there while simultaneously trying to rebook our reservations as fast as various airlines could cancel them. Sometimes, they canceled those flights; sometimes, just our seats. But somehow he got ahead of them and I'm typing this from a hotel room across from the Charlotte Convention Center. We'll be there for the last two-thirds of Heroes Con. Whew! is right.
Someone last night tweeted about our situation and directed that tweet towards whoever runs the American Airlines account on Twitter. Here's what they got back…
In instances like this, I think I'd rather not get this kind of "apology." I get bothered by efforts that fall into the category of, literally, "the least you could do." Sometimes when I post here that someone I know has died, I get messages that say, "Please convey my condolences to the family." I know this is cynical but I see something like that and I think, "Wow. You cared enough to spend the three seconds to type that." Often, the folks who want me to convey those condolences of theirs do have an e-mail address for the family but, well, you know…that might take ten seconds.
And writing something specific to the moment…something that applies to the deceased…hell, that could take up to a minute.
The person who sent the American Airlines "apology" had my Twitter address in the tweet to which they were responding. Instead, they sent it to someone else to pass on to me. How minimally thoughtful of them.
I probably sound more rankled by this than I am. It's kind of standard these days. You're wronged and then someone who had nothing to do with the wronging is in charge of apologizing for it without actually caring or doing anything to prevent it from happening to someone else. Or even to you again.
I guess I'm annoyed that we're no longer surprised by this kind of thing. If that offends you, I'll have my assistant apologize without really meaning it.