Once upon a time, Southwest was my airline of choice for conveyance if/when I wanted to go someplace on their route map. I haven't flown anywhere for a while and that may be a good thing…
Of the more than 3,000 flights canceled Tuesday across the U.S., about 85% were Southwest's, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Thousands of the airline's passengers were stranded in airports across the nation — not to mention its crew members. In California, hundreds of flights have been delayed or canceled through the end of the week — making up much of the Southwest schedule.
Here's a link to the whole article and there are many more online explaining what went wrong. My great friend, the actress Jewel Shepard, called this one to my attention. You may have to sign up for an account to read it but there's a free option. Here's an excerpt from it…
We are conditioned to get mad at the human face we see before us, the "representative" of the company who personally profits nothing from our purchase. We are conditioned to get mad at the waiter when our food is late (and penalize this "bad service" with a bad tip) when the vast majority of the time it's due to understaffing by a cheapskate boss. We are conditioned to get upset with the enforcer of arbitrary rules at a hotel checkout, despite it not being their rule at all. We are conditioned to be hostile to the very people we should have the most solidarity with.
Earlier on this blog, you'll see me complaining about surveys that ask us to rate the employee with whom we dealt but which leave no opportunity to complain about the company. Adam Johnson, the author of this piece, is right: Bad service is most often a function of a poorly-run company but our only recourse is to dump on the low-level employees. And "Customer Service" is increasingly becoming the name of a department that cannot service you at all. About all you can get from some of them is a rote apology from a stranger who had nothing to do with whatever warrants that apology.
I don't have any answer for this and I doubt you have one. I also have no reason to believe that if one company treats me poorly, its competitors will treat me much better. Might as well stick with the devil you know. (Thanks, Jewel!)