Originally Posted by
Globaliser
I may be labelled an "apologist" for saying this, but I don't agree with this approach. I think that a frequent flyer's relationship with a regular airline should be like a good marriage: There will be good times and there will be bad times, but the former should far outweigh the latter.
But that also means that you accept that there will be times when things just get stuffed up, and you look beyond that to the other times when the airline looks after you in ways that it isn't strictly obliged to. There's no reason not to let the airline know when things aren't up to scratch; but if you start off by looking for constant perfection, the only thing that will happen is that you will be disappointed.
That is very true. By having my expectations fairly low, or intentionally avoiding having any expectations, I find it hard to get disappointed. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than being disappointed.
One example of such thing was TK long haul in economy class that I had to utilise due to unforeseen circumstance (volcanic ash). I did not expect anything, but to hope that I get from A to B safely and without excessive delays (i.e. days). The food was pretty nice. The bulkhead seat had plenty of space for me to stretch my legs. I only suffered about 4 hours of delay. I did suffer an injury in transit but that had nothing to do with TK. Had I expected perfection, the 4-hour delay would have been highly irritating. But I was pleasantly surprised instead. Above all, I reached my destination safely (except for the unrelated injury in transit) which I wasn't even 100% confident about given the carrier
As for the "apologist" issues, I think it does me good to do my very best to see both sides of the story, and moreover, I really try hard to see the best in people. I cannot always succeed, but I prefer to think that everyone has a bit of decency at the fundamental level. That is usually where I am coming from when I am suggesting the possibility (not likelihood) that there may be two sides of every story.
When someone in customer-facing position is grumpy to me, the first thing I do is to see if there is a possibility that I did something to upset them. Then I consider the possibility that they had something unrelated that upset them. That way, I do not take it personally, unless I have done something wrong myself, which then I can proceed to correcting. It really makes life much easier than to see things in black and white that the other party is always in the wrong, because there are often circumstances behind a situation, and that makes it a little easier to swallow or at least understand, even if the behaviour that results may not be acceptable.
Still, I do not deny that there are probably some people, including those in customer-facing positions who are probably not very "outwardly nice" people (e.g. not very diplomatic etc) and are grumpy regardless of the circumstance, in which case they may be in a wrong job, and as they represent an organisation for which they work, the company needs to take some responsibility for inappropriate selection of their staff, or the selection of inappropriate position for the staff.