Originally Posted by
zorn
I was on a TATL day flight and had paid $3200 because I absolutely needed to polish off a proposal that would be make or break for my company. It was the first time since the downturn since such an expenditure was authorized. The work was dumped on me after one of my associates abruptly quit. Some guy decides he owns 100% of all window shades and insists on putting the one down that overlapped my row no matter how much I pleaded because his beauty rest was apparently more important than my livelihood. He complained that my other shades were down, but I had to put them down because of the glare on my screen. I tried to use the reading light but it is so poorly positioned I couldn't make use of it. I have to admit I was so irate I let some of my refuse spill into his seat area, which I admit I'm not proud of, but I just could not fathom his selfishness. Fortunately the FAs didn't give into his bullying behaviour.
Great story that certainly was possible but here are a few facts:
a) I did not really think I owned 100% of the window shades. Just the ones in my pod. That really was clear from my request to the gentleman to open his own window shades
b) I had worked the night before and was traveling to SFO where I had a dinner meeting on landing and I wanted to get some rest while in transit. Day time or not, being able to rest is really a small expectation when traveling in business class
c) The fellow pax never "pleaded" but just told me once that he wanted to work and hence wanted to keep the window shade open. I did not want an altercation and hence decided to ask the flight attendants to step in. If I wanted to bully the passenger I would have kept putting the window shade down and he would have kept putting it up. This would have pretty much resulted in him not getting any work done. If anything I was the one who felt bullied and not the other way.
d) There was no attempt to use the in seat light to see how poor it would have been in an otherwise dark cabin or to see if the other window shades would have put any glare on the monitor.
e) The FAs had pretty much left us to "fight it out" and if I was actually bullying my fellow passenger I would have not been the one to walk to the back cabin. I can atleast say that I wanted to avoid an altercation and was more courteous and polite than the pax in 2K.
f) Next time the pax's company is on the verge of a make or break proposal and the passenger "absolutely" has to work and can not be nice, polite or courteous to fellow passengers then the company should just charter a private jet for their employee.
Either way zorn thanks for putting some thought into what the other passenger might have been going through. The chance of that happening would have been pretty slim and if that was actually the case, an explanation in a polite manner might have resulted in a positive experience for everyone.