You'll like this one...

Two weeks ago, flying RIC-ATL, I'm in the boarding area. It's about 45 minutes until takeoff, but there are no GAs.

About 10 minutes later, two GAs show up at the boarding door - not the desk -- and make the announcement that they will start boarding in two minutes.
I take that opportunity to go over and check on the status of elite upgrades.
The FA looks at me and says, "Oh, we don't do that here. You need to go to customer service to get that done."
I assure her that in all of my years being an elite, never once have I gone to customer service to get an upgrade and politely repeat my request in case she misunderstood me the first time.
Her equally adept partner looks at me and says, "Yeah, we can't do that here."
Um, OK.
As I'm turning to leave, go find customer service, brood, whatever, an Air Tran guy comes walking up with a handful of boarding passes and hands them to the GAs. I wait a moment to see if perhaps they are going to call me back. They don't. I approach them again and say, "Are those, by chance, the upgrades?"
One looks at the passes, says, "What's your name?" I tell her, she hands me my upgrade pass, I thank her, she says nothing.

Then comes boarding. This is no exaggeration of the announcement:
"OK, we're going to begin boarding now. Zones 1, 2 and 3, you can board."

No "people who need extra time" (and there was an older gent with a cane standing there who clearly needed a few minutes). No "business class and elites." No "Zone 1 only." Just a general, "Come on down!"

I shook my head and laughed at the absurdity of it and the woman behind me starts grousing that she just paid $15 for an early boarding pass (when did Air Tran start doing this??) and is going to mention it to the GA. I only heard part of their conversation as I went down the jetway, but I think the general reply she got was, "I don't know what you're talking about."

So I get on the plane, sit in my assigned 3C, people come aboard and when the plane is fairly full, I noticed 1D and F still empty.

An older lady comes aboard, looks down the aisle of the plane, looks back and sees row 1 open, says to no one in particular, "Oh, I got lucky. No one is sitting in the front row," and proceeds to sit in 1F.

I'm gritting my teeth, hoping an FA heard her or would at least ask to see her boarding pass - clearly a WN flier who STILL doesn't realize that Air Tran has assigned seating - but nothing happens.
I saw an FA move someone from coach up to 1D - an elite, perhaps? - and I assume that 1F would have stayed empty, anyway, so no harm, no foul. But it's just the point. It really shouldn't be the passenger's decision to just randomly sit in business class!

Clearly, the FAs have given up even trying to adhere to standard FL policies, like the proper order of boarding and seating assignments that actually make a difference.

Flying to PHL tomorrow. Can't wait to see what happens - though I know I won't be going through the Pre-Check line. Thanks again, WN!