Age discrimination
 

I have posted something like this before, but this happened over the weekend that bothered me so much...

I am a 1K, 23 years old who just happen to look VERY young. I couldn't have passed for a high school student. I have a MBA and am working for a big company here in NYC. I travel a lot for work so having 1K is a huge bonus.

Last weekend, I went to the airport early to stand by for a morning flight to SFO from EWR...I got the departure card along with my BP for the confirm flight. I got to the gate and the GA was able to give me the seat. He then ripped off my BP for my confirm flight which I understand.

He called me up later and told me that I would not get on the flight because they changed us to a smaller plane and there won't be enough seats for everyone. He told me that he would book me on another flight. So I stood there, waiting for him to do so while he is helping out other customers. I then asked if I could have my original boarding pass back so I would go out of the security and do it myself at the ticket counter...

He then got all pissy, ripped up my BP and said me " Sir, I don't have time right now, you don't have a boarding pass anymore"

Me: " I did until you gave me my seat then ripped them all"
GA: " If you want, you are welcome to look through the trash"
Me: " OMG , you ARE SO RUDE. Is this how you treat your elite members? That is unacceptable."
GA: " You are disturbing me, I will call TSA and you could talk to them. Now go sit down" ( as he started to pick up the phone )

I am not making this conversation up, there were more to it but I don't feel like typing them all. I tried to looked at his name tag which he got even more angry. I told him I would write him a very nice letter.

He treated me like a child which I did not appreciate. I think if I was older, he would have never used that language toward me. I called to complain but from my experience, they don't really do anything.

I been flying out of EWR at least twice a week and I have ran into him along with his ".....y team". They are very nice to me now consider knowing that I am a 1K member ( they had no idea that I could be a 1K at such young age).

This is not the first time I feel that they treat me wrong because I look young. People have questioned me on how I got my status. Even fellow passengers gave me dirty looks when I board on the RC or sit in C or F.

All I ask is.... please dont judge the book by it cover. Yes I look like I am 17, but you don't know me. Just be nice...

23, 17, 84, 6, or 114 there's plenty of GAs in this system that I've concluded just aren't cut out for a customer facing position especially in one that involves the slightest bit of stress*. If it went as you say then my guess is the guys a an arse and your age had little to do with it.


*if your first response to someone being the slightest bit upset is to call security you qualify.

what does having an MBA have to do with the situation? is it written on your forehead?

Welcome to FT!

This type of situation reflects horrendous customer service, not age discrimination. I would let Continental know about it, but would not mention the age issue, since there is nothing in your original post to indicate that the agent was rude to you because you look young.

Your reaction (Me: " OMG , you ARE SO RUDE. Is this how you treat your elite members? That is unacceptable.") did not help the situation. Yes, it's frustrating. Yes, the agent was rude. But your response smacks of "DYKWIA?"

Mike

The edit button does is giving me issues, so I'll add that the agent's threat to call the TSA was way out of line. I hate when employees use the TSA for a customer service situation. I might have just said, "OK, go ahead."

Mike

I am in complete agreement. The GA was behaving in an unprofessional manner, but it had nothing to do with your age.

Agreed. Folks like this guy actually DON'T discriminate. They're a**hats to everyone.

I'm sorry you had a negative experience, and Welcome to FlyerTalk.

Regardless of your status w/ United, it was unnacceptable behavior by someone that represents the airline and is supposed to be assisting customers.

FYI, my new standard response to the threat of someone acting like a d1ck calling the police (or in your case the TSA) is to remain polite but say something to the effect of "Please do call the [police]. I have done nothing wrong and there are witnesses here to prove it [people start running]. I would love to watch you try and explain your behavior to them and for it to be documented for your employer and the public to read about." It's been a very persuasive argument on the couple of occasions I have had to use it.

Just curious, but were you dressed in business attire?

At any rate, using the TSA as a threat is totally unacceptable.

I agree with the OP - it's age discrimination.

Unless you have had it happen to you - or someone you know well - you may not believe it.

I'd be polite, use the old "kill them with kindness". Don't stoop to their level - and be thankful that you'll look young forever while they get old and ugly :)

bad attitude
 

You could have whipped out your 1k card and said, "Is this how you treat your 1k members?"

I was on a flight and this 1k dude was next to me in business class. They didn't have his food selection, and he said, "What? 1k isn't good enough any more?" He got his food selection no problem.

But there is also a point N965VJ made. If you show up in a blazer and a dress shirt, they tend to give you more respect. If you show up with a backpack, sweatshirt and jeans, people may not. I saw on a travel show where the guy said, "I always travel with a blazer." It definitely makes you look more credible, even if you're off to hawaii on vacation. However, if you're a woman, then it may be different.

But no matter how you were dressed or what milage plus elite leve you were at, that is absolutely unacceptable behavior. I would complain to United until I was blue in the face if I were you.

I am in my early 20s and I always travel in a blazer and/or proper attire as it is a proven fact (in my experience) that people take you more seriously and give you more respect and better customer service. Also, being cool-headed and polite earns you more respect than being an arrogant, obnoxious, and whiny Elite.

You know an airline has too much control over an airport when people automatically assume that a UA 1K who mentions his 1K status to a GA is flying on CO. :D

Agreed. Dress makes a big difference in how you are treated.

The one exception to this is in computers--casual dress in a context where you would expect professional dress marks you as a guy who actually works with the machines as opposed to a manager but doesn't get the brush-off that would otherwise likely follow from not dressing to standard.

Jeans and a T-shirt have always worked fine for me at things like Comdex except for the fact that they would prefer talking to the suits. A suit represents more sales and they are a lot easier to impress with fluff. I never had the feeling that they didn't take me seriously, just that they correctly identified me as a small fish.

Looking Younger than You Are
 

I feel your pain.

I looked like I was 14 when I was your age. Didn't look like a grownup until my mid thirties.

I've experienced similar bad treatment that, at the time, I attributed to age discrimination.

However, I'm not so sure anymore.

It is hard to know or tell with any certainty when people are treating you like a kid, providing bad customer service, or something else just as stupid.

Mrs runarut swears she gets different treatment by airlines because she is a woman. She believes that she is singled out because she is less likely to raise a fuss. (Underlying assumption is that women are less likely to raise a ruckus than men.)

Using her logic, young are less likely to raise a fuss than folks in their prime. Therefore, young are more likely to receive bad customer service.

My belief is that, in general, presentation (how you dress, talk, etc) has more to do with how you are treated than any other factor. Testing my theory is easily done at new car dealers. ;-)

In my life experience, the best solution is to focus on what you can change instead of trying implement change in others. There are things that you can do that improve the odds of good treatment. They can be difficult to figure out. The ones that work best for me required behavioral changes on my part. This doesn't require you to sell out and not be who you are. Think of it like driving a car. Can't drive the car effectively unless you understand the controls.

Also, different airlines have different rules for handling irregular operations. It may be that losing your seat was a matter of airline policy and not the arbitrary whim of a jerk gate agent. Study the forum for your airline to find out how best to position yourself during irregular operations.

Your only consolation is that when you get into your fifties, you may very well look forty as I do. I like looking young now. Sucked when I was in my twenties and early thirties.

Did your MBA curriculum not include spelling and grammar? If you speak like you write it's no wonder the GA discounted you.

The treatment described was quite far into the realm of unacceptable regardless of business attire, age discrimination, or whatever.

Judging from the post (1K status, SFO-EWR) , I would think OP's on a UA flight, not CO (even s/he didn't say it specifically).

I agree. If a GA is in a bad mood (or unprofessional), s/he is in a bad mood (or unprofessional). I assume confrontation on the spot didn't help either.

As most people have already said, this sounds like yet another case of bad service and not age discrimination (though that may be indeed be a factor).

I am even younger (just turned 22) and look quite young as well. I've been in a few sticky situations and I can safely say that, while it may not help sometimes, being nice and staying calm never hurts. Dressing well probably helps, but being cool gets you so much further.

UA has generally been pretty decent to me in airports worldwide, maybe because I travel quite a bit with my family (dad is 1KMM, mom is 1P).

Take it easy on the OP, people. I empathize, as most of us have been in a similar situation at some point. Besides, MBAs get enough flack as it is. Reminds me of this FedEx ad!

I'm 23, a Gold on Delta (will be Platinum in 3 weeks) amongst others and have been elite on an airline since 18 (I think). Only once have I ever run into an issue, and that was with a GA in PHX who said I was using my father's Medallion information and that she was doing me a favour by not turning the both of us in. I simply told her "thanks" and boarded the plane, and when I got home shot off an e-mail to DL complaining about this agent and how she treated an elite member.

Oh sorry that my spelling and grammar bothered you. English is my fourth language. Why don't you try to speak your fourth language this good then go talk to me again?

I call bull. The reason is that if English were really OP's fourth language, and OP
got an advanced degree of some kind, OP'd be more careful about its usage.
Unless the degree was one of those vanity degrees, perhaps.

Or unless it was from a university in non-English-speaking country. Like most of the world ;)

Think about it, K.

Oh gosh, four languagues, this person is obviously superior to me! I only speak three languagues so I should bow to someone that speaks four. </sarcasm>


OP, I was on your side in this situation until I saw your arrogant response. Is it possible you're not recounting the story correctly and some arrogance crept into your body language during the exchange? Is it possible that, by your own admission your English is a 4th language, you did not understand what was going on during your verbal exchange? Like I said, I thought you were right until I saw the quoted post showing that perhaps you don't even realize you're being offensive.

The arrogance was originally displayed in the post OP was replying to. OP replied in a fitting and restrained manner under the circumstances. Frankly, the fact that you thought OP was "right" until you learned English was not his first language speaks volumes and sheds some light on what OP actually experienced at the airport.

My reaction has nothing to do with learning English isn't his first language and has everything to do with what I view as his arrogance. I feel like he was trying to silence dissenting opinion because, and I paraphrase "I speak four languages, therefore I'm intelligent, so shut up and don't disagree with me."

My learning about the language situation doesn't "speak volumes" because my point is that, when someone disagreed with the OP, his reaction was harsh. Is it possible that when faced with a rude representative of the airline, the OP reacted in a way that escalated the situation? of course the GA was ghastly wrong, but that doesn't mean that the OP isn't arrogant as well.


Anyway, RPH, I can already tell where this is going. The next response is to call me an 'apologist' for bad bahavior.

OP: Please tell us that you are a person of color so that PhlyingRPh can REALLY go on a tear. With "discrimination" in the thread title, I knew it would not take long for him to appear.

Yes, you experienced age discrimination. The GA treats young people badly and does judge books by its cover.

Or as others have stated, the GA is just lousy at his job.

A picture is more than a thousand words. Just check out OP's profile and you can see it for yourself. :D

As I mentioned before, I am not giving excuses to the GA in question. However, I learn from personal experiences if things are handled in a "graceful" way, most of the times, you'll get better results, in comparison with being confrontational.

Nah, my apologies.

Maybe if you didn't talk like a valley girl, you'd be treated as a mature adult. I'm afraid I call bull on the "4 languages" too since I don't know many valley girls whose fourth language is English.


Seriously, what adult in public comes out with, "OMG you are SO rude!!!!"

If you join an interwebs forum and on your first threat you have to "show off" your academic credentials or how many languages you speak then I would bet you're not a so-nice person to be arguing with.
Also, if you use the phrase "OMG you're so rude" there may be a small chance that your way of talking simply annoys other people. Do things like this happen to you often?

I think the OP already got a good sample of how FTers think or handle similar situations.

Before this thread turns into another "Southwest too pretty to fly type of discussion", why don't we just give this young OP, a creative editorial fashion assistant, a break? ;)

I belive the situation was way more accelerated by OP not keeping his cool than his age, even though a complaint should be filed to UA anyway.

I have never been treated even close to that bad by a GA, and I am 21 (but doesn't look 17) with a mere 1P.

Given that OP is a 1K, shouldn't he be on the very bottom of the list of confirmed passangers getting kicked of the plane due to plane change?

I think I am just getting really tired of these "I look young, but I am a top level elite with a great job but get treated like crap" threads. We get it... You are young and fly a lot and we should be in awe. Yawn. I have to say based on these few posts the OP is showing a striking lack of maturity for being so important.

I think I should start a second career as a clairvoyant. My prediction is that this thread is going to get locked anytime soon.

Ahh, I see business school classes are changing with the times. :rolleyes:

I drive a BMW, and I've found it really helps to combine that with education. Ergo:

Me: "OMG, LMAO!!!! I drive a BMW, went to Harvard, and have an MBA. You are a simple do-boy. Respect me!!! BBL."

Interesting. That's not how I read it at all.

I believe the "English is my fourth language" comment was in response to someone criticising the OP for his grammar.

I believe that the response of "English isn't my native language, nor is it my second or even third language so give me a break," is entirely appropriate.

I wonder how many of the people attacking the OP's slightly-less-than-perfect grammar and spelling have ever had to communicate in an acquired language. My guess would be zero.

When the OP reaches my age, I think he’ll be happy that he looks younger than he is.

Nothing beats being carded by a 19 year old girl at a convenience store for cigarettes when you’re 35!