Why I don't want to fly US Airways again, part two

Apparently I'm not one to learn from my previous mistakes. Remember when I said I would never fly US Airways again? Yeah, well, I did it again. And it sucked. Again.

I had to fly to Philadelphia for work this week. It's sort of weird being a remote employee and I'm definitely conscious of trying to not seem to expensive. So when I looked online at the flights, I could fly American to Philly, but return flights on American were twice as expensive as on US Airways. So I went with the cheaper option. I know, my mistake.

I showed up for my return flight well in advance to find out I had no seat assignment. I swear they must find the mean ladies to work the US Airways counters from rejects from the DMV. I have rarely had such continued bad customer service and this from a person who really seems to court it somehow. I nicely asked several people who kept saying I had to get to the gate to figure it out. So I arrived about 4:45 for my 6:10 flight. There were four gate agents there, but they continued to chat with themselves. When I asked a question about my seat assignment, they looked up and left the gate. Without saying anythign. I know, right? Who does that?

Eventually at 5:10, I was able to get someone to talk to me.

"We're in an oversold situation. You may not be able to leave until tomorrow."
"Really? I have a confirmation."
"Doesn't matter. We're oversold. We're going to ask for volunteers."
"Oh. Do you need my information?"
"No. We'll find you if we want to."

I hung around and about 5:20, they asked for volunteers. A $300 travel voucher and a hotel room. Two people walked up. Clearly there were a lot more "oversold" seats than that. (I love that it's "we're in an oversold situation" implying no fault as opposed to "We oversold the flight.")

Anyhoo. I came back about 5:30 and eavesdropped as the guy in front of me went through the same thing.

"But you don't have any other flights going to Dallas?"
"No."
"What about connecting through another city? I really have to get home tonight to see my son."
"Hang on. Wait, there's a flight going to DC and then going to Dallas. It leaves now. Do you want it? It arrives at 10:05 p.m."
"Am I going to get on this flight?"
"I don't know. I don't know how many seats we need. You have to decide NOW."
"Um, I guess I'll take it."

I asked if I could do the same thing. She seemed skeptical but eventually looked it up.

"Yeah. Run over there."

So I ran over there and then waited for two minutes in the line to board for Las Vegas. Fortunately, I figured it out in time to convince the gate agent to let me on the plane. Phew! I still didn't have a seat assignment for Dallas, but my thought was if I got stuck in DC, at least I'd get to see my friends.

I got to DC. All the monitors were saying the wrong thing so I finally had to stop someone in the hallway to ask where the flight to Dallas was. The boards said 26. It was 23? I explained finally I needed a seat assignment and was stunned to get one. Yay! I was going home!

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The seats were actually nicer than expected, but man, the service they provide is just so, so awful. I really do intend to fly on anything else if given the chance.

Customer service is hard. It really is. Dealing with people who are stressed and frustrated is also hard. But if you don't want to do the job, don't do the job. Likewise, I think US Airways needs to rethink its gate agent approach. They're the face of the company and they're giving it a black eye.

We're here

We're in Dallas now where the weather is 70 and the grandparents, aunts and nieces are nearby for playing. Andy is having a blast with his cousin Megan. Meg hasn't noticed so much, but she did sleep for 5 1/2 hours at a stretch last night. Fingers crossed that she keeps that up. Both kids did fine on the plane. Andy's portable DVD ran out of juice about 2 1/2 hours in so the last half hour was pretty busy keeping him from knocking the seat in front of him and generally being a royal pain in the neck to the other passengers (and his parents). Meg did great though. I actually find it easier to console her than Andy in those kinds of situations.

On the way back, my sister Elizabeth is coming with Megan (leaving baby Emma at home) so we'll have three kids and two adults. Andy and Megan usually play pretty nicely together so the hope is they can entertain each other. Let's just hope they don't entertain each other by acting more obnoxious than usual.

Terrible threes

So that part about Andy being fine with his new sister? Well, he may be fine with her, but most definitely the terrible threes crawled up and bit him on the ass. Hard. The kid is either a terror or a delight -- never one in between. We're still struggling with potty training. He's alternately enthusiastic and then screaming that he doesn't want to go.

The screaming, sweet Jesus, is just beyond annoying. He gets like that about almost anything, "I do NOT want to watch Thomas. I WANT Little Einsteins." Or "I do NOT want to get in the BATH. NO! NO BATH," which is usually followed 15 minutes later by "I'm NOT getting out of the bath. I want to stay HERE. I NEED to stay here." I don't believe in hitting children, even spanking really, but damn, it's times like this that I really understand how a person could be driven to it.

Of course, after all the screaming, then he'll be really funny and cute, like when he wanted to wear nothing one cold Sunday afternoon and spent the day peacefully playing completely nude. It was cool in the house, but he didn't seem to mind.

We leave today for Dallas for 11 days. Bjorn is coming for the weekend and then comes back while the kids and I will stay in Dallas through the following weekend. It's going to be nice to have a good, long visit with my family. I just hope we're all still speaking to each other other at the end of it.