The Running of The Bulls

How appropriate that I am writing this on my way to Chicago. I did not think of this when I chose the topic, but now that I am airborne I find it comical. I am on a plane on my way to Chicago and I am writing about the Bulls, well actually the bull, but you get the point.

I am on a United flight from Sacramento to Chicago, and our flight was delayed an hour while waiting for plane and crew. I really do not mind delays, as long as I am not connecting anywhere. The only part that gets to me is watching all of the IDIOTS in the terminal. In “Death of Common Courtesy” I may have mentioned air travelers, but today I wanted to be slightly more specific. They are all rude, ignorant, arrogant, IDIOTS. Obviously not all, but the three people I have met traveling that aren’t will no doubt understand me including everyone.

I used to fly a fair amount – read 120 flights a year, almost 700,000 miles in about six and a half years – and I absolutely loved the travel. The only time I would get at all stressed was when I had to listen to people screaming at gate agents because it was raining. I realize gate agents are powerful people, if you are nice to them you can find yourself in first class without knowing why, and if you are grumpy with them you will probably wind up in the back of the plane, last row middle seat, they do not control the weather however!! I will repeat myself, they do not control the weather.

Here is another one, they also would prefer that you not get into a broken plane and try to take off. I know that is weird of them, but they are funny people that way. Gate agents would prefer that no one die. Premier travelers who like to act like they travel a lot and therefore know more than the gate agents, the pilots, the mechanics, anyone really, do not understand this concept.

I will take a minute to explain why I pick on Premier travelers. There are a number of different levels of “status” within United’s Mileage Plus program, as there is with American, Delta and most of the other major airlines. If you travel over 100,000 miles a year, the airlines believe that should give you significant perks and I would have to agree, that is a lot of flying, roughly Boston to San Fran and back twenty times in a year. If you were to travel from Boston to Chicago a lot, you would have to make that trip fifty times a year to be a “1k” traveler. You can probably now see why some perks are worthwhile. If you travel half as much, still a fair amount, you are a Premier Executive, they like you too. If you travel a few times a year you can reach Premier status which means that send you something to make you feel good about yourself, but stacked up behind the 1ks and the Premier Execs you are not going to get much, but if you ever heard the expression “give a little man a little power…” those are Premier flyers.

Enough explaining. While waiting for flights I have trouble sitting down, well really anytime. I like to pace, as often as possible, but I am aware of the fact that my pacing in a gate area could be annoying to people so I usually try to find a neighboring gate that is not active and put my stuff down there and commence pacing. Sometimes, when it is really busy in the terminal, I will find the farthest corner from the gate and set my stuff down and lean against a wall out of the way. That is where I was from around 12:30 today until around 2:00 PM. I had the opportunity to watch roughly 600 people, half traveling to Chicago, and half traveling to Denver, be rude to each other for an hour and a half. The good news, I guess, is that I can report that none of them had any idea there were other people there, so they didn’t really no they were being rude, I guess.

The best, or worst, example I can give you is when the plane for the Denver flight arrived, full, and none of the mass of six hundred even attempted to make room for those folks to get through. Not even when a very nice hung man in a neon vest moving wheel chairs through did anyone go out of their way. Hey said “coming through” in a very pleasant tone, and no one moved, not an inch, he just kept saying it gently, kept creeping towards the exit, and slowly, as the lead wheelchair, he was pushing two people at one time, started to bump into people, the masses started to realize there “hey, I am not alone.” But very slowly, and not for long.

The next example just simply made me laugh. There were two 1k travelers, both wearing about a thousand dollars worth of clothing, and both rambling away, in very deep, important tones, lined up to get on the Denver flight. Not that the Denver flight was going to board anytime soon, it was scheduled to board twenty minutes after the Chicago flight, but they both really wanted to be first. I was standing very near them and actually had to ikeep myself from laughing. After the Chicago flight was almost finished boarding, the woman working the Denver gate, her last name was Hitzler, but she said just call me Hitler, I had no response to that, especially since she was a very pleasant, helpful, and knowledgeable woman who had been working for United for twenty two years. Miss Hitzler opened the door to the jetway for the Denver flight in order to help a woman in a wheel chair onto the plane early, and these two, thousand dollar men, both shuffled forward towards the rope, which was keeping them from their comfy leather first class seats. The other three hundred folks that were eagerly awaiting the stale air that is traveling in the “friendly skies,” ALL followed suit, and all I could think about was “the running of the bulls” in Pamplona. The only difference is that I would have to say that the actual bulls are a bit more polite, maybe even a bit more than a bit.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.