~ DNA TEST?? ~

by Tina~in_ut

Jerry Springer DNA Test - The best bloopers are here

(you may have to turn your volume up for this one.....I had to listen to it twice before I really heard what she says!)

This is the type of person I get to talk to every day at work. With the internet so easy to use, most of the people who call reservations now are people who have some kind of problem or are just inept. I don't mind talking to the travel agents who call, because I can commiserate with them about the inept person they are calling for. Some days these people drive me crazy, and other days I just have to laugh! It used to bother me when people called for the International baggage policy because they were traveling to Hawaii. Now I just ask them which country they are flying from!!! Oh....or when they want to fly from Omaha, Nebraska to Macon, Georgia and they only want a non-stop flight! Who in the hell flies non-stop between those two cities? Call a charter, honey!

The other day, I had a doozy of a passenger call. Actually, it made me very nervous at first. When someone calls and they mention the word disabled, we have to be very careful of what we say and what we ask of them. The girl was traveling with her son and infant daughter. After a couple of minutes I found out that her mother was conferenced in on the call. They both explained to me that they were traveling the next day and the infant would need oxygen. We need 48 hrs notice for oxygen requests. The passenger cannot bring their own. For safety reasons, we have to provide it. Also, they were traveling on SkyWest, one of our Connection Carriers, and they do not allow oxygen on their planes. It would have to be a mainline plane. Well, only SkyWest planes fly to Long Beach, so I explained that they would have to travel to either Orange County or LAX. Of course, they didn't want to have to pay to change their tickets (it was going to cost them another $170 each). AND they thought it was ridiculous that they had to pay $100 each direction for the oxygen. They made the reservations a month ago and were just now telling us about the oxygen. In the end, they got off the phone without changing their reservation. I talked to my boss about the call afterward and he said, "Well, now that they have told us that the infant needs oxygen, they are going to have to get a letter from their doctor stating that she doesn't if they decide to fly without it." (the infant has epilepsy and if she has a seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes, she'd stop breathing and would need oxygen) So I called the passenger back. What I didn't know was that the phone number in the reservation was the mother's. I called and was informed ever so rudely that she had just called Southwest and they allow a person to take their Portable Oxygen Concentrator (POC) on board at no fee and that she and her family are never flying our airline again. I lost it! Well......as much as I could lose it! I politely informed her that I, and every other representative that she had talked to, had given her the correct information for what she asked. Not once had she asked us about a POC. She asked for oxygen. They are completely different things and I also informed her that she needed to decide which she needed and that she is more than welcome to use a POC on board our airline at no charge. She got off the phone still thinking that the whole thing was our fault. They just figured an airline would have oxygen on board in case of an emergency! Well duh.....we do! But not for individuals!!!! It's for the whole frickin' plane!!!!!

My co-worker had another winner. He arrived at the West Palm Beach airport with his family 45 minutes before his flight and we would not let him check-in. He somehow thought that 45 minutes was enough time to check-in for an International flight. Actually, he thought this because he was flying to Atlanta first and then connecting to a flight to South Africa. I don't understand how he thought we were going to input his passport information for all four, check to see if they required a Visa, check him in for his flight and tag his bags and get them on the aircraft when he would have barely made Domestic check-in time! My poor co-worker was stuck on the phone with him for over an hour listening to him complain and trying to find him a flight out the next day. He also didn't want to pay for the change and argued about that. Once everything was finished and he was set for the next day, he wanted to know how much we were going to compensate him for his time. ALL OF US WERE STUNNED!!!!! People have stopped taking ownership for their own mistakes. Of course he didn't get any compensation from us! Well, the next day, my co-worker looked up the reservation to check something she had forgotten about with the infant that was also traveling, and right there before her eyes, all the passengers had been compensated $200 each for their trouble by someone in another office! It just goes to show you, if you try long enough, you're bound to find someone to give you what you want!

I realize that these are extreme examples of the calls I get, but dang me.....I really wish there was a test given that people had to pass before they were allowed to leave the country and represent the U.S.A.~