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E R N I E ' S H O U S E O F W H O O P A S S
LET'S BRING EM HOME 2018 HAS COMPLETED 99 TICKETS SO FAR!
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December 06, 2010 | ||||||||
I Am An Angry and Vengeful God.Merriam-Webster defines thank you as "a polite expression of one's gratitude." Keep that in mind because today we're going to take a look under the hood of that well oiled beast that is LBEH. And in all honesty, this is a post I was hesitant about making simply because I don't want to give anyone the impression that the folks we're buying tickets for are anything less than what they are: very deserving and very appreciative. Quite often I receive emails from military personnel who aren't requesting tickets, but just want to drop me a line and say, "Thank you, we really appreciate what you guys are doing for us folks in uniform." And for the people who do receive tickets? Their appreciation ranges from very simple, "Wow, thank you so much," to hysterical crying phone calls, to thank you cards written in Grandma's shaky handwriting. Not that Kat, Bibi, or I do this for the ego stroking that comes with a heartfelt thank you, but a kind word goes a long way in this world, yes? So by the time LBEH winds down around the first of the year, we've had more thank you's than you can shake the proverbial stick at. But. Every once in awhile. Every once in a blue moon. Someone forgets the cardinal rule. Someone forgets that polite expression of one's gratitude. Generally it happens about once a year, and given we did over a hundred tickets last year, I'd say that's a pretty good batting average. We'll receive an acknowledgement back that reads a very bland, "TICKET RECEIVED" instead of, "TICKET RECEIVED, AND THANK YOU." Normally when someone does this, I'll fire them off an email reading simply "YOU'RE WELCOME" and that's enough to snap people out of it and remind people of their manners. I don't think these occasional instances are indicative of someone greedy or impolite, but perhaps the byproduct of this whole interaction unfolding online. Sometimes we forget there's a real person on the other side of that keyboard and we lose sight of that person-to-person communication. So again, my gentle reminder is usually more than enough to remind said person that Kat and Bibi put a lot of hours into this project so perhaps a few kinds words of appreciation are in order. I can't say this enough, situations like this are by far the exception. But. Every once in great while. Every once in a really, really blue moon. Someone doesn't get the hint. Someone decides they want to be the exception to the exception. Such an event occurred this past weekend, and I'd like to tell you about it. Not because I want to paint this individual in a bad light, but because I want to reassure you, Mr. Donor, that we go to great lengths to make sure the money you send into LBEH goes to people who deserve it and who appreciate what we're doing. To set the stage, Airman John Doe is stationed at Kadena AFB, in Okinawa, Japan, and wanted to fly home to spend the holidays with his family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His initial application doesn't include some of the information we need, so after playing email tag a few times, we get the correct dates and some updated contact information so we can proceed. His leave dates were 22 December to 5 January, but he didn't want to spend all that time home, he wanted to come back to Okinawa on January 3rd... you know, to give a few days to recuperate and get back into the swing of things. Not an uncommon request, so no problem. We'll do our best as long as airfares don't give us a problem. Which they did, in this case. To fly Airman Doe out on January 2nd arriving back to Okinawa on January 3rd was almost $2,900, while getting him back a day earlier on the 2nd was only $1,800. I know it sounds crazy, but anyone who's ever tried booking airfare around the holidays knows there's a lot of fluctuation on pricing. Book a flight one day and it's x-amount of dollars; book it the next day and it can be half that or twice as much. It's kind of a crap shoot with the only firm rule being the close you are to a major holiday, the more volatile the prices. Now, since we can't justify spending the additional funds for one extra day, we book his return flight to arrive back in Okinawa on the 2nd, so we can then use that $1,100 we saved, to buy two of three domestic flights for some other folks trying to come home. Remember we're crossing international date lines, so calendar wise it's one full day's travel. So we mail Airman Doe his $1,800 itinerary all paid for, and instead of a polite expression of one's gratitude, this is the reply we get:
Well okay, perhaps not the response we were expecting, but maybe I'm the only person whose mom used to say, "Beggars can't be choosers." Anyway, Kat replies with the following:
Now I would imagine at this point, the next reply would be something to effect of, "Oh, wow I understand. Thanks you for taking the time to respond so quickly, and thank you for my ticket." Unfortunately, this is not the case. Instead, Airman Doe decides to push the issue:
At this point I get the first whiff of a sense of arrogance and self-entitlement. I "need" to leave on the 2nd. We're not flying him home a day late, we're just flying him home a day early. Hey, best we can do kid, them's the breaks. And the fact that a simple thank you is still markedly absent in his correspondence, is really busting my balls. I decide to fire my first warning shot across the bow. And hint: I only fire one warning shot.
Now I'm getting genuinely pissed. Airman Doe understands the concept that it will cost us significantly more money to extends his stay for one more day, and that's money we could use to buy someone else's ticket, he just doesn't give a fuck. "Can you change my ticket?" "It will cost a lot of money." "Whatever, so can you do it?" As I said before, airfares fluctuate by the day, so if this guy is checking for himself it's like he doesn't believe us. Like we woke up that morning and said, "Wow are we going to pull a fast one on Airman Doe. Instead of buying him a free airline ticket for thirteen days home, we're only going to buy him one for twelve. Boy this is going to be awesome!" And again, that simple thank you is nowhere to be seen. At this point, I give Kat the green light to do something that we've only done one other time before.... in a similar situation about three or four years ago. I tell Kat than if she wants to cancel the ticket and move on to someone else, go for it. We've only got a limited amount of time to do this, mind you. Twenty-four hours after you book a flight, it's non-refundable and we were on hours twenty-three.
Unsatisfied with the answers he was getting from Kat, Airman Doe decides to try an end-around and starts emailing Bibi, seeing if she will change his flight.
Remember when you a kid, like 5 years old, and you wanted an ice cream so you asked your mother, but she said no? And rather than accept that no, you moved on to your dad? Yeah that's what this kid was doing. Anyway, Bibi got a hold of Kat and explained that Airman Doe had been trying to get his ticket changed through her. Now as a reminder, this isn't a situation where we're bring him back a day late where he's going to be AWOL. We're not flying him home a day late, we're just flying him home a day early. And I realize that twelve days home isn't as nice as thirteen days home, but surely, twelve days home is better than zero days home, yes? Beggars can't be choosers, yes? Which makes me remember something my dad used to say, "Some people will piss and moan if they get hung with a new rope." And I'd like to point out that Kat is infinitely more patient in these situations than I am, so when you get her to get pissy, that's really saying something.
At this point, I talk to Kat and unfortunately we're past the 24 hour mark so we can't cancel the ticket. if the price were only $300-$400, maybe I could let it slide. But not $1,800. I can't take that slap in the face. So as I said, I am an angry and vengeful god and if there's one perk to booking 100+ airplane tickets each year, it's that we've got some pull with Orbitz & Travelocity. So as the, ahem "President and CEO or Let's Bring Em Home, Incorporated" I called up Orbitz and explained the situation to a wonderful woman named Heather. I explained to her who we are and what we do, and she seemed thrilled to help. And then I explained the situation surrounding Airman Doe and her voice darkened. I inquired as to the possibility of getting his ticket cancelled even though we were past the 24 hour mark, and wouldn't you know it, somehow we were eligible for a 'courtesy cancellation.' Huh. I thanked her again and send the following email to Airman Doe. As you might imagine, it was quite difficult to not include any fuck's or asshole's, but I managed:
And that is how I ruined someone's Christmas. So let this be a lesson to all you little boys and girls out there. Whether it be something so simple as a waiter giving you an extra napkin, or some anonymous charity giving you a plane ticket; don't let common courtesy die. Because it will come back to bite you in the ass. I know a certain someone will be reminded of that lesson -- in between forks of instant mashed potatoes, jarred gravy, and canned cranberry sauce, of course. I took no joy in kicking this guy in the balls, but I'm sure as fuck not going to go out of my way to help someone with such a hurray-for-me-and-fuck-the-next-guy attitude. On the plus side, we now have $1,800 more that can be reallocated to someone more deserving. 11 celebrities who are total badasses. holly madison and her huge boobs celebrate an early birthday at tao. |
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