Nothing like faceless bureaucracies to really help a guy out when he’s ill.<\/p>\n

Really.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

Take Northwest Airlines (or Delta or whatever the hell they are at the moment) as a shining non-example.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday I flew to Montr\u00e9al for GECCO<\/a> (one of the really big conferences in my research area). I was supposed to fly to DC yesterday for an NSF review panel today and tomorrow. I would then fly back to MSP on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I became quite ill yesterday morning, starting with diarrhea, and then adding vomiting just in case I hadn’t gotten everything<\/em> out of my system. As a result I took what I thought was the fairly wise decision of not<\/em> flying to DC for the panel. The one relevant study I found indicated that after surveying 1,000s of people, they only found one would actually wanted to sit for several hours in a small tin can thousands of feet in the air next to someone who was busily ejecting all their gastro-intestinal contents. And that one lucky customer thought they were Napoleon.<\/p>\n

So, you might think that I was doing the airline industry a favor by not bravely struggling to the airport, puking at the ticket counter, and racing to the toilet the moment I boarded their flight.<\/p>\n

They apparently see it differently.<\/p>\n

The folks at the NSF have kindly told me to skip the whole panel thing and go home and recuperate. Most of the panel’s work is being done today, so there’s not much point showing up tomorrow, etc., etc. My insides are behaving today, but I’m still quite weak and run down, so I’m planning to stay here the rest of the day and head home tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I called Northwest Airlines to see what we could work out. Twice. Same stupid answer both times.<\/p>\n

They insist<\/em> on flying me back to MSP via DC “because that’s how my original ticket was set up”. I’m sick. I just want to get the hell home. They have a direct flight to MSP from Montr\u00e9al. Put me on it. Please?<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

“Can I put you on hold to see what we can work out with ticketing?”<\/p>\n

“Sure.”<\/p>\n

<Polite language that translates to “You’re screwed.”><\/p>\n

And they wanted $200 in penalties for the privilege of six hours of travel instead of two. Oh, and the chance to see the inside of DC National again for a bit. Thanks. Really. Thanks.<\/p>\n

200 frickin dollars to put a sick person on the slow boat to Minnesota. This is the finest customer service money can buy, apparently.<\/p>\n

I did this twice, with identical results.<\/p>\n

I was so pissed the first time that I announced that I was going to buy a one way ticket from some other airline (any<\/em> other airline) and hung up. I’m generally extremely polite with these people, because they’re powerless drones passing along bad news they have no control over. I suspect on their scale of asshole-ness, I was still<\/em> really polite, but I did feel a little bit bad about it after I hung up.<\/p>\n

A phone call was placed to the center of all wisdom and common sense (aka WeatherGirl<\/a>), and we discussed the situation. It would in fact cost me over $500 to fly back on another airline, and that had a stop in Philidelphia; the best non-stop was over $800. <\/p>\n

Ugh.<\/p>\n

Crow was therefore eaten, and I called Northwest back and said I’d take the $200 “deal” (hence the second call).<\/p>\n

Ugh again. And to DC I go.<\/p>\n

Because of the DC leg, there’s no plausible routing that gets me to MSP for the last (3 hour) shuttle ride back to Morris. The current plan is for my remarkably generous family to drive out to pick me up (7 or 8 hours of their life I don’t get to bill to anyone). Otherwise I’ll start shopping around contacts in the Cities and see if someone will let a sick puppy sleep on a couch tomorrow night and take the shuttle Wednesday.<\/p>\n

I’m sure there are a thousand reasons by their bureaucracy “needs” me to go through DC, but none of them make a damn bit of sense. I’ve heard this sort of “logic” before, and it’s the same stuff lazy software developers use to justify why something “can’t be done”, which what they really<\/em> mean is “We can’t be bothered”.<\/p>\n

I suspect the big issue may be that the middle leg (Montr\u00e9al to DC) is on United, and United is gonna want a pound of flesh from Northwest regardless. So instead of working with me, or trying to work with United, Northwest insists on making United fly me to DC so the corporate accounting plays out in the end.<\/p>\n

Damn.<\/p>\n

At least I have a good health care plan. Watching this amazing Bill Moyers interview with Wendell Potter<\/a> makes one despair for the capitalism that is running rampant across the globe, and all the misfortunates being trodden under foot in the process. In that perspective I’m damn privileged.<\/p>\n

I think I’m going to eat some more of the fruit from this morning’s breakfast and take a nap. I’ve got a long day tomorrow and need my rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northwest Airlines is officially stupid and refuses to fly me straight back to MSP from Montr\u00e9al (where I’ve become sick) and instead insists on making a sick person fly through DC to get to Minnesota. And they’re charging me $200 for the privilege. Ugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,19],"tags":[355,458,357,396,227,163,246,336,457],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-travels","tag-airline","tag-airline-industry","tag-airport","tag-flying","tag-gecco","tag-health","tag-minnesota","tag-msp","tag-northwest-airlines"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-gJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":864,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/07\/11\/msp-humphrey-terminal-a-modern-ghost-town\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":0},"title":"MSP Humphrey terminal: A modern ghost town","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"11 Jul 08","format":false,"excerpt":"The Hubert H. Humphrey terminal at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport was eerily empty and quiet today.","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/06\/27\/a-big-howdy-from-gecco-and-washington-dc\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":1},"title":"A big howdy from GECCO and Washington, D.C.","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"27 Jun 05","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm in the middle of GECCO 2005 here in Washington, D.C., with Ellery and Wayne (two UMM students\/alums). We arrived Friday (WeatherGirl and my 16th anniversary!) and head back Thursday. The conference has gone well so far, and today we skipped out some to check out some Smithsonian museums (a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/03\/09\/our-gecco-paper-is-accepted\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":2},"title":"Our GECCO paper is accepted!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"9 Mar 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Ellery and I just got word that our paper that we submitted to GECCO was accepted! We're currently in the panic of getting our Genetic Programming in Theory and Practice (GPTP) 2005 paper ready before Tuesday's deadline, all amongst getting our CSci tenure-line candidate interviews arranged and done. And make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/01\/24\/we-got-the-gecco-paper-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":3},"title":"We got the GECCO paper off","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"24 Jan 05","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a long weekend, but Ellery and I got our GECCO paper submitted, even with a few hours to spare. It could have used another day's editing by people with more sleep than we had had, but I still think it's good work. Other random stuff... After the incredible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":868,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/08\/12\/i-tend-to-scribble-a-lot\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":4},"title":"I tend to scribble a lot","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Aug 08","format":false,"excerpt":"A photo demonstrating how much I scribble on papers when I'm editing.","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Creative Commons License","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/plugins\/photo-dropper\/images\/cc.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1022,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2009\/07\/09\/evidence-that-crazy-is-old-as-the-hills\/","url_meta":{"origin":1037,"position":5},"title":"Evidence that crazy (and mean) is old as the hills","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"9 Jul 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I'm swamped at GECCO (tutorial yesterday with Riccardo, our paper presentation tomorrow, etc., etc.), I'll take a few moments to share some seriously weird (no, I mean seriously weird) old ads. The obviously unstable folks at Retro Comedy have collected what they bill as The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Crazy old Pears soap ad","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/SoupDisaster-217x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1047,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions\/1047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}