Okay, you were warned. What follows will be more of a rant than a ‘column’ – so if you’re looking for some uplifting, enlightening piece on the travel industry (today) then I would strongly advise you to exit now. If anything what follows could perhaps be classified as a defence of airline customer service: The public loves to complain about how bad airlines are but this will show that bad service is by no means exclusive to commercial aviation.

As a Canadian expat living south of the (what now seems indefinitely closed) border, I could perhaps make the lame excuse that I am merely following the example of the unprecedented president of these disunited states who every day embarks on any number of puerile ‘tweety’ mind-dumps. But I won’t, this was just me losing it over service that set new standards of awfulness.

What drove me, over the edge, tearing my hair out as I went, was the phone company. Sounds like a very old joke – I recall how popular sitcom misanthropes like Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker were forever cursing out ‘Ma Bell.’ Anyhow when my landline – yes, yes I know it’s a dinosaur but so am I – went on the fritz and then rolled over and died, I attempted to contact the phone company’s so-called customer service department: To protect the guilty I will not name names. I called on my cell phone (service from a different carrier to the landline) and after a dozen or so attempts to drive me to the website I got to a recorded message that said, “During the Coronavirus pandemic, as we attempt to maintain our legendary service levels, we are experiencing a much higher call volume than usual. If you wish you can remain on the line or we will call you back in (momentary pause) 42 minutes or more.”

Several things simultaneously annoyed and amused me with this abhorrent message:

Firstly, as horrendous a disaster as the pandemic is, the ubiquitous ‘CORONA Excuse’ is wearing a little thin in a lot of situations. It’s presented in all kinds of ways such as, “Well with today’s situation…” or “While in normal times we would have been able to…” most of which are followed by “Today it’ll take twice as long” and/or “… will cost you 25% more than it did last year.” I recall some businesses using 9/11 as an excuse for lousy service several years – I wouldn’t dare to hazard a guess as to how long this one will be with us.

Secondly there was their claim to proving “legendary service.” Their voice mail script writers should look up the meaning of this word, one definition of which is ‘mythical.’ A ‘myth’ can in turn be defined as a “cock-and-bull-story” so I guess you can see where I’m going with this – service can be legendarily bad!

But the real doozey was the sting in the tail – “we will call you back in 42 minutes OR MORE!”

I mean, “no more than 42 minutes” maybe, or “within 45 minutes” or even, “some time before the end of the month” (it was the 20th) but “or more” is just an insult to their customers – in this case a customer whose patience was already strained over the fact that his phone service was dead to the world. As it turned out they were right with the 42 minutes, they just forgot to mention the six hours that preceded it. Yes, it was almost seven hours before the call back arrived: There was no attempt at an apology, and when I dared to mention the fact it had taken them all day, I was not surprised to hear, “Yes sir, (not sorry sir) but with the COVID situation we are so much busier than usual.”

If ‘all’s well that ends well’ this didn’t. The first service appointment was four days later “between 08:00 and 12:00.” They finally got here at almost 4:00 – again with no apology, just that familiar excuse. This guy did however take it up a notch, blaming the delay on “COVID-29.”

And that Mrs. Lincoln is about it. In a peculiar way, I’m really looking forward to getting back to experiencing bad airline service again – it just has a certain familiar comfort level to it. But can you imagine a gate area announcement of, “We apologize for the delay to your flight today. It will now be leaving in three hours or more.” You see, airlines aren’t really that bad after all.