Capitalism ate my Mother and other harrowing tales

OMG. What a traumatic day. It started out fine. My mother who lives with me was boarding a non-stop flight from Seattle to Narita at 11:30 for her annual two-week visit with relatives. Mr. GO took her to the airport, got her checked in, dropped her off at the international flight gate, and waved goodbye. We then planned to make the 1:30 showing of Michael Moore's new movie, then come home and put our feet on the furniture and let our hair down.

At 3:30 we got home to hear a message from the airlines saying the flight had been canceled and that passengers would be taken to LA the next day for an overnight layover before continuing their flight to Tokyo. I was confused. I thought they were already in the air when I left to go see the movie. Okay, so I look up the airline's number and call. An automated message offers me a list of options but will only keep repeating that it doesn't understand my response. And yes, my voice is starting to sound a bit stressed. By the time I am yelling "HUMAN HUMAN I WANT TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN," I did sound like I was losing it. Finally, I am connected to Dolly in Bombay. I tell her I can't find my mother. She doesn't speak English very well and is 84. She tells me try Yellow pages. There are no numbers. So I ask where I should look in the yellow pages. She simply repeats Yellow pages. I tell her at this point that when I hang up I will call the local police and file a missing person's report on my Mother if they have not given me more assistance than this. At this point all I want is a phone number to call the airport. My mother has been gone 5 hours at this point. When I mention calling the police, the woman accuses me of threatening her!!! I demand to speak to a supervisor. Raj the supervisor comes on and tells me there is no phone number to call the airlines or even the airport. And they aren't responsible for the loss of my mother. She is not luggage I tell him. I explain that we delivered her to the proper gate, that she had relatives waiting to retrieve her in Narita and that she cannot have disappeared without someone being able to give me some information. Now, I am starting to panic. I explain to Raj that I need to find her or I will call the police. Raj says I can't call the police. At this point i tell him I am a goddamn American and I can call the police, my lawyer, the local TV station or anyone else I fucking want to (except apparently the airlines). Now Raj accuses me of threatening him. I tell him he evidently doesn't understand English, and that in my country we try to find our aged mothers when they turn up missing. Again, he accuses me of threatening him. Then he puts me on hold and the line goes dead.

I am pissed at this point. Unable to find any phone number, so I call the travel agent and explain. She calls the airline somehow and finds out that the flight was canceled, and that passengers were sent to a hotel, but they have no idea where my Mother is! And there is no way to call them because there is no public number for the airlines. The travel agent says I should go to the airport and have my mother paged. This is a 45 minute trip. So up to the airport goes Mr. GO. He has my mother paged. No response. They give him a pass to go through the boarding area to look for her at the gate area. Again, no luck. Oddly the airport seems to have lost an entire planeload of folks. Finally, the airport tracks her down to a hotel. We get there to discover several airmen have taken her under their wing and helped her after she fell dragging her luggage outside the hotel. THEN we discover the plane actually had been in the air for 1/2 an hour before turning back earlier in the day due to mechanical problems, and that the passengers had been kept on the plane for hours as they tried to repair the problem!!! And my Mother who can't even operate a hotel phone is hanging out with a bunch of young Air Force guys trying to call us on their cell phones!

So this is my review of Michael Moore's move: I left the theater ready to sharpen my pitchfork and finished out the day ready to gouge my eyes out with a spork!! Thank goodness I found NoFuryLike home, because she talked me down when I was hyperventilating and babbling incoherently about my mom revolving on a luggage carousel.

Anyway, go see the movie. Just make sure you take your mom with you!!

TG for the Air Force!

The Sunnyvale Police tried to steal my grandmother once but so far, I haven't lost Mom. That must be next. We need to start a sisterhood of the travelling parents!

You must be exhausted!

refusing to understand me. "HUMAN! HUMAN!" I sounded like a very angry beehive by then.

"representative." "agent." "human" "YOU MOTHERFUCKING BOT GET ME A PERSON"

I believe that bots are one of the most lamentable byproducts of the tech age, if not the most. how much time do we all waste listening to bots go through their routines when we know damn well we need the assistance of a human being?

"I want to speak to a person" actually gets you a person. I just yelled it in frustration one time and, lo and behold, one popped onto the line! Now I do it lots earlier since it seems to work.

that you were here to tell of it. seeing as that "HUMAN! HUMAN!" was just in the first few hours of many.....


and i know... i KNOW the unspeakable shriekin fury of those effin bot trash junk stuffs.....

anyway, to say, wow, you handled it, dearest generic other


btw, to you and to EF, above, i think the "sisterhood of the travelling parents" suggestion sounds quite excellent!!

:grouphug:

The Sunnyvale police really don't have anything better to do than steal the elderly.

i'm really sorry for what your mom went through--i'd have lost my fucking mind.

you also might want to report that fall--she's 84 years old and dragging her own fucking luggage? this needs to get on "record" maybe even with police? (since you can't call the airlines)--she might have hurt herself and it won't show up right away.

this really is terrible.

WHAT WAS THE AIRLINES? SAY THEIR NAME...OUT THEM.

:hug:

i hope you get a chance to pursue this with a rep from the airline. and i hope your mom is doing well?

even though they told her no space available earlier. So same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow. I hope her knee is ok. It looked bruised and a bit swollen.

If it gets worse, I will be WRITING someone, since I know calling is out of the question.

Write everything down as soon as possible to preserve the timeline and details and complain to any and all who will listen. There must be a mailing address for the airline with no public numbers at your airport.

Oh and that bit about accusing you of threatening them -- that's their training response to any suggestion that an irate customer is going to take action to seek remedy elsewhere. It's meant to distract you by putting you on the defensive and it's very effective-- with most people.

Is it safe to out them before she gets there? Ok. It was United.

Go to your airport this morning walk up to the first person you find in the United area and tell them what's going on, starting with your concern about her making the flight in LA, then following up with the story of how she was left to drag her luggage around and fell and she may have been hurt, and how United employees told you there was nothing they could do to help. Keep repeating it as often as it takes until somebody with a United name tag responds.

Print this page and bring it with you. Show it to any employee who gives you the run around.
http://www.united.com/page/article/1,,1505,00.html?navSource=Dropdown07&linkTitle=ourcustomer

And write an online complaint form backed up by a paper letter to Chicago.
http://faq.ua2go.com/display/4n/kb/atr/index.aspx?tab=atr&c=12&form=customerrelationsForm&cpc=WnaqDcP5KrMu623S1OA64DwwrR4UyhK6fv2ylkXXS&cid=1&r=0.0674302

I'll never fly with those assholes again.:mad:

of graduate students on a trip to Europe to visit businesses. When we were ready to leave Frankfurt and I tried to check in for my flight (as part of the group), I was told that my two allotted bags were already checked (though I was not yet checked in) and that I couldn't check the two bags with me. The bags had to stay in a bomb-proof room for at least 24 hours before they would be sent on to the United States.

I kept repeating, "The two bags you have checked, that you don't know who they are from, are the security problem. You don't know where they came from or why they're on the flight. My bags are with me and I'm going on that flight. There's nothing wrong with my bags, there's something wrong about the other two bags." Got absolutely nowhere. They kept repeating that mine would have to be kept in a bomb-proof room for at least 24 hours before they could be sent on to the United States.

Wrote a letter explaining the situation to Delta and asking them to fix both their group check-in and their security procedures. Got back a form letter and a claim form for lost luggage.

like a grab bag! Would have been nice to find two suitcases full of money! On the other hand, if "your" bags ended up having bad stuff in them when you arrived stateside, would "you" have been arrested? That is very creepy.

And meanwhile, you dirty laundry is being sniffed by the bomb squad. Some security! I feel safe from your underwear! LOL.

through for the sake of corporate greed & indifference, I'm increasingly afraid that this country is broken beyond repair.

I owe the servicemen a big hug and my best wishes. They were the only decent human beings in this whole sorry episode!! Hell, even the automated voice message was more human than the live representatives of the company!!

because your dad having been AF or something? i overheard something like that - or heard it all wrong? - when you were still on the phone, mr GO say something like that? or am i imagining that?

i just had to wipe tears out of my eyes again - as i did when i heard your mom's voice through your phone after our hours of incredibly tense worry, and incredibly intense rage at that airline, which was after you had already suffered hours of fear and rage yourself.... yourselves.....

i am extremely thankful i was home. and that you called me and let me be there for you in that moment. i couldn't believe what you'd been put through - well, i could believe it, unfortunately - and i know i'd've been fit to be tied.....

you did good. real good. both of you. i mean, i will never ever forget the feeling of hearing that mr GO had NOT gotten tasered, as we honestly feared could be, had been...

of hearing him on your old phone saying he'd found your mom... HOURS into this horror...

of hearing you, more hours later, shout out "THEY'RE HERE!!"

of hearing her precious voice, her hyper-speed gabbling as she started to describe all she'd been through...


the tears of relief for her, for you, for all of you

for all of us

i love you ALL!!!!!!


:loveya: ALL!!!!!!!!

happening!! i think you should send the link to this thread to michael moore.

the flight?
is she where you know her to be now?

She is in corproate America's hands now!

:loveya:

peace

JAL and I think United stop at Narita, but what airlines WAS that as we should give those fools a pass at any savings.
We just saw Capitalism tonight too and I am soooo furious... just like every night ;~)

Thanks all for the emotional support. I must say this is not the review of Moore's film I meant to write. :)

Like you, I found the film made me a bit angry. Seeing as how I threatened residents in Bombay and canceled my New Yorker subscription all in one day, I think I got a good start on sharpening that old pitchfork. In fact I think I see someone's hide on the end of it! LOL.

Onward!! I am done taking my marching orders from media shills, corrupt politicians or sleazy corpo-rats!!