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colechristensentoday at 7:32 PM2 repliesview on HN

People will be angry regardless of what they say, some if they say they're sorry, some if they don't say they're sorry. Regardless of what they say, some set of people or another is going to come out and be angry about it.

What do you hope to accomplish with the phone call?

Failures happen, does it make a difference if there's someone in charge feeling a strong emotion about it? Do the call center staff have to feel genuine guilt as if their mediocre job somehow made them personally responsible?

Being angry is just as useless as faking being sorry, all they're doing is acknowledging a screwup in an automated message. Give them a break.


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alistairSHtoday at 8:01 PM

In the past year, I've flown for vacation twice, with delays on one leg of each.

First one, United flight from IAD to SJU, 4-5 hour delay, mechanical issue, with updates from the gate agent every 45 minutes or so, basically keeping us well apprised of the status of our plane (and when that plane was no longer viable, of the replacement plane and then replacement crew). "Flight crew saw a warning light and needs to talk to company" then "company says try again" then "that didn't work, maintenance crew coming to look at it" then a few more similar updates. No, there was nothing we could do with the info, but it was nice to know the problem was being worked - at least made me feel less out of control.

Second one, Aer Lingus from DUB to IAD, 4 hour delay, mechanical issue, no updates from the gate agent beyond "so sorry, we're delayed another hour" every hour or so. I found this much more frustrating. No, there was nothing I could do either way, but it would have been nice to know a bit more about what was wrong, who was working the problem, etc. This felt more out of control, and more frustrating.

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lbrinertoday at 7:40 PM

I suspect there is a name for thinking that, "if I do something, it will get resolved quicker". Lots of us won't just sit there and wait for someone to come and tell us when it is fixed because we don't trust that other people also want to resolve the problem.

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