Abused by Incivility

I fly every week on business. I board at least four flights every week if you consider a roundtrip with a connection each way. Sometimes more. I deal with all of the issues of business travel: early check-ins, getting through security without beeping and ocasionally getting the full patdown anyway, trying to get an aisle seat on each flight (I'm a big guy!), whether my seatmate(s) will want to chat or not, making tight connections by hurrying through concourses, trying to find a place to get online in an airport, etc. If you travel a lot you know the drill.

I've gotten good at travel. I can work the system. I can work amiably week after week with my travel agent to get where I need to go with minimum hassles. I can deal pleasantly with gate agents who have just denied me boarding at 10:00 pm because the plane has "weight and balance" issues due to too much luggage. I can re-route flights and catch hotels on the fly. I can figure out how to be productive and/or entertained on a six hour layover.

I can even almost always deal with the "sheep" in the process as well. "Sheep" being a semi-humorous, non-denigrating, term for you non-business travelers who are seriously in our way as we navigate the airport experience week after week. I understand. I've been you in a past life. I recognize and can even sympathize with all of the mistakes that you make that slow down the process. Oversize bags that won't fit in the overhead, three trips through the X-ray until you get everything out of your pockets, etc. I understand. But you're still in my way and that's a fact.

Occasionally, the sheep get on my nerves. Like the incident last month at security in Dallas. It was a 6 am Sunday morning flight back home for me and I wasn't in the mood for delays. So who do I get in front of me at Security? Mr. slick gum-chomping arrogant frat-boy salesman who wants to tweak the TSA agents. He refused, at a loud volume, to take off his shoes and put them on the conveyor to go through the machine. (I know he's a sheep at this point. You don't see businessmen arguing about shoes. We're the guys and gals in line efficiently stripping down and filling the bins with our clothes and laptops.) He insisted, no - taunted, that there was no way his shoes were going to beep. The TSA agents were remarkably polite. "Sir, it will save you a lot of time if you just place your shoes on conveyor". But Mr. frat-boy wouldn't have it. "You can't make me take them off". Of course, he kept them on and strutted through the arch. He turned back to the TSA agent with a huge smirk on his face and his finger poked at him: "See, I told you I wouldn't beep." I, being on the other side of the arch, could see all of the flashing red lights going off. I had the last laugh as the TSA agents swarmed Mr. Smarmy and politely escorted him off to the side for the full body wanding. Justice sure, but the bottom line is that his antics delayed me. Sheep.

What's harder to deal with is the incivility of the sheep. I'm talking mostly about young sheep, mostly male sheep, who are just outright ill-mannered, rude, and vulgar in airports in an alarming manner. Really, have we lost all sense of manners? Do I have to be, as I was this week, subjected to two college guys (probably frat boys) seated in the row behind me going on spring break - already drunk - talking at top volume in the crudest, most vulgar and profane, and worst of all boring manner? What's wrong with you people? Do you not understand how important manners are for a hundred people all packed in an aluminum tube hurtling through space for two hours?

I wanted to turn around and say to them what I say to my two boys, ages 6 and 11, on almost every car trip: "How close is your brother to you? Do you have to talk at top volume?" Everybody in the plane could hear these two idiots and yet they are totally unaware of their behavior. They just kept periodically yelling "We're going to Vegas!", like anybody cared. Did the flight attendants ask them to quiet down? No, they just sold them two more beers apiece during the beverage service. That helped. They just got louder and more profane. Do I need to hear the F-word 3 times in every sentence for two hours?

I'm afraid I'm going to go midevil on a cellphone user soon.

I agree about the cell phones. Whatever happened to a private conversation?

And why do people feel the need to pop open their phone the second the aircraft wheels hit the runway to tell whoever is picking them up that "I'll meet you up front in ten minutes"? It's ten minutes. They'll wait for you. Enough already.

I carry a phone, of course, for business. But I limit it's use in public and I keep it very discreet.

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