United Airlines just fucked away an entire day of travel for me and managed to not get me anywhere.
I guess it's my fault, really. How silly was it of me to think that eighteen hours was enough time to transport me three hundred miles.
On the other hand, you do have to cut me a little slack because I could have driven to San Francisco from Bend and checked in to my hotel in the time it took United to decide they weren't going to send us where we paid to go.
So here's what happened. I showed up a good two hours early. You know... like you're supposed to. I was told there was going to be a "slight delay" of two hours. "Okay," I said. "That's okay. That's why I am giving myself so much time to get where I need to go."
The idea was to give myself enough time to ensure that the airlines couldn't possibly screw up my very important trip. Long story short: I'm pissing and moaning about the flight being canceled nine hours later (right after I got home).
There was not one person on that plane who would have been less satisfied with a trip to Oakland and a train-ride to SFO than they were with what they got (nothing). Airlines are, by and large, idiocratic entities. Stupid people are allowed to set up elaborate systems that are simultaneously incapable of meeting the fictitious needs initially envisioned and incapable of dealing with the actual needs of real customers.
When a limb is that rotten, the only thing left to do is chew it off. We must allow the airlines to fail.
