Delta Airlines Hurrah

"Well done is better than well said." ~Benjamin Franklin

The humor and complaints abound out there regarding airlines and failed customer service. The airline industry takes a pretty good beating on this front each and every day. Some of it is certainly brought on by the airlines themselves. I myself have had complaints of bad customer service and very silly airline policies.

Each day there are roughly 87,000 flights in the skies in the United States. One-third of these are commercial carriers, like American, United, Southwest, or Delta. So over 28,500 commercial flights, major and regional airlines, are in the skys each day here in the United States. It amounts to a lot of people, a lot of careful routing of planes in the air as well as coordinated takeoffs/landings occurring.

The possibility of delays and other problems is very likely on a decent day. Throw in a major storm in the Atlanta area, which is a huge connection point, congestion in Chicago, or computer problems; it escalates into controlled pandemonium pretty quickly.

People will get frustrated pretty quickly at this point. Their frustration is compounded by their anxiety over flying to begin with. Many are flying for only the first or second time and trying to deal with the whole check-in process. The added baggage fees which shouldn't catch them by surprise but still does irritate. And yes, baggage fees being charged seperate from the ticket price just seems dumb from a customer service perspective.

Now that the first steps inside the airport have heightened their blood pressure, security becomes the next step. Standing in line, do I have the right or wrong things in my carry-on? Are my papers in order? My God these lines are so long, will I make my flight? How far should I strip down to go through the security machines? What if the alarms go off?

The anxiety simply builds and builds and builds.

Relax is all I can say.

There are plenty of people working for the airlines that really do try to make your experience a good one. It may not seem so and I will agree there are some airline and airport employees that really need a different day job.

For me, I have to give a 'thumbs up' to an online Delta Agent. I wish I knew her name but she came through and is an example of great customer service. A needed flight change for myself and a brother that will be travelling overseas in January had me worried. But she handled it professionally, quickly, efficiently and was just very nice about it.

These types of people do exist in the airline industry. They do exist in everyday business. We might have a lot of anxiety and not notice it, but these people do exist. And when you notice it, let them know of your appreciation.

When you are at the airport and start getting frustrated, calm down, smile and see if you can get that good nature mirrored back to you. Just understand that adding to the mayhem isn't going to make the experience any more enjoyable. By injecting a smile or kind word could turn things around tremendously for you. It can make the journey a lot better to travel.

Negative Flu Bug

"Just because you're miserable doesn't mean you can't enjoy your life." ~Annette Goodheart

For the second time in a month I have come down with a flu bug. The first one occurred while visiting our new grand daughter in Los Angeles. That one was tough as it kept me from holding the little one until the final day or so. This current bug reappeared this week just before a scheduled business trip to the northwest.

My belief is that the second occurrence is just a re-emergence of the same bug. I guess in the medical sense I never fully got rid of the flu bug to begin with. It waited and festered inside until a new opportunity to emerge appeared.

So fighting the flu bug while sitting at home, it gave me reason to think about how similar it is to a bad attitude. Negative thoughts and feelings are very much like a flu bug. They weaken and destroy you little by little until you reach a point of desperation.

Then someone gives you a book, provides an encouraging word and you watch an inspiring movie. The negativity lifts and you feel better. But you know in some fashion that you have not rid your life of those feelings completely.

Those negative thoughts hide just beneath the surface, waiting, waiting. It could be a few days or a few weeks, but then you let your guard down. Maybe a small complaint, maybe a negative thought, and the negativity makes its way back to the surface. Before you realize it, the bad attitude and bad thoughts are consuming your life again.

Again you battle the thoughts and attitudes, looking for something to change their course. Its a difficult cycle to be in swinging from sickness to feeling good. It gets old in time and harder to combat as the negative attitude takes its toll on you.

So like a flu bug, we need to fight it off and destroy them to the best of our ability. We then need to see the symptoms and learn to fight them off sooner before they encompass our life.

A bad attitude can have a debilitating effect upon your life. Take a flu shot of positive affirmation just like you get the flu shot. You'll have a better journey and a greater life along the way.

Happy "insert holiday here"

"Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." ~Washington Irving

When do you mark the start of the holiday season? Is it at Thanksgiving? Is it as early as Halloween? Or do you mark it when you see the first Christmas display in a store?

I for one tend to mark it privately as the time when we actually put the Christmas tree up in our home. That normally coincides with the weekend or two after Thanksgiving. For Christians, Christmas Eve marks the birth of Jesus. But the holiday season isn't just the Christian holiday of Christmas.

Traditionally, there is Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and Epiphany. There are also the celebrations of Yule, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. There are probably others that I am missing as well.

The holiday season encompasses a lot of different ways in which peoples, religions and cultures celebrate this time of year. It is also a time of the year to 'ease off a bit' on the political correctness of it all. By declaring "Happy Holidays", "Merry Christmas", or "Happy Hannukah" is not meant as an affront to others. The spirit of the season, religious or not is wishing kindness and happiness upon others.

It is a time of the year when we can possibly let down some of our disagreements and treat each other just a little more kindly. During the holiday season we can re-learn the idea of loving each other and hating a little bit less. The rest of the year tends to lack enough of that as it is.

During this holiday season, instead of complaining about the Christmas tree or Menorah on display at a school, why not turn your energy towards just being nicer to someone. If a kinara or a Yule Goat shows up in front of a courthouse, maybe tolerance should rule your thoughts. Maybe kindness and goodwill towards your fellow person should be the course of action.

I celebrate Christmas as Christian and am proud and happy to say Merry Christmas. I have Jewish friends that celebrate Hanukkah and are happy to say Happy Hanukkah. I have Australian friends that are happy to say Happy Boxing Day (I would suppose). Be proud of who you are and your celebration but remember that the point is being kinder and loving your fellow man a bit more.

January 2nd will come soon enough and many will have forgotten the spirit of the season. Try to hold onto that "...genial flame of charity in the heart" well beyond the holiday season.

What Did He Say?

"It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either." ~Wayne Dyer

A husband looking through the paper came upon a study that said women use more words than men.

Excited to prove to his wife that he had been right all along when he accused her of talking too much. He showed her the study results.

It read: "Men use about 15,000 words per day, but women use 30,000."

The wife thought for a while, then finally she said to her husband "It's because we have to repeat everything we say."

The husband said "What?"

Hopefully you laughed just a little bit along with the slight groaning that probably happened. It is that laughter that we should each try to engage in each day. Laughter has been described as "a tranquilizer with no side effects."

We each know that there is enough bad news, frustration and down right depressing things that occur each day. But there should also be moments of laughter and enjoyment. Those are the moments we should concentrate on and enjoy.

There is a good article in Psychology Today called The Science of Laughter that explores why we may or may not laugh and what the science holds as an explanation. While it may still be inconclusive, for the most part (my own unscientific opinion) is that laughter makes you feel better. It draws us together and throws down some of the barriers we put up at times.

If laughing a few times a day can ease the tension of a bad day or situation, then I'm all for it. I would rather feel good with laughter, than pain with sadness.

As Donald O'Conner sang in the movie "Singin In The Rain"; make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh.