It’s totally my fault. I’ll start up front by admitting that. Southwest Airlines was kind enough to sponsor my flight to and from the Social Media Club Dallas event, and I’m grateful for that kindness. But it all got messed up in the end, oddly thwarted by not having the right piece of paper on hand when I got to the ticket counter.
The method is supposedly simple: if you receive a free voucher to fly as the guest of Southwest Airlines, they send you a paper ticket. You present this piece of paper to the ticket counter person when you check in, and then you receive a boarding pass.
I believe I have the ticket somewhere. It might even be in my suitcase. But it got a bit confusing to me, because I flew a different airline into Dallas, and so I thought everything was just kind of adjusted. (Assumption. See how I’m still showing you this is my fault?)
BUT (never forget that when someone says “but,” they’re kind of discounting everything that they just said. I try not to write sentences with “but” in them for this reason.
But, if the system knows I’m a guest of Southwest, if Southwest’s own social media star and I shared handshakes last night at an event in the heart of Southwest’s territory, then why was it so tricky to resolve this at the counter?
The detail in this, that somehow not having a piece of paper issued by a computer system was catastrophic to the actual service of moving me from one location to the next doesn’t add up to me. (And let me be clear: it was my fault. It was my fault. I didn’t have the piece of paper. I didn’t follow the rules they’ve set up, because I didn’t have the piece of paper.)
But if the system knows, if the fancy people know, why isn’t it just, “Welp, here’s a new ticket, sir. Get home safely to your son on his birthday! See you next trip!”
Instead, what’s in my head is this: “wow, I’m not smart enough to fly Southwest. If I lose a piece of paper, I’m out of the game. Hell, it took me two years to realize that if I checked in the night before, I’d get a better seat. Guess I’m just not the right guy for this airline, complementary flight or not.”
It’s okay. I’m not always thinking about the day-to-day things. Hell, I didn’t even know Southwest flew out of Love Field and not DFW, so I paid my cab driver $68.70 plus tip to correct that error.
But man. Just because of a paper ticket? Seems like a silly system if it gets in the way of service.
Oh, we complaining bloggers. We mess up the simple things. Hello from seat 10F.
