Working Together? Not Today, Apparently

I spoke to someone I swore I would never speak to today. I was sort of coerced into it through no fault of my own but still there it is.

I work with a pretty nice group of people most of the time, but occasionally there are people that I just cannot stand and will do just about anything to avoid if at all possible.

Now, I feel I haven’t done anything wrong, and in fact have been doing it all month - I commute back and forth from where I live to another city where I work out of and every day the flight I work gets in early which enables me to take an earlier flight home. Today I walked up to the gate 25 minutes prior to the pushback of the flight and the gate agent had unseated me.

I commute on a flight that is known for the amount of commuters on it, and in fact there were at least 20 of us listed. I usually walk up (or run, depending on how much time I have) a few minutes after the flight starts boarding, get my boarding pass, and then find my seat.

Today, however, newbie gate agents must have been working my flight, because they unseated me 25 minutes prior to push, ten minutes after boarding started, which makes no sense because normally they don’t even clear non-revs until a few minutes prior to closing the flight. They must have wanted to push early (which is great, don’t get me wrong, I love getting in early) but…One of the tenets of my company is “working together” so things like this don’t happen to our fellow employees. It is reasonable to assume that ten minutes prior to the push I could conceivably lose my seat if there were a lot of people standing by but there were plenty of seats and NO REASON to unseat me, even if they had been calling my name.

Where was I, the two agents wanted to know.

Oh, gee, I was busy deplaning a flight. So much for working together, eh?

Then one of them had the nerve to tell me to calm down. SERIOUSLY? This just pissed me off more.

So, of course, as I got on board, I had a lot of co-workers commuting home with me and I began to bitch to my co-workers, including this one woman I can’t fucking stand and vowed to never talk to, so help me God, about getting unseated with 25 minutes left til pushback.

Now, this woman who I can’t stand is the worst complainer I know, always thinks she knows more than the bean-counters who run my company, and also has eyes that move independently of one another, just like that crazy looking lizard. It is unnerving and all I can focus on generally when I am forced to listen to her bitch. Meanwhile, my company has made it through the past two recessions and we are both still employed so I don’t know why she complains so much.

Anyway, I know things are rarely as they seem, which I am learning more and more the older I get. I try to employ this mantra frequently. I am the type of person who will board early or push early to help people, including gate agents, out. I try to be cooperative and if I am upset or put out by something I try to explain my reasons in a non-judgmental manner (I don’t always succeed with this and there are definitely situations where I just can’t and won’t) but bottom line is, a little sympathy hurts no one.

So when I walk up to the gate and am greeted with an accusatory I just unseated you and WHERE WERE YOU?? Its not really going to leave me in a positive mood and then telling me to calm down really doesn’t help. Neither sentences are good customer service, and make no mistake, I am definitely a customer. And I am a co-worker. I could have been treated a little better.