#040 - Service - pt. 1

MARCH 2019

Hey there and thank you for reading. The people I work for would like me to include a preface for this writing or not share it at all. But you know me. This story is a true story but paints one of my favorite brands in a slightly (emphasis on slightly) unfavorable light. It was such a transformative event in my life that I cannot help but publish it here for the public to see, albeit edited down from the original version. Now that's out of the way, the feature presentation.

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I flew Delta last Thursday and had an existential crisis over a Biscoff cookie on one fateful flight from Miami. True story. The circumstances leading up to an encounter with a flight attendant on this particular flight all over the aforementioned cookie are written below. It concerns the idea of service and the level of service expected from certain brands by American consumers. This will likely lead to a metaphor about Christianity, so read on to discover what Biscoff, Delta, and Jesus have in common. Oh, and it all begins at a Ritz-Carlton, as do most first-world problems. 

In the vein of not sounding too much like a Marie Antoinette character from a Dickensian novel, I was staying at a seaside resort outside of Miami doing an event for a group of professional athletes. Bougie right?  It was amazing, and I spent most of my day outside reflecting on life and enjoying the soft ocean breeze and beautiful sunrises. It was very surreal to me. I have never understood the novelty of paying an expensive fee for a chain hotel. Yes, each of the properties has its distinct feel and level of service, but if you’ve been to one expensive chain hotel, you’ve been to them all. I find similar comforts at the Comfort Inn or perhaps my favorite The Hampton Inn.

Courtesy and cotillion.

The rooms at these hotels are immaculate, the staff is ultra-attentive, and the property looks and feels like a polished movie set with a million moving parts. Thinking of the economics of a place like this is mind-boggling, let alone staying for a five-day conference that I was supporting with my lighting. I would be considered "the help" in most cases, so I empathize with all the workers creating this incredible experience. I learn everyone's name, make sure to say my please and thank yous, and am super courteous. One of my sales ladies repeatedly said in these situations you should practice your pageantry and "cotillion skills."

After all, my company is paying for everything, and I’m just along for the ride so I should represent them well. As a freelancer, you want to be asked back or booked again. It baffles most service staff that someone would genuinely appreciate them, and it gives me rapport. It’s a game changer, and I highly suggest you employ it with people in the service industry. I thank my bud AJ for instilling this in me. He’s uncomfortably nice. Try this life hack: Ask people how they are doing before you start any consumer transaction even with those customer support people on the phone. If you can access a real person.

So, back to the Biscoff. I’m leaving Miami feeling relaxed and recharged, and more importantly, refreshed. I appreciated the subtle irony of repeatedly getting paid to experience this with the company I was working for as this was my twelfth or so time this year I had experienced five-star service. At this moment, I was truly thankful. Thankful that God would put me in such a place to influence others above all. Or at least that is what I was thinking More on that later.

Faustian crossroads.

When we come to these crossroads as humans, some strange stuff will happen. In the music business, this is where the devil shows up and offers you a deal at the crossroads. In the Christian sense, I equate it to spiritual warfare or the enemy’s way of wrecking joy in the moment. I’m feeling great! You know, like I made an impact, and possibly feeling a little entitled at this particular moment. This is when I board my Delta flight to Atlanta, which is delayed by an hour. This never happens with Delta for me. They're always on time. No big deal, because of the delay, I got to take a shower at the Ritz-Carlton spa, and at the Ritz, it was life-changing. Like the staff guy at the spa put a bandaid on my cut finger so gently.

When I get onto the plane, I’m in a pampered state. All my needs have been met up to this point (Maslow be praised) and I think nothing can dash my spirits. This is until the pilot informs us that because of the delay, we will get to see a rare treat: for those on the right side of the plane, there will be a SpaceX launch, and as you probably already realize, I’m on the left side. I love space.

The Biscoff incident.

But I’m on the wrong side of the plane on this one because I like sitting behind the pilot. They're the ones who are driving so you will feel the same stuff as they do. Still not a big deal. I'm upset but I'm in my early thirties, not a child and there will be other launches. But I feel hurt because I'm missing out on something. This is when the beverage cart comes around, and I’m in for another disappointment. My conversation with this poor senior flight attendant goes something like this. 

“What would you like?” She was tired; maybe the last flight of the night for her- we were delayed after all.

“May I have a Coke and a Biscoff?”

The request to me was pretty basic and this was Delta. Delta always has these two things, and I joked around later with some other Senior flight attendants that these two things are checked before the fuel in most cases. The Pilot radios the ground to ensure the passengers will not mutiny, and then he checks his flight plan and fuel levels. Unfortunately, her reply broke me out of my spa-induced stupor. 

“We have peanuts, and that’s about it.”

Her response is slightly paraphrased because a ringing in my ears prevented me from hearing anything beyond peanuts. I responded with something like: 

“I find it hard to believe there is no Biscoff on this flight. You should tell someone about that.”

Her face transformed into a quizzical and frustrated look. Perhaps at this moment, she felt the same as me. Doing paperwork over a Biscoff would be a tedious chore, and she may think no one would listen to her. She may have felt that it was useless, and a person’s utility, when called into question, only induces a sarcastic response. Which explains what I received:

“I’ll write a report about it, do you want the peanuts?” Her tone insisted not to make a fuss.

“No, just the Coke, please.” I obliged as any gentleman would in this situation. 

Perhaps she felt my anger and annoyance at the lack of Biscoff because after she handed me my Coke, she added-

“The other cart may have some; just stop them when they come by and ask them.”

I thanked her, and as she began to serve the next row, I was left anxiously waiting for the next beverage cart to come by. A combination of entitlement and outrage filled my body. This other cart was a good seven rows out, and I figured I would be done with my Coke by then. Also the hassle of having to ask someone else seemed like an inconvenience. Then, I shift back and forth in my seat like a child. Yes, a child. Shamefully. I still regret that my mind went there to this day. Like, what is wrong with me? How do I recover from this? Does the other cart have Biscoff? 

The pilot gets on the intercom, "And if you look out your window you will see the rocket landing back on Earth."

Not for me though. And now I don't even have my Biscoff.

What happened next?

An entitlement rage started to brew inside me, and I kept glancing back and forth between my Coke, the flight attendant, and the beverage cart. I kept thinking how rude it was that if the flight attendant knew that the other cart had Biscoff, why wouldn’t she just get one for me? She began serving the row behind me, and I heard another passenger ask what a Biscoff was. Then her back to my row.

“I’m gonna see if I can get the other cart to pass out the snacks. They didn’t stock this cart properly.” 

I look at her with an incredulous face. On the inside, I was throwing such a temper tantrum over a minor part of my experience that it possibly poured out involuntarily on my face. To prevent me from going further, she does something I chalk up to years of Jedi flight attendant training. She saw the situation. She saw that I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. And she also saw that I would be so terribly inconvenienced, in my mind, if I had to ask another flight attendant for a cookie. I believe this is why she felt like addressing me the second time.

“I’m sorry they let you down.” my voice was quivering. 

I say this realizing that I was freaking out over a cookie and adding a pitiful sounding thank you because now I feel bad I had to ask for it. The next cart comes by, and I still don't get my cookie. It was a turning point for me emotionally. The rest of the flight, long after the beverage service had stopped, I began to feel an overwhelming sadness that I started silently weeping in my seat. Seriously. At my window seat. I was in 17A that day. All because I did not get something that I wanted and to which I felt entitled.

Rainy landing in ATL.

Luckily, it was a short flight, and before long, the same flight attendant came by to collect my trash before the landing. With swollen red eyes, I handed off my Coke can and no Biscoff wrapper and said another pitiful-sounding thank you. I then pull my hat over my face and spend the next fifteen minutes or so continuing a cycle of crying and pulling myself back together. I was upset because one of my favorite airlines had let me down. All because I expected a level of service they didn’t provide. I’ll come back to this part later, too. 

After the trash service, I never saw the flight attendant again. I couldn’t believe what happened and how I reacted. I’m a normal, level-headed, and calm human being, and something about that flight made me snap. Maybe it was missing the launch or the way the flight attendant said what she said. Or was it the spa? From that moment on, something inside me changed, and I felt exceptionally guilty for you fellow Christians- this was a holy spirit nudge.

When I got home from the airport, I cried the next day and posted my experience on Reddit to see if I had overreacted or if the flight attendant was even phased. The feedback I got inspired the next part of this story, as did my roommate, who tends to do those sorts of things. 

Making it rain Kit-Kats.

The level of service expected on my flight did not meet the level of service I expected for this industry-leading airline. Though my story of entitlement may sound a bit much, when placed in the right light, anyone could find themselves in the same situation. Not over a Biscoff cookie, but over something as seemingly insignificant. No matter how successful or how much money we may have obtained, most reasonable humans are prone to this. Insert yourself into my story if you haven’t already, and see if you can think of a similar encounter.

My addendum as I edit and post this in 2024 is a Wikipedia tangent about the Psychologist Abraham Maslow and his pyramid of needs. He posited that your basic needs must be met to live happily and find fulfillment in life. A summary of his Hierarchy of Needs can be found here. My connection point is that my needs were not met on this flight and that is something people who work in hospitality fight to ensure. But back to the expectation.

I expected a service that someone did not deliver, and the aftermath of the reaction left me in an altered out of character state. Heartless sociopaths see these encounters as a good thing because oftentimes, this nets them the result they want no matter the cost. Ordinary people are left either holding a grudge against the brand or person who did not deliver or forgive the matter and move on. I, on the other hand, because of Christianity, have to repay it a million times over. Non-Christians may apologize and move on, but I have to show the love of Christ to each person I meet, no matter how I feel about them or their situation. It’s a requirement for my religion and yours too if you're a true Christ-follower.

The funniest thing to me is that I’m doing another event the following week, and it requires getting on another Delta flight, this time to Orlando. To purify my conscience of this constant guilty feeling of how I treated them, I decided that I had to do something drastic. I’m going to give the flight crew on my next flight a bag of candy to say I’m sorry. A small gesture to say I appreciate the service that they provide. I ended up not only giving one bag of candy but six bags of candy to not only my flight crew but also three other crews going out to different locations. 

I was met with a bunch of bewildered looks, probably because of the crazed anxiety-riddled look in my eyes but more so because of the unexpected nature of such a gesture. I’m not telling you this as a humblebrag story, which is why I told you how I got to this state of passing out bags of candy on the A concourse. I had to satiate the guilty nudge of the holy spirit. Again, this is something Christians have to deal with all the time.

If you are not Christian, social pressure and public shaming achieve the same results, and if you’ll indulge me another example. This also features AJ from earlier.

I was drinking at a brewery that had a very long bar. It was one of these all-you-can-drink things, so the crowd at the bar could be large at times. The first time I went up to the bar, there was no line so the bartenders were serving the whole bar, several customers at a time. Second refill time, there was a long line, so I decided to just step up to the bar and start a second line, and boy, did I get my privilege checked. In my mind, normally, lines do not form at bars. It’s normally a free-for-all. I felt justified in my actions and was socially scorned for feeling such. It didn’t cause me to buy drinks for everyone, but I did have to make the walk of shame to the back of the line. If anyone has had to make this same walk, it sucks every single time. 

Eventually, you will modify or change the bad behavior and socially scorn those who do not live up to your perception of society’s standard. This all ties into expected service. But how to prevent this from happening in the future? More on that later.

Thank you as always for reading. Have a fantastic day!