David J.
Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail: ddanto@IMCCA.org Follow Industry News: @NJDavidD
The Multiverse Of Madness – August 2022
No, not that one with the superheroes. But being back on the road this past week I’ve come to the conclusion
that we are in some sort of Marvel-esque alternate
reality from the one we left pre-pandemic.
This story actually starts a few weeks ago when my
wife and I were flying away for a leisure weekend. “Why are we struggling with these tiny,
four-wheel, duffel style roll-aboards” she asked me when we were in line to
board a flight. “Because the airline
agents are evil and will stop at nothing to make us fit our bags into the
luggage sizer and force us to check them” I replied. “No….no they aren’t doing that” she
said. “Just take a look at the bags
everyone else was bringing on-board.”
You know what?
She was right. I had switched us
to these smaller, soft, frameless bags because a few years ago the gate agents
at Newark were taking pleasure in evilly forcing passengers to make their bags
fit in the cruel, metal bag sizers (regardless if the bag actually fit in the
overhead bin.) However, lately I can’t
even remember the last time I saw them unnecessarily hassle an unsuspecting
passenger about a rollaboard that may be an inch too wide one way or
another…and a quick glance around at the people that were waiting to board
showed dozens of bags far bigger than the ones we were using that day.
So the following week we went out and bought two new
21”-ish soft-sided but fully framed
expandable bags with loads of roomy side and front pockets, and guess what – no
one cared that I brought it on-board for this past week’s trip. It was almost as if the gate agents had an
actual life and had no desire to make the travelers miserable for no
reason. Now this has to be an alternate
reality, right? I mean nothing
changed…it’s the same planes, the same airline management, the same fees to
check a bag…all the same, and yet they don’t have any desire to hassle
people. (I had to double-check I was
still flying out of EWR just to be sure that wasn’t
the issue.)
After I boarded (and fit my now bigger bag easily in
the overhead bin of course) I tried to put the issue out of my mind and just
relax with my iPad and disk of movies and TV shows to watch. I finally binged all of Marvel’s Moon Night –
yet still don’t understand it. Watching
that weirdness, I didn’t think about my own, personal alternate reality theory
again until I arrived at my hotel. I was
staying this time around at a Hampton Inn.
I joked with my taxi driver that they’re essentially all the same (with
very few exceptions) so from the inside I could be in any city in the US. I checked-in, got to my room, started to
organize my things, took note of where the hair dryer was, and where the note
was on the bathroom mirror that said there was no housekeeping…..wait, what?
The sticker that up until recently said things like ‘if you need a comb or toothbrush just let
us know’ now said that housekeeping services are only “By Request.” Apparently, the daily service to even just
make the bed, change the towels and/or empty the garbage cans was now
gone. If I wanted to “request a stayover cleaning” I
apparently could call and ask for one. A
“Stayover Cleaning?” (Read that in the Pythonesque voice of John Cleese as he says “Pining for the fields?” in the dead
parrot sketch.) Since when did
that even become a thing? We used to
call that basic housekeeping services in my reality – again making me believe this is some
multiverse of madness. In this one
apparently you can have in-room garbage cans sitting full for four days before
they need to be emptied. No wonder they
say they use Lysol on the fifth day – can you imagine the stench of five day
old garbage?
In light of all this I’m still not sure if I’m in the
universe that I was in before, or some sort of strange and different one where
everything is the wrong color, words mean different things, EWR
gate agents are no longer surly and garbage doesn’t smell. I hope you folks – my dear readers – will
drop me an email and let me know if I’m in the correct universe or if somehow
that last COVID booster worked like Geordi’s visor
did to Lieutenant Worf and knocked
me into some weird place where he’s married to Deanna Troi.
In all seriousness (and getting over my
giddiness for working-in Marvel, Monty Python and Star Trek references to the
same blog) I don’t understand a world where United
people are nice to you and Hilton wants you to have garbage in your room. That’s 180 degrees away from everything I’ve
experienced my entire traveling life, where Hilton generally bends over
backwards to make you feel welcome and United hates your guts for being a burden
to them as they try to fly their planes.
If anyone has an explanation for that (or for Moon Knight while I’m
asking) I’m all (Spock) ears.
This article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own, personal
opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.
Copyright 2022 David Danto
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As always, feel free to write and comment, question or
disagree. Hearing from the traveling
community is always a highlight for me.
Thanks!