Strongly Worded Compliment to Delta Airlines

I had a poor customer experience with Delta airlines recently. They sent an email asking for my feedback. I followed the link to their comment system, and found that my options were to label my comments as a "compliment" or a "complaint". I figured that they get a lot of complaints, so I submitted the following compliment. I let you know if I hear back.

Dear Delta:

I just wanted to thank you for the $100.00 travel voucher you provided me on the evening of July 29^th, when I was stranded in bowls of MSP airport. As you might imagine, after being delayed for several hours in STL, and upon learning that I definitely missed my connection to YXE that evening, and that the first flight to YXE was at roughly 1:00pm the next day, and that Delta had taken no steps to find a hotel for me, nor would they do so, I was fully, completely satisfied and satiated with your generous offer of a fractional, menial credit toward another shining Delta experience. You clearly understand customer satisfaction.

I was even more enthused to watch the MSP airport hotel prices quickly tick upward of $300USD as the handful of stranded Delta passengers combed for a sleeping space. Fortunately, the airport Ramada I found for $240USD was truly a brown-and-maroon fringed delight of industrial bliss. Hopefully you’ve forgiven the fact that I didn’t stick around MSP to use your Airport Dinner Voucher for $25USD, good only for that evening. Seeing that it was approximately 10:30pm by the time I got through you’re re-booking process, and hotels were filling-up quickly, I didn’t think it prudent to take the time to try to enjoy $25USD of McDonald’s allure (it appeared to be the only vendor open at that stage – 24 hours of goodness... I'm lovin' it).

Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to consider covering my cab fare to that divine overnight resting place, nor would I expect you to help me afford the luxury of my stay in the saggy-bedded, brown-stained paradise. The 400 meter walk down the second-floor motel hallway provided the breath of stale air I was desperately hoping for, not to mention the hotel lounge, whose blue-lit Blue Moon ambiance wasn’t at all creepy or filthy. Frankly, my out-of-pocket costs of approximately $300USD, and my loss of another entire work day, not to mention, family time, was really nothing.

I just wanted to thank Delta, again, for creating the opportunity for such an unexpected experience.

I know that weather delays are a very rare, poorly understood and highly-unexpected event, for which I cannot hold Delta responsible. There is really no way, after decades of operational experience, that I could possible expect Delta to be even mildly prepared to accommodate customers caught in a weather delay. It would be entirely unreasonable to ask for even a moderate contribution to actual out-of-pocket expenses, or assistance in at least finding a resting place for the evening: that’s an unreasonable expectation on my part and I cannot hold Delta accountable for this entirely unforeseeable event. There is no way Delta could ever be expected, after decades of flying, to figure this type of entirely unforeseeable circumstance into their business planning in order to provide their customers some reasonable accommodation and assistance.

Instead, I agree entirely with Delta’s $100 encouragement to just spend some more money on a fresh Delta experience – that’s where my head was at on that humid Wednesday night as the children next door serenaded me with sweet sounds of wall-banging and TV. I knew Delta had this all figured out when, the next day, on my mid-afternoon make-up flight, the attendant advised us that Delta strives to exceed its customers' expectations, and that we should provide them feedback on our Delta experience. Check, and check! I’m sure Delta has been praised many times for its outstanding response to this unpredictable and rare aviation event referred to as a “weather delay”, but I thought I’d add my slice of praise to the pile! Of course, it's no trouble that I paid for Comfort Class but was seated in economy - my priority was clearly to get going, and you achieved that. I won't even get into the shear joy that your propensity to over-book every flight to and out-of YXE brings to your many passengers.

I can’t wait to figure out where my $100 travel voucher will take me next! Judging by the round-trip flights out of YXE, which all go to MSP, I expect the $100 voucher will get me to approximately Indian Head, SK. The mere $900CDN it’s going to cost me to get the rest of the way to MSP is an utter pittance I’d gladly pay to have Delta exceed my expectations once again. I’ve got a meeting in Des Moines, Iowa shortly – I hope the Ramada MSP’s got the towels and sheets cleaned… or at least slightly folded and mostly dry. Thanks again, for the outstanding customer experience.

Best Regards,

Tired Traveller

Strongly Worded Letter to the CRA

So we had an incident this summer with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). In, what seems to be an annual event for me, the CRA reviewed my tax return earlier in the year, determining that the tax refund they issued was in error, and that I owed a paltry sum in return... with interest. That irked me a little. That was about the fourth year in a row my tax return had been reviewed. Then they reviewed my wife and I on two accounts: 1) they challenged our very existence, asking us to provide birth certificates for ourselves and proof that we resided at our residence; and 2) they challenged the existence of our children. That night, I got a little hot. I stayed-up well passed midnight crafting a reply to B. Bedard and the Benefits Exemption Team. I've posted my reply below (sans copies of our ID, as I suspect it's a poor idea to post your ID online).

Letter to CRA

Open Letter to Unsuspecting Simpletons

Dear Confounded Morons:

I wish, hope and even pray that this:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/vacationing-family-hit-with-10-000-movie-bill-1.1229301

is the last story I will ever read respecting an wholely, good, kind and unsuspecting citizen who has, to great horror and surprise, received a whopping bill from his cellular carrier as a result of data charges while out-of-country. If history carries any weight, however, I fear that in another four to six months, we'll be hit, again, with another story of the same ilk. Although initial stories of this sort were about consumer victimization when they surfaced six or seven years ago during the initial explosion of smartphone availability, it seems to me that in the intervening period, the victim ship has sailed. To me, John Gibson of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, this is a story about your shocking level of ignorance. Where have you been for the last half-decade?

First of all, your charges were not a "movie bill". Granted, that was probably a headline generated by CBC, but none-the-less, it implies that somehow the use of shocking sums of data were rather innocent and should be compared, in value, to the cost of "a few movies" in some other context, like a movie rental or a theatre ticket, which you were apparently too lazy or cheap to actually buy. Why the hell were your kids sitting inside in front of the computer anyway when they had the benefit of the Arizona heat, which clearly cost a pretty sum in airfare to provide to them? Couldn't you at least make vacation a little bit exciting - take in a theatrical experience, or maybe go to the damn zoo, even. Make no mistake, the product you purchased was not "movies" but "data". Had you downloaded music, tv shows or porn, it's all ones and zeros to the network - it's all just data. These oversize roaming bills are almost always foisted upon children, as if the predatory phone companies are praying on the innocence of infants and crushing the soles of children. I guess it would be more difficult to run the media play if the headline was "vacationing family hit with $10,000.00 pornography bill".

I just hopped off a plane in Arizona last night and, despite that my cellular data was turned-off, SaskTel - the same carrier that cold-heartedly bilked Mr. Gibson of his children's happiness - sent me no fewer than THREE text messages warning of the various rates for data roaming and advising what to do about it - they even provided a link to call for the addition of a US data plan.

Mr. Gibson - welcome to 2014. Please hop off the ignorance train. If I have to read another story of this nature in the Saskatchewan news, I'm sending a personal letter to the complainant on behalf of phone carriers, which is really saying something, because at the end of it all, I too, believe that most carriers are jerks.

Open Letter to National Media: Stop Reporting Toronto's Weather

Dear Canadian Media:

Toronto's daily weather is not national news. Please stop reporting it as such. This is getting ridiculous.

As my family and I bathed in the dark enveloping coolness of a four hour power outage at -30 degrees (not "feels like", but actually -30 as the true air temperature), we awoke to national headlines advising that Toronto was slushy, and that as a result of a coming "cold snap", the slush might freeze. I checked the temperature in Toronto: it's -5 degrees. Of course, it's getting as cold as -12 this evening and the overnight low tonight is... wait for it.... -19. The horror. Torontonians might have some ice, because that happens in freezing temperatures.

Last week, I recall hearing on CBC Radio One's morning national news accounts of people hearing cracking noises in Toronto when it dipped to a bone chilling -20 overnight. The fact that some cracking noises seemed unusual to some lake-front dwellers at that temperature informs us of just how infrequently it really reaches seriously cold temperatures in Canada's media darling, which also gives you some idea of how out-of-touch ol' Hogtown is with the climate in a large swath of this country. Lakes freeze at -20 - shifting ice and water make noises.

It's trite and a smidge self-righteous for me to point-out that we of the prairies have been living with daytime highs below -20 for several consecutive stretches in the last few months. Consider the people in the vast stretches of our territories north of 60: our prairie coldsnap probably seems quite tolerable to them. I do realize that the national media is reporting the Toronto weather as a function of relativity - perhaps it's currently colder than normal. I suppose that's news in some minor fashion - a sidebar to the local weather report. But it's not not national news - that's where this whole thing went off the rails. It's hard to solicit pity for the downtrodden residents of the Golden Horseshoe when their reported climatic suffering would constitute a thermal relief for a wide swath of the country. In Canada, overnight lows of -50 should attract some national consideration. Overnight lows of -20 are just "winter".

So seriously, Canadian Media, stop towing the line. Winter often sucks in this country, wherever you are. If you're in Vancouver, it's raining, if you're in the prairies or the north, it's bloody freezing, if you're on the east coast, it's storming, and if you're in Toronto.... well.... it's a damp cold, I guess (which, if you understood weather, indicates it's really not that cold). Let's just accept it, leave the complaints for the coffee shops and elevators, and get on with getting by until March. Stop reporting the woes of Toronto as national f*cking news. Couldn't you just dig-up a story on Rob Ford or something?

It's a Dry Cold. A Dry, Windy Cold.

Dear Weather and News Forecasters:

It was not -38 degrees Celsius in Regina this morning, nor was it -41in Saskatoon. The air temperatures were in the -20 to -30 degree C range. I checked several sources that measure air temperature. You are spreading misinformation and lies. Please stop it.

I know, I know - if I wait for the detailed discussion of the weather, you will, at some stage, acknowledge that although the air temperature is a balmy -23 C, the windchill effect makes you feel as though the temperature is -35. Invariably, and with more frequency, people are simply hearing the lowest "temperature" you broadcast, and, without fail, you loudly and boldly proclaim the artificial windchill "temperature" as if it is in fact the air temperature. You are feeding ignorance. I suppose we should expect this from people who make a living providing predictions, which, by most accounts, are consistently wrong. It's an interesting line of work.

Since the implementation of this new "equivalent temperature" treatment of windchill, which has only been in use for approximately 10 years, people take great daily pride in extolling daily winter "temperatures" that rarely reach above -25. I grow hot with rage recalling the number of recent occasions when work colleagues and elevator strangers declared to all present that "it's -53 out there - can you believe that?" No. I cannot, because it is a lie. It is -26, but it's breezy. As best as I can determine, the last time the actual recorded air temperature in Saskatchewan dipped below -50, was at Elrose in 2002, when a reading of -51.0 was recorded. However, if you listen to street talk, office noise and radio, it seems like -50 is a weekly occurence in January and February. In fact, the average daily maximum and minimum temperatures in Saskatoon in January are -12 and -22. That sounds pretty f*cking balmy compared to what I'm hearing.

Before the implementation of the current "equivalent temperature" treatment of windchill, the Canadian government used a relative measurement which factored in air temperature and wind speed to provide a scale indicating how quickly heat would be lost. You may recall windchill measurements like "1400", which was the threshold for frostbite to occur. Apparently, these measurements were confusing for people, because people are simple and they can only understand one-dimensional units of measurement. Of course, the index was an attempt to provide a comparative measure of compounded factors - temperature and wind. So one single unit of measure - ie. temperature - is not capable of providing a relevant measurement. Of course, mathematical impossibility has never stood in the way of human fiction.

In their wisdom, the U.S. and Canada agreed in 2001 to move to an "equivalent temperature" model, wherein they would use a series of formulas to arrive at a fictional temperature that is supposed to account for the cooling effect of wind speed. They just as easily could have chosen wind speed, and not temperature, as the single unit of measurement. Then your forecast would be as follows: "The wind is 5km/h today, but with the temperature at -18, it will feel like a true wind of 19km/h... so bundle up." That seems ridiculous. So should your fictional temperatures. But people love your fictional temperatures, because people love extreme weather. Too many people are taking odd pleasure in repeating the ridiculously low temperatures you report and it sickens me, mostly because the vast majority appear to actually believe the fictional temperature is, in fact, the real temperature.

Frankly, you don't know how I feel about certain wind speeds. If I'm facing away from the wind, it doesn't affect my temperature much at all. And -30 with no wind is still a very different sensation than -20 with a 17km/h wind, which Environment Canada tells us is equivalent to -30. In -30 and no wind, I'm not wearing a touque for a short walk - at -20 with a 17km/h wind, I'm wearing a damn touque. It's not the same f*cking thing. Give me the temperature, and give me the wind. I will cope accordingly, and you will refrain from spreading lies and misinformation. What about the sun. Haven't you ever felt the warmth of the sun on a clear, still -30 day? What about surface warming? Why don't you report that, "it's -30 outside, but with no wind and surface heating, it feels like -20"? If we're inventing temperatures, let's not do a half-ass job. Your profession is based on making consistently inaccurate predictions, and no one holds you accountable anyway.

And while we're on the subject, could you please tell all the ingrates from southern Ontario and the East Coast that there's no such thing as a "wet cold" and a "dry cold" in terms of winter temperatures on the prairies. Invariably, someone will advise that -20 in Saskatchewan isn't really that bad because it's a "dry cold". Of course it is. At -20, the air doesn't contain any moisture because it's physically impossible. In fact,, anywhere below 0 degrees, water is virtually non-existent in the air. See the chart below, which is based on physics, not feelings.



As such, I don't frankly care that some people "feel" that -4 in Toronto is colder than -4 in Saskatchewan because of the "dampness" - perhaps it's because Toronto is a cold, dark blackness of a settlement that smells of urine and is run by an addict. It doesn't give me warm feelings either. But -10 in Saskatchewan is colder and feels colder than - 4 in Toronto. At one time I had in my possession a copy of a study conducted by the Canadian Armed Forces which attempted to measure the "damp cold" effect. I have failed to find my copy of the study, so you will have to take my word (as we take your word respecting next Friday's weather) that the soldiers could not effectively distinguish between a damp cold and a dry cold at temperatures where it was even possible to alter the humidity level (see above chart respecting restrictions). Cold is cold, and people can't tell the difference.

And when we're dealing with important factors like, "will my vehicle start this morning", it depends on solely one thing: real air temperature. Your car doesn't care whether it's dry, wet or windy - it's simply a matter of temperature.

Now don't get me wrong on this. I'm not saying that wind has no effect on your body - it surely does. But wind doesn't change the air temperature, which is the only actual fact you have to report, in addition to the wind speed. I just take offence that you continue to report how I'm going to feel when I go outside as a fictional temperature. If weather is going to be based on feelings, why not just go all-in and report how you feel about the weather every day. Consider the wind, consider the sun, consider your coffee that morning and the quality of your date last night - and then just throw something out there... -12. Frankly, it's not going to be any less accurate than your forecast.

Frozen In Fictional Feelings,

DJD