Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

CommonSense - CommonOffice - OpenOffice

Just in case you're not there yet, you should.  OpenOffice offers a fully functional, multilingual, and multiplatform office suite.  And the price is extremely low, in fact, it's non-existent.  It's absolutely free to download, use and distribute.  I have used it for years, with Windows, Macintosh and Solaris, and my documents follow me wherever I go - in terms of platform that is.  Download it today.

And don't get confused, this is not a commercial break, it's a free advice, an OpenAdvice if you will.  OpenOffice, use it. 

Posted at 05:26PM Sep 22, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

United Airlines Part Deux

I was in California this week, as you may have understood from my previous post.  I love California, and the Bay Area in particular, for many reasons.  The weather, for starters, is in my opinion the best on the planet for human residence.  Never too cold, never too warm.  Just perfect.  And from a professional viewpoint, where would you find such concentration of engineers, developers, inventors, geniuses?  Maybe in Haifa, Israel, but on a much smaller scale.  The variety and variance is another thing.  I went into Safeway one day to buy all those things that my family asked me to get because we can't get them in Beijing, and within a few minutes I encountered people from five continents.  Every time I go to California, I get to see what the car makers are up to.  So here is my observation for this visit: Nissan has a wonderful line of new cars, different sizes, but all beautiful and streamlined (always wanted to use this word in a sentence).  And Mercedes is now into really small cars... And the roads are full of all these nice new cars, such that the famous (or infamous) 101 looks like a huge parking lot twice a day...

I was staying at the Sierra Suites in Santa Clara.  A little far from Menlo Park, but very convenient, comfortable and courteous.  After my experience with United Airlines, this was a corrective experience.  In my room, as always, there was a coffee maker, and some coffee.  Here's a photo of the coffee wrapping.  I wonder if anyone looks at it the way I do.  Superior Coffee, Signature Cup, Premium Roast, Royal Kona Blend.  Imagine that, I was going to make myself a cup of coffee, so I can say to whoever knows me: "I have drunk the premium coffee Hawaiian Royalty drink in their superior signature breakfast parties" or something.  I made a cup.  Average at best.  And then it hit me.  I felt manipulated in a very blunt way.  I realized that for a moment there, I was impressed with the cover and didn't care that much about the coffee inside.  I caught myself.  "Don't judge a book by its cover" still stands.  It also reminded me of a joke.  Some guy went to see a matchmaker and stated that he was looking for a woman who is pretty, smart and rich.  The matchmaker looked at him and said: "with these requirements I can make three matches"...

Reflecting on this incident, I realized that United Airlines is no different.  It goes to great distances trying to make you believe that it cares.  It says that the customer is important.  It thanks you for choosing United.  It thanks you for your patience, way too many times.  But do they really care?  I doubt it.  People who really care don't have to apologize all the time, they just get things right.  The bottom line, caring is to be judged by deeds and actions, and not by covers, wrappings, and flight attendants saying on the loudspeakers "thank you for choosing United Airlines, we are hoping to see you soon on one of our future flights".  Indeed you will, but only because the competition is even worse...  To be honest, there's one United ground crew member in San Francisco, whom I've seen multiple times already who completely agrees with me.  That's why she doesn't even bother to wear the facade anymore.  She is just straight rude.  I actually appreciate that, she is being honest.  Good job Sharon!

Curious about my flight back?  It wasn't so bad.  We left forty minutes late and arrived forty minutes late.  You know, of course, that forty minutes is easy to make up over an eleven hour long flight.  But it will require more fuel, and will make the operating cost of the flight higher, so the delay was kept.  I came in almost four hours before the flight, but still managed to get 60H.  The aisle seat all the way in the back of the plane.  Was I being punished?  Just kidding, but then again...

What am I talking about?  Read BusinessWeek from September 10, 2007.  Cover story: "Fear and Loathing at the Airport", you will understand why my complaints against United are minor, and almost petty.  The entire industry is in trouble, and the passengers are suffering.

I hate to be a pest, but I promise: this will almost be the last of it.  I sent an email to the FAA.  Here it is.  If anything comes back, I will keep you posted:

"I was flying with United Airlines on flight 888 from Beijing to San Francisco on September 16, 2007.  The flight was supposed to depart at 12:00 noon, but after a series of technical problems (a broken oxygen mask in the cockpit) and other problems (sick passenger, crew walk-off) eventually took off after 19:00 in the evening.

United airlines kept the full flight IN THE PLANE, AT THE GATE for almost SIX hours, before allowing the passengers to get some food.  (They claimed that food can't be served on the ground, I can only assume it is correct).

The crew misinformed the passengers on various occasions.  As a result of this I missed an important meeting, but this isn't the point.  The point is that United claims that this was "beyond their control".  And I would like to know if this is OK to keep over 300 people in a warm stuffy place, with no food for over 6 hours, and whether or not they are responsible for not detecting the broken oxygen mask WAY BEFORE BOARDING.  And why did they board the plane, knowing that they can't take off?

With the situation of aviation these days, isn't responsibility avoided too often by claiming "Act of God"? "

Wouldn't you know it.  I hit the "Send" button, and here's the response: "An error occurred while processing your request.  Reference #102.acb3451.1190391872.bf7a50"  Your tax dollars at work.

Posted at 12:23AM Sep 22, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[7]