6 ms·

Delta told me I “didn’t look disabled enough” to need a service animal

30 points by tnorthcutt 13y ago

mikelanton 13y ago
Sorry, but I don't think you should be allowed a fucking pet on a flight, unless you are blind.
- ianstallings 13y ago
  And I don't think you should be allowed to post on the Internet anymore. We don't always get our way.
- zck 13y ago
  Let's assume, for the second, that both the law and Delta rules state that you can't have animals on board the plane. Then, is it okay to treat this person as she says she was treated? You can tell someone something they don't want to hear while still treating them as a person. Then realize that both the law and Delta rules state that she is allowed to bring her service animal on board. So she was treated incredibly badly, while trying to do something she was legally allowed to do, and within the airline's rules. An awful experience.
EpicEng 13y ago
This is a quote from the comments section: "I travel with my emotional support dog, Lola, everywhere I go. She has all her documentation and is allowed to sit on my lap during flight." ..."Emotional support dog?" Really? Yeesh. I don't know, maybe I'm just a jerk, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for either of them. This person rants on and on because of a misunderstanding between her and a Delta employee. She got on the plane, right? Who cares? My gut feeling is that this woman enjoys playing the victim. My initial reaction would probably be the same; why does this woman who can seemingly get around just fine require a service animal? Is she playing the system? Perhaps the delta employee was rude. People are often rude. It happens. I think the writer gets off on feeling victimized, which is annoying.
- ianstallings 13y ago
  My friend has PTSD from his tour in Afghanistan and he has an emotional support dog. He's one tough mofo but the dog helps him from having panic attacks and becoming a "normal" person again.
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    Well, if this woman has severe PTSD from combat I'll give her a pass. For some reason I doubt it though. I don't mean to come off as a heartless jerk, and I'm certain I'm going to be proven wrong in some cases, but, like I said before... I just get the feeling that this woman enjoyed the whole thing at some level. I come into contact with rude people like everyone else. I don't run off and write a blog post about it.
    - russelluresti 13y ago
      It's not up to you to give someone "a pass" or determine who qualifies for a service animal and who doesn't. There are professionals out there whose job it is to determine these things based on need. If you're not one of them, then you should keep your opinion about who you think deserves what to yourself. Also, at a certain point, being rude crosses into being bigoted. Imagine if someone said a person didn't "look rich enough", or poor enough, or white enough, or black enough, or young enough, or old enough, or whatever other type of judgement based on someone's physical appearance. To me this is akin to a cop pulling over a black guy driving a nice car and asking if he stole it. It's a person in power abusing their power because someone else has something that the person in power doesn't believe they have any right to have. Finally, people who are bad at their jobs (like the flight attendants in this story) deserve to be publicly exposed and fired so that they can't cause inconvenience to anyone else who has the misfortune of getting them on a flight.
      - EpicEng 13y ago
        It is in fact up to me when I'm giving my opinion on an open forum. You also seem to have completely missed the point. I never intended to defend the Delta employees. All I said was that this woman (as well as the commentor) come off as whiny to me. You are free to disagree, and you are also free to cut the holier than though attitude. Some people are just whiners and enjoy feeling victimized.
patio11 13y ago
So, if something ever happens to any of y'all at the hands of the agent of a multi-billion dollar company and for whatever reason you really, really want someone to apologize in such a way that you're sure an actual human is involved, I would not suggest blogging or tweeting about it. (Desiderata may be different if you are a social media consultant.) Instead, write a short, professional letter the CEO. Briefly outline the facts and ask for exactly your desired resolution. Send it to the Office of the President or Investor Relations [+]. You can generally find their exact title and postal address in a few minutes of Googling. You have a really good chance of getting that paper letter opened and read by an executive's secretary, then forwarded to the VP of $RELEVANT_DEPARTMENT with the note "Bob would appreciate if you resolved this." I used to draft these letters for folks (weird hobby, I know), and they were routinely effective at Fortune 500 banks, insurance companies, airlines, etc. [+ The words "I am a shareholder of $COMPANY and ..." excuse almost any communication to Investor Relations. IR are typically fairly high up on the org chart, have few day-to-day responsibilities, and are institutionally biased to making investors ecstatically happy as opposed to e.g. prioritizing calls-handled-per-hour. If you feel you're not actually a shareholder of $COMPANY, consider whether you beneficially own any of it through e.g. a mutual fund or ETF in your IRA. The answer is "probably" (and you certainly should, but that's another post), and yep, that counts in every way that matters.]
joezydeco 13y ago
So now all large corporations must handle customer problems through "social media" even faster than calling them? How is this supposed to work? Legions of CSRs manning a dozen different streams looking for trouble? I sympathize with this woman's treatment, but I really really would not expect to get relief by making a tweet at the gate while the problem is still happening. That's something a local manager should be handling.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

30 points by tnorthcutt 13y ago

mikelanton 13y ago

Sorry, but I don't think you should be allowed a fucking pet on a flight, unless you are blind.

ianstallings 13y ago
And I don't think you should be allowed to post on the Internet anymore. We don't always get our way.
zck 13y ago
Let's assume, for the second, that both the law and Delta rules state that you can't have animals on board the plane. Then, is it okay to treat this person as she says she was treated? You can tell someone something they don't want to hear while still treating them as a person. Then realize that both the law and Delta rules state that she is allowed to bring her service animal on board. So she was treated incredibly badly, while trying to do something she was legally allowed to do, and within the airline's rules. An awful experience.

EpicEng 13y ago

This is a quote from the comments section: "I travel with my emotional support dog, Lola, everywhere I go. She has all her documentation and is allowed to sit on my lap during flight." ..."Emotional support dog?" Really? Yeesh. I don't know, maybe I'm just a jerk, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for either of them. This person rants on and on because of a misunderstanding between her and a Delta employee. She got on the plane, right? Who cares? My gut feeling is that this woman enjoys playing the victim. My initial reaction would probably be the same; why does this woman who can seemingly get around just fine require a service animal? Is she playing the system? Perhaps the delta employee was rude. People are often rude. It happens. I think the writer gets off on feeling victimized, which is annoying.

ianstallings 13y ago
My friend has PTSD from his tour in Afghanistan and he has an emotional support dog. He's one tough mofo but the dog helps him from having panic attacks and becoming a "normal" person again.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  Well, if this woman has severe PTSD from combat I'll give her a pass. For some reason I doubt it though. I don't mean to come off as a heartless jerk, and I'm certain I'm going to be proven wrong in some cases, but, like I said before... I just get the feeling that this woman enjoyed the whole thing at some level. I come into contact with rude people like everyone else. I don't run off and write a blog post about it.
  - russelluresti 13y ago
    It's not up to you to give someone "a pass" or determine who qualifies for a service animal and who doesn't. There are professionals out there whose job it is to determine these things based on need. If you're not one of them, then you should keep your opinion about who you think deserves what to yourself. Also, at a certain point, being rude crosses into being bigoted. Imagine if someone said a person didn't "look rich enough", or poor enough, or white enough, or black enough, or young enough, or old enough, or whatever other type of judgement based on someone's physical appearance. To me this is akin to a cop pulling over a black guy driving a nice car and asking if he stole it. It's a person in power abusing their power because someone else has something that the person in power doesn't believe they have any right to have. Finally, people who are bad at their jobs (like the flight attendants in this story) deserve to be publicly exposed and fired so that they can't cause inconvenience to anyone else who has the misfortune of getting them on a flight.
    - EpicEng 13y ago
      It is in fact up to me when I'm giving my opinion on an open forum. You also seem to have completely missed the point. I never intended to defend the Delta employees. All I said was that this woman (as well as the commentor) come off as whiny to me. You are free to disagree, and you are also free to cut the holier than though attitude. Some people are just whiners and enjoy feeling victimized.

patio11 13y ago

So, if something ever happens to any of y'all at the hands of the agent of a multi-billion dollar company and for whatever reason you really, really want someone to apologize in such a way that you're sure an actual human is involved, I would not suggest blogging or tweeting about it. (Desiderata may be different if you are a social media consultant.) Instead, write a short, professional letter the CEO. Briefly outline the facts and ask for exactly your desired resolution. Send it to the Office of the President or Investor Relations [+]. You can generally find their exact title and postal address in a few minutes of Googling. You have a really good chance of getting that paper letter opened and read by an executive's secretary, then forwarded to the VP of $RELEVANT_DEPARTMENT with the note "Bob would appreciate if you resolved this." I used to draft these letters for folks (weird hobby, I know), and they were routinely effective at Fortune 500 banks, insurance companies, airlines, etc. [+ The words "I am a shareholder of $COMPANY and ..." excuse almost any communication to Investor Relations. IR are typically fairly high up on the org chart, have few day-to-day responsibilities, and are institutionally biased to making investors ecstatically happy as opposed to e.g. prioritizing calls-handled-per-hour. If you feel you're not actually a shareholder of $COMPANY, consider whether you beneficially own any of it through e.g. a mutual fund or ETF in your IRA. The answer is "probably" (and you certainly should, but that's another post), and yep, that counts in every way that matters.]

joezydeco 13y ago

So now all large corporations must handle customer problems through "social media" even faster than calling them? How is this supposed to work? Legions of CSRs manning a dozen different streams looking for trouble? I sympathize with this woman's treatment, but I really really would not expect to get relief by making a tweet at the gate while the problem is still happening. That's something a local manager should be handling.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]