Grounded by Anger and the matrix

I was scheduled to fly to London with you on 4th December 2006 at 9.45am. At around 8.45 am I approached the check-in desk. My one piece of luggage weighed in at just under 22 Kgs and I was asked either to take out 2kg as hand luggage or to pay £10. As I only had a book for hand luggage I asked if I could leave it in and that she let it go. She refused. In other words she had to inconvenience me. I understand that airlines charge for overweight to compensate for the extra fuel per kg that it costs you, but as the same weight would end up on the plane, this policy just caused hassle for everyone because with my fellow passengers ending up with less space on the plane to store their hand luggage. To cut a long story short, I asked to see her line manager but he showed the same inflexibility so I then asked for the duty manager - a man named Michael. He quietly listened to me but said that he could do nothing - that he had orders from those on high and had no power to be flexible. I asked him what would happen if he did let I go and he said he would lose his job. I realized I was getting nowhere so eventually I took an item out and the luggage then weighed 19.9 Kgs. I said in jest that it was in my rule book that you should pay me 20p for the underweight. Michael understood the point I was making and smiled but refused to give me a single penny (understandably so). Then the check-in woman started with security questions and asked 'could anyone have tampered with my luggage ?' I answered in a way which I belIeve was the only technically true answer which was 'yes, they could'. Once again I admitted then & do so now that i was not answering the way they wanted but I was answering truthfully. At this point Michael lost his cool and aggressively said 'you can either be quiet and answer the questions or I will remove you from the flight. I was quite shocked with this turn of mood and asked him what he meant by 'be quiet!' (After all, how exactly could I be quiet AND answer the questions?!) He immediately said 'right, that's it, I am removing you from the flight.' That is what he did and I had to pay £90 for a train ticket home.

The above is part of a letter i wrote to easyjet and below are the questions I posed.

But from a spiritual perspective i would like to add this.

When she told me that i had to take the stuff out, i felt myself triggered. It reminded me of the pettiness of my childhood, of the inflexibility of people in authority. So i then proceeded to be drivwen by that negatiove force and it ended in my not flying and in their getting angry too. Anger breeds anger. Negativity attracts itself.
On the train home though some more synchronicity. I sat next to a young woman and admittedly invaded her space a bit and ended up getting into a deep discussion which of course included metaphysics. It turned out that she was studying Anthropology and that she was a self proclaimed disciple of Richard Dawkins. I commented that he is as much of a fundamentalist as any religious fundamentalist he so opposes. i also noted that he spends mroe time and energy relation to God than most !
I suggested that it is a shame that so many 'scientific' types have been robbed of their own spirituality becasue religion has cleverly manipulated the truth by inferring that the only type of spirituallity is religion. I was very heavy over the next 1/2 hour, questioning how she could possibly not think that there is a metaphysical reality. E.g. our new son - can you really tell me that there is nothing more to him than flesh and bones ? that all the love we have for him is 'conditioning ?' She insisted it was but then all of a sudden tears started rolling down her face. Turns out that her father had died a few weeks ago and our conversation reminded her of the sorts of talks she had with him.

I suggested that perhaps his soul had orchestrated the whole thing with missing the flight ! (Perhaps i coudl have asked her for a donation towards the £90 train fare ! She was in too much pain to continue the conversation although i had lots of beautiful things to share with her - ideas that she is far more than just a body and that her fathe rlives on and that love is not just a conditioned thing etc.

Now back to the easyjet letter...

I have several observations/questions:
1) Does your company care about how it treats its customers ? If so, I question the inflexibility. I would not dream of such inflexibility in my business. Michael said he would lose his job if he let the 22kg on board! Is this really true? I fully understand that you have to make money somehow and that you therefore are strict with overweight and multiple baggage, but this was not the same because i had no hand luggage. If I would have had full hand luggage I would have gladly paid the money as the ticket was very reasonably priced. 2) These staff at Newcastle were serviceair staff. I am hoping that this is why the easyjet staff in London were more flexible because they care more about the company? 3) What right does somebody have to get aggressive and tell me to 'be quiet' ? He is not my father. (And I was not being noisy or disruptive - nor was I endangering anyone's security - I was answering a question with what is, ironically, the truth!) 4) I had no warning. He basically made his decision out of anger and i had no warning (unless you consider the above a proper warning.) As I have said, was of no threat to anyone and if he really thought i was, he surely should have given me a warning ? 5) I actually was probably the only person who answerwed the security question honestly. How can anyone categorically say that nobody had tampered with their luggage ? I appreciate that there are all sorts of pressures we are under in our lives especially at the airport. I also realise that you could probably very easily cut and paste something from your terms and conditions and show me how your staff were 'within their rights' although its still hard to believe that your people can bar me from a flight for answering a question truthfully. At the same time, if you really care about your customers then perhaps some flexibility is in order in these and similar situations. That would also give more responsibility for your staff which is surely a desirable thing. And I think its important that you know what serviceair are doing in your name. It seems to me that the least you could do here is to compensate me for the £90.40 train fair and some sort of compensation for the inconvenience and loss of time (about 3 hours) I look forward to your response. With Respect Danny