Basic training isn’t always so basic

There are always cringe worthy moments in life, when some unfortunate incident happens to someone else and you give thanks to a number of higher powers that it didn’t happen to you.

For example, how would you like to have changed places with the two partners from PwC who were too busy tweeting to notice they gave presenter Warren Beatty the wrong envelope for the Best Picture winner at last week’s Academy Awards?

Um, no thank you.

On a more relatable scale to most of us, how about when a friend or colleague regales you with tales of a disastrous travel experience which may include  hours of flight delays and missed connections?

Again, you can surely sympathize and no doubt some cringing ensues.

In the category of no one asked me but, I had such an experience earlier this week on a return flight from Bermuda to New York and in the process, have nurtured an online relationship between myself and the customer service reps at American Airlines.

Long story short, since Bermuda is a rather small island, there are a limited number of air carriers that fly there directly. New York for example, has a total of only six outbound flights daily split among three of the major airlines – American, Delta and JetBlue.

We’re not talking Chicago or New York, where should a flight cancel, there’s another leaving every hour or so. No, when our flight canceled due to mechanical difficulty, chaos ensued. That was it for the day. The agents and operations people appeared like contestants stumped on Final Jeopardy, unable to answer irate passengers’ questions, how to begin the rebooking process or even let us know who was in charge.

Can you imagine a CPA unable to complete a routine audit or 1040? How long do you think they would remain gainfully employed? This is what I thought folks who work for the airlines are sort of trained to do.

So what do you do with 200 or so people stranded in a small airport with no means to fly out? Well, astonishingly, we were each given $12 meal vouchers for the only restaurant at the airport hoping to mollify us. Then we were told to report back at 8 pm (it was 2 pm at this point) for rebooking as they were bringing a flight in from Miami to get us out.

In all, the delay was over 10 hours and my spouse and I finally arrived home after 1 a.m. Our recompense for the ordeal?

A $100 voucher each and an apology for the poor staff communication and training.

My first thought was how can a global company not have trained its representatives to the point where they could at least handle basic flight rebookings?

The two areas that companies routinely underinvest in are marketing and training. I once heard the managing partner of a large CPA firm explain to someone why they invest so much money in their training programs. But he was asked what happens if you train an employee and they decide to leave?

He turned and with perfect composure flipped the question around - what happens if you don’t train them and they stay?

I’m beginning to think they leave the profession and go work for American Airlines.