I hope everyone living in the midwest is safely indoors during this horrible storm :( My dad is travelling today. He was at the airport for more than 12 hours in Denver waiting for a flight home (his original flight got cancelled and he’s been on standby the whole day). He finally got on a flight at 10pm tonight and should arrive in Tulsa any minute.

On another note, I’ve been on the phone several times these past few days with United trying to see if I can change my dad’s flight with the impending storm. I’m not sure how long this has been but United is yet another company who has turned their call centers to India. I am *extremely* tolerant and I think I am pretty good about listening to people with heavy accents. I try to be patient and realize that it’s not their fault that I can’t understand them. Let’s just say that after calling them multiple times I gave up. It was too frustrating over the phone and I felt bad after asking them to speak more slowly or to keep repeating what they are trying to say.

I can understand companies outsourcing tech work to India and other countries but WHY WHY WHY would you do that with call centers? I read an article last year that the suicide rate for these indian call centers is rising. Gee, I wonder why. I am a pretty patient person when it comes to these things but I know and have seen people blow their top off at these people. It’s sad, because they are just doing their job.

And yes, I know companies are doing this because it is so cheap…but what about customer satisfaction? I know the next time I am shopping for ticket prices, and I find a price that is 50 bucks or so more expensive than United, I will go with them. Even if it’s SW! I am also upset that they did not let my father change his ticket even though they KNEW about the bad storm. I knew he was going to get stuck in Denver, at least they could have just booked him on the next flight later on this week. I also read on their OWN website that people flying to Oklahoma today would get their fee waived if they wanted to change their flight. When I spoke about that to them they totally dismissed me. I could tell they did not give me the time of day because it was an extremely busy day at the airport. I would have argued with them longer but my dad was cutting it close on his current flight to Denver so I didn’t want him to get stranded in LAX and having to buy a new ticket because UNITED IS DUMB.

So yes, I’ve added United to my BLACKLIST. Boo on United!