STORMS SOMETIMES COME IN THE FORM OF A YOUNG BEAUTY
As I am trying to work with Zeynep to see what my options are, a gentleman approaches the booth stating he did online check-in, but couldn't print off his boarding passes, is there a way to print off his boarding passes so he can go to the gate. The answer is no. This is not the check-in booth and they can't do that. We understand, although it takes a few times to help the gentleman to settle down with the answer. We are both hanging around to see what our destiny is going to be in the hands of Zeynep and the handsome, as-a-matter-of-factly Portugese boss of hers, whose sparingly used words are addressed only to Zeynep not to us. As I start feeling as if the four of us are part of a scenario reminscent of Eugine O'Neil's plays, a storm rushes in in the form of a young, wild, upset, fidgety Turkish beauty. She looks very much like Zeynep, my daughter, slender, medium height, dark voluminous, long straight hair in a pony tail. The difference is that as beautiful as they are, her eyes are so heavily made up, I can hardly see her irises. Yet, I can see the lightening sparkling out of her eyes toward the Portuguese guy. And her words reaching Zeynep, the receptionist and her handsome boss are as fiery as her eyes.
She is interrogating Zeynep and her boss with a very high pitched voice: "I heard from my fiancee, who is on Turkish Airline (TA) flight coming from Istanbul (that is our plane that would have taken us to Istanbul!). He told me they came to Lisbon, they saw the Lisbon bridge, then the plane started falling! Everybody was crying and screaming! and, and at the last minute the pilot decided they couldn't land and they took off and now they are in Faro! Everybody wants to get out, but they aren't opening the doors! (Hmmm, that may be a sign of imminent take off being expected?) How can TA be so irresponsible to let this flight take off and put lives in danger! Didn't TA know about the upcoming storm when all the Lisbonites knew about it!" All these questions are actually not questions but a slap on the face of the flabergasted Portuguese. As he is trying to interrupt her to get a word or two in, she goes on and on and on... Our handsome boss is getting more and more tense with this unfair attack, I can see.
Initial encounter between the angry beauty and the Portuguese Manager at the TA ticket booth was just like this
Zeynep is comfortable because the "storm" is addressing the "man", assuming he'd be the boss not the woman behind the counter, which turns out to be a true assumption in this case but not always. Don't we drift into that bias all too frequently? I have an embarrasing memory related to that. Interestingly, it is about how I met my hostess Teresa. I was giving a course on how to build multidisciplinary/interagency collaborative teams to address abusive head trauma at an international conference that was held in Turkey. I knew there was a group from Portugal in the audience. At the end of the session, this group started walking toward me: An elegant but small built woman, around my age, in the front, a tall younger woman and two tall men, one younger, the other, close to my age, walking right behind the small woman. The tall "older" man was at least a head above the small woman. She pointed to me with her index finger and said in a decisive voice "We want you in Portugal." "Wow" I thought "I'd never been invited to any country with this decisiveness" smiling. I did something terrible right at that point: I said "Sure, I'd be delighted, what I can I do for Portugal?" There was nothing wrong with the wording of course, but I was addressing the man behind, who turned out to be Teresa's junior!! ...because my subconscious under the bombardment of decades of gender roles, despite my mildly feminist approach to gender roles had failed me. I woke up to reality, when the tall man, who turned out to be my, now, dear friend Agostino, with an understanding smile on his face pointed his index finger down toward Teresa's head without luckily Teresa knowing it. Of course as soon as I got to know Teresa better, I told her this story and apologized for my bias profusely. Fortunately, this wasn't the first time Agostino was treated as the boss by strangers, I was forgiven.
So now, after calling poor Teresa several times to see what kind of planning we may do to make sure I leave Turkey on Monday without losing my chance to fly, we hear for the first time from this stormy beauty that those that had already checked in are just sitting at the gate, there is no aircraft for them to board. Just as our overmade beauty continues her attacks on the Portuegese boss, Zeynep guides me to not rush into making a plan right now and be patient. She tells me if we change my flight to tomorrow, say, and if this current flight manages to make it tonight, I will lose my chance. They promise me, if I have to stay in Lisbon, all hotel expenses will be covered. OK, I will wait, some more meditation around the corner helps although it is difficult to totally calm down when the beauty is still screaming at the desk.
In all this chaos, I feel for all parties and try to calm down this disappointed and scared young woman (in her 20s) to make things easier for everybody. If not, it looks like she may give non-stop hell to especially those behind the counter. The boss indeed has already had enough, he tells her he is not the one to make such decisions. He is doing his best with everybody else to make sure everybody is safe and to assess whether there is a way to bring the aircraft back to Lisbon. If there is they will do it as soon as possible. I turn my attention to our disappointed youth. She reiterates her story once more, her fear and anxiety are palpable. But more comes out this time.
She is in Portugal on an Erasmus exchange program. Her boyfriend was to visit her for only three days (one of the three is gone already, she makes sure to mention), she has reserved a hotel room for the two of them. And look what is happening now. She prefers him to be safe and go back home instead of coming to Lisbon and die. I caress her arm to show my empathy and understanding of her difficulty, this is acceptable in Turkish culture between women. I can see her calming down and the fire in her subsiding gradually, already. Eventually, she tells me and the other gentleman, who is also waiting, "well, if nothing else, you can come with me, I have a room reserved anyway" this brings a chuckle to all of us. I can't help saying "Oh, my, you don't want to spend your evening with two old academics, I am sure your love will make it here tonight." She smiles, she is hopeful, just as we are, too. Eventually, I tell her "you know there is good in every evil, you may discover this as early as tonight when you get together, your reunion may be much more delicious than it would have been. Or, later... As soon as this crisis is resolved, you will have a fun story to tell throughout your lives." She doesn't agree with the fun part, but, "a story to tell", she does buy with a warm, appreciating smile.
Around five o'clock, something unexpected happens, the boss after motioning Zeynep to behind the divide, he comes out with an offer: "We can check you in for the flight just in case it arrives here tonight, but if we do, you will lose your chance to have TA cover your hotel expenses in case the aircraft can not make it." I don't even think about it. I accept, this offer in and of itself tells me that there is a good chance of the aircraft arriving in Lisbon TONIGHT. We already have learned that Faro airport had become refuge to some 25 aircrafts lined next to each other wing to wing. Both Faro airport and all airlines are motivated to get their aircrafts out of there and back to Lisbon. From that point on something unheard of happens. The ticket-booth staff become check-in staff, with help from other airlines' check-in staff since Zeynep has no idea of what she needs to do to check me in and to print off the other gentleman's boarding passes. At 5:15, we are at the gate with our boarding passes, the worst may be over. I turn on my I-pad and send e-mail messages to all, who needs to know where I am and what the next 24 hours look like.
The dead check-in counter enlivens with Zeynep finding another handsome Portuguese to check us in
I don't know how things at the airport turned around like this. From, check-in out of question, you will stay at a hotel and will continue tomorrow to being at the gate... Was it simply the boss wanted to get rid of us and save the hotel costs for two people? Was it the fact that what we shared with them with calm and no pressure reached their human side and they used whatever was in their capacity to help us? Was it something else? I don't know, I will never know, I want to believe it was the latter just because I want to continue believing in the good in my species.
From that point on, it is a boring story. We arrived in Istanbul at 2:30 to discover that our luggage had not arrived. My netbook and I-phone in it, not good. But what can we do? My meditating self continued being calm at 3 am in the morning, when everybody else entering the lost and found office of TA was a storm, and disrespectful at that. I felt for the guy helping us and told him so, too. "I wish people could understand that you simply are trying to help them and are not responsible for the lost luggage." He was very appreciative that at least one person was understanding him. Forms are filled and I will have to be patient and hopeful that the best airline of Europe, two years in a row, will find my luggage and get it to my address in Iowa City (They do, too, in three days after my return, my luggage is at my door). It was great to learn that TA would pay for a hotel room by the Golden Horn. Hilton Garden Inn in Sutluce, where sultans and Istanbulite elites used to picnic and enjoy sunny sundays hosted some 100 victims of air travel at 5 am on the 20th of January 2013. I will sleep until 9 and wake up to catch the shuttle that will take me back to the airport for another 18 some hours of air travel. One lesson I learned, never again, two countries in one week. I am getting too old for this. One country a week, or if two countries, take time off for two weeks. That is my resolution out of all this, which I will eventually recall as good memories full of good deeds and learning about others, about myself, yet again, about the world, and nature, and businesses, and who knows what else.
As I am trying to work with Zeynep to see what my options are, a gentleman approaches the booth stating he did online check-in, but couldn't print off his boarding passes, is there a way to print off his boarding passes so he can go to the gate. The answer is no. This is not the check-in booth and they can't do that. We understand, although it takes a few times to help the gentleman to settle down with the answer. We are both hanging around to see what our destiny is going to be in the hands of Zeynep and the handsome, as-a-matter-of-factly Portugese boss of hers, whose sparingly used words are addressed only to Zeynep not to us. As I start feeling as if the four of us are part of a scenario reminscent of Eugine O'Neil's plays, a storm rushes in in the form of a young, wild, upset, fidgety Turkish beauty. She looks very much like Zeynep, my daughter, slender, medium height, dark voluminous, long straight hair in a pony tail. The difference is that as beautiful as they are, her eyes are so heavily made up, I can hardly see her irises. Yet, I can see the lightening sparkling out of her eyes toward the Portuguese guy. And her words reaching Zeynep, the receptionist and her handsome boss are as fiery as her eyes.
She is interrogating Zeynep and her boss with a very high pitched voice: "I heard from my fiancee, who is on Turkish Airline (TA) flight coming from Istanbul (that is our plane that would have taken us to Istanbul!). He told me they came to Lisbon, they saw the Lisbon bridge, then the plane started falling! Everybody was crying and screaming! and, and at the last minute the pilot decided they couldn't land and they took off and now they are in Faro! Everybody wants to get out, but they aren't opening the doors! (Hmmm, that may be a sign of imminent take off being expected?) How can TA be so irresponsible to let this flight take off and put lives in danger! Didn't TA know about the upcoming storm when all the Lisbonites knew about it!" All these questions are actually not questions but a slap on the face of the flabergasted Portuguese. As he is trying to interrupt her to get a word or two in, she goes on and on and on... Our handsome boss is getting more and more tense with this unfair attack, I can see.
Initial encounter between the angry beauty and the Portuguese Manager at the TA ticket booth was just like this
Zeynep is comfortable because the "storm" is addressing the "man", assuming he'd be the boss not the woman behind the counter, which turns out to be a true assumption in this case but not always. Don't we drift into that bias all too frequently? I have an embarrasing memory related to that. Interestingly, it is about how I met my hostess Teresa. I was giving a course on how to build multidisciplinary/interagency collaborative teams to address abusive head trauma at an international conference that was held in Turkey. I knew there was a group from Portugal in the audience. At the end of the session, this group started walking toward me: An elegant but small built woman, around my age, in the front, a tall younger woman and two tall men, one younger, the other, close to my age, walking right behind the small woman. The tall "older" man was at least a head above the small woman. She pointed to me with her index finger and said in a decisive voice "We want you in Portugal." "Wow" I thought "I'd never been invited to any country with this decisiveness" smiling. I did something terrible right at that point: I said "Sure, I'd be delighted, what I can I do for Portugal?" There was nothing wrong with the wording of course, but I was addressing the man behind, who turned out to be Teresa's junior!! ...because my subconscious under the bombardment of decades of gender roles, despite my mildly feminist approach to gender roles had failed me. I woke up to reality, when the tall man, who turned out to be my, now, dear friend Agostino, with an understanding smile on his face pointed his index finger down toward Teresa's head without luckily Teresa knowing it. Of course as soon as I got to know Teresa better, I told her this story and apologized for my bias profusely. Fortunately, this wasn't the first time Agostino was treated as the boss by strangers, I was forgiven.
So now, after calling poor Teresa several times to see what kind of planning we may do to make sure I leave Turkey on Monday without losing my chance to fly, we hear for the first time from this stormy beauty that those that had already checked in are just sitting at the gate, there is no aircraft for them to board. Just as our overmade beauty continues her attacks on the Portuegese boss, Zeynep guides me to not rush into making a plan right now and be patient. She tells me if we change my flight to tomorrow, say, and if this current flight manages to make it tonight, I will lose my chance. They promise me, if I have to stay in Lisbon, all hotel expenses will be covered. OK, I will wait, some more meditation around the corner helps although it is difficult to totally calm down when the beauty is still screaming at the desk.
In all this chaos, I feel for all parties and try to calm down this disappointed and scared young woman (in her 20s) to make things easier for everybody. If not, it looks like she may give non-stop hell to especially those behind the counter. The boss indeed has already had enough, he tells her he is not the one to make such decisions. He is doing his best with everybody else to make sure everybody is safe and to assess whether there is a way to bring the aircraft back to Lisbon. If there is they will do it as soon as possible. I turn my attention to our disappointed youth. She reiterates her story once more, her fear and anxiety are palpable. But more comes out this time.
She is in Portugal on an Erasmus exchange program. Her boyfriend was to visit her for only three days (one of the three is gone already, she makes sure to mention), she has reserved a hotel room for the two of them. And look what is happening now. She prefers him to be safe and go back home instead of coming to Lisbon and die. I caress her arm to show my empathy and understanding of her difficulty, this is acceptable in Turkish culture between women. I can see her calming down and the fire in her subsiding gradually, already. Eventually, she tells me and the other gentleman, who is also waiting, "well, if nothing else, you can come with me, I have a room reserved anyway" this brings a chuckle to all of us. I can't help saying "Oh, my, you don't want to spend your evening with two old academics, I am sure your love will make it here tonight." She smiles, she is hopeful, just as we are, too. Eventually, I tell her "you know there is good in every evil, you may discover this as early as tonight when you get together, your reunion may be much more delicious than it would have been. Or, later... As soon as this crisis is resolved, you will have a fun story to tell throughout your lives." She doesn't agree with the fun part, but, "a story to tell", she does buy with a warm, appreciating smile.
Around five o'clock, something unexpected happens, the boss after motioning Zeynep to behind the divide, he comes out with an offer: "We can check you in for the flight just in case it arrives here tonight, but if we do, you will lose your chance to have TA cover your hotel expenses in case the aircraft can not make it." I don't even think about it. I accept, this offer in and of itself tells me that there is a good chance of the aircraft arriving in Lisbon TONIGHT. We already have learned that Faro airport had become refuge to some 25 aircrafts lined next to each other wing to wing. Both Faro airport and all airlines are motivated to get their aircrafts out of there and back to Lisbon. From that point on something unheard of happens. The ticket-booth staff become check-in staff, with help from other airlines' check-in staff since Zeynep has no idea of what she needs to do to check me in and to print off the other gentleman's boarding passes. At 5:15, we are at the gate with our boarding passes, the worst may be over. I turn on my I-pad and send e-mail messages to all, who needs to know where I am and what the next 24 hours look like.
The dead check-in counter enlivens with Zeynep finding another handsome Portuguese to check us in
I don't know how things at the airport turned around like this. From, check-in out of question, you will stay at a hotel and will continue tomorrow to being at the gate... Was it simply the boss wanted to get rid of us and save the hotel costs for two people? Was it the fact that what we shared with them with calm and no pressure reached their human side and they used whatever was in their capacity to help us? Was it something else? I don't know, I will never know, I want to believe it was the latter just because I want to continue believing in the good in my species.
From that point on, it is a boring story. We arrived in Istanbul at 2:30 to discover that our luggage had not arrived. My netbook and I-phone in it, not good. But what can we do? My meditating self continued being calm at 3 am in the morning, when everybody else entering the lost and found office of TA was a storm, and disrespectful at that. I felt for the guy helping us and told him so, too. "I wish people could understand that you simply are trying to help them and are not responsible for the lost luggage." He was very appreciative that at least one person was understanding him. Forms are filled and I will have to be patient and hopeful that the best airline of Europe, two years in a row, will find my luggage and get it to my address in Iowa City (They do, too, in three days after my return, my luggage is at my door). It was great to learn that TA would pay for a hotel room by the Golden Horn. Hilton Garden Inn in Sutluce, where sultans and Istanbulite elites used to picnic and enjoy sunny sundays hosted some 100 victims of air travel at 5 am on the 20th of January 2013. I will sleep until 9 and wake up to catch the shuttle that will take me back to the airport for another 18 some hours of air travel. One lesson I learned, never again, two countries in one week. I am getting too old for this. One country a week, or if two countries, take time off for two weeks. That is my resolution out of all this, which I will eventually recall as good memories full of good deeds and learning about others, about myself, yet again, about the world, and nature, and businesses, and who knows what else.
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