Lost in the Fog

IT WAS THE KIND of day travelers dread and ticket agents loathe Ram and fog closed airports and delayed traffic across the Northeast for most of the afternoon, but as evening came the ceiling started to lift. At Kennedy Airport's international wing the few ticket agents still at their terminals were looking forward to going home after the long day of fending off customers who had connections or lost their luggage. A half hour before the nine O'clock flight was to leave for London an agitated elderly woman hurried up to the counter. "I'm sorry, this station's, station's closed, you'll have to go wait in that line, said the agent.

But the flight leaves in half an hour and I've lost my ticket."

I'm sorry I can't help you, you've got to go stand in the line marked passengers without tickets." The agent turned her back on the woman and started gathering her things for the trip home it was quitting time.

Starting to panic, the woman hurried down the counter to where five people waiting for tickets were looking at their watches. There was only one agent selling tickets and each customer was taking about five minutes. It was going to be tough for all of them to make the flight. Now visibly upset, the woman spilled out her story. She had gotten her ticket with plenty of time to spare and gone up to the departure area where there had been some confusion, and a lot of people milling about. She had been holding her ticket inside her passport, but when she got to the gate it was gone. Quickly she retraced her steps looking for the missing piece of paper but it had vanished.

The businessman charging a ticket fidgeted and the ticket agent glared while the woman tumbled forth her story in a high British accent. "You'll have to go to the end of the line, there are people waiting."

"But I already waited in the line, and the plane leaves in just a few minutes, all I need you to do is reissue my ticket.

I'm sorry lady, I can't do that. Will you get to the end of the line please."

At this point, the woman started to cry and mutter under her breath. "I don't understand why they won't help me, I know I should have put it in my purse I've got to get home, what am I going to do. The people around her were starting to get uncomfortable but crying burned off some of the tension and as her fear and confusion subsided her anger rose. "I'm never flying this damn airline again," she said drying her face. Would you people mind terribly if I went ahead of you, I'm sure I'll only be a minute."

By this time shoe caps and acoustic tiling were getting very interesting and no one standing in line gave much more than a shrug.

As she approached the counter, the ticket agent glowered at the people in line for allowing another complainant in their midst. After hearing the request for a ticket reissue, the agent said. "I can't do that, you'll have to talk to a supervisor."

"Well get me the supervisor, hurry up there are people waiting in line and the plane leaves in about 20 minutes."

"Your name is on the computer as having a reservation, but our records show that the ticket has already been picked up. Unless it gets turned in it is still a valid ticket so you will have to buy another one if you want to go," the supervisor said.

"I can't do that I don't have the money, you have my name right there. You know I was supposed to be on the plane."

"I'm sorry but all that means is that you bought a ticket, anybody could use it. Just because you bought a ticket doesn't mean you are entitled to get on the plane. You have to buy another ticket. It's company policy."

COMPANY POLICY Two words that cause more frustration and anger in day-to-day business than perhaps any others. Company policy aggravates the public which sometimes needs a little understanding, and it stifles creative employees who might want to use some initiative and take some responsibility. Now it could be that Helen Hayes as the stowaway in Airport gave old ladies such a bad name that they are immediately suspect upon entering the terminal, but it seems so much more likely that the woman had actually dropped her ticket. If the ticket agents or even the supervisors were given a little more room to exercise their own judgement the incident could have been handled smoothly. She wouldn't have had to miss her flight, the last one of the night, while the supervisor was on the phone doing everything short of asking for an F.B.I. background check before deciding whether they could issue her another ticket.

This institutionalized buck passing and shoulder shrugging is crippling and leads to sloppy work and decreased productivity in business and the government. A recent series of television commercials showed workers in Detroit plants welding, riveting and painting. They were identified by name and allowed to speak about their work. It is an effective technique. It tells the worker that the company has confidence in him and is proud to let him represent the product he makes. Nothing is worse for morale than the feeling that your job is so rigid and standardized that you are eminently replaceable. If the commercials, had instead shown Lee lacocca standing in front of a Chrysler saying. "The buck stops with me, if this car isn't built right, I'm personally responsible," Chrysler workers would have greeted it with beer bottles the first time it interrupted a football game. The fact is, lacocca isn't responsible for building the cars right. He's responsible for making sure he has good people and equipment; the men and women on the line decide how well to put the cars together. Perhaps the worst example of multi-layered management and institutionalized indifference is the civil service. Everyone can remember infuriating days at the Department of Motor Vehicles or Land Records Office. With no responsibility, almost complete job security, and little chance for significant promotion, it is no wonder so many civil servants care little when someone walks into the office.

An interesting, although somewhat inverted, example of governmental buck passing occured last fall when President Reagan took personal responsibility for the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut and thus saved any individual officers from disciplinary action. The move was politically correct, but wrong. The officers who based troops in a poorly guarded, multi-story building in the middle of a war should have been hauled out in their underwear. Of course it is difficult to protect troops from determined terrorism--suicide attacks in particular--but that's their job: they made a mistake and should be held accountable.

Obviously the federal government and T.W.A. are a little too large to be run like family businesses, but it would be good for both the public and its employees if they could be run with some compassion. It is their institutional intractability which makes them so frustrating, especially on a rainy day when the planes are delayed.