Unfortunately there is another thing that my parents, or at least My Mother, wants me to do for them: Pick out seats. I'm guessing that the same process applies to all airlines -- you check in before your flight online and, assuming you didn't pre-pay for a seat (and I always think that's a ripoff), that is when you select your seat. I usually don't care all that much. Besides, in my estimation (and this is usually through Southwest, even though I just saw that the airline is doing away with open seating, which is a stupid idea), when you check in, half of the seats are already taken by people who decided to pay to cut in line and pick their seats. But my parents care. Don't know if this is a new way of thinking, but at least their second flight (they technically fly from here to Canada and then to two stops in Africa) is long enough whereby they want to pick their seats to prevent getting crappy ones. They're old, you see.
Now, I just assumed they've picked seats at online check-in before. But for some reason -- my guess is Mother is panicking, which scares me because this is no damn reason to get anxious -- they either don't know how to do it or don't trust themselves to be able to do it. And so they want me to do it. This particular airline (and maybe it's because it's an international flight) allows you to check in 48 hours in advance. Assuming I correctly accounted for the time zone difference, my parents can check in as early as a quarter to 10 on Wednesday. I would be at least a couple hours into my shift at work. But they still want me to help them open their computer, type out the airline's URL, punch in their confirmation number, and pick the seats for them. Forget how people younger than boomers should be able to figure this out; this might -- might -- be a ten-minute ordeal. But I might have to orient my entire day around this, and them.
Oh, and on top of this? They might not even be able to pick seats. They obviously booked their safari through a tour company, so it's possible that the tour has parcelled out seats already. Do I know for sure? Nope. Mother is complaining that Father should be in contact with the tour company about whether seats are assigned. But I have no idea if he has even talked to them, let alone whether the tour company has pre-selected seats for them. If they have, I assume my folks can take care of the check-in process (and it's possible the tour company will check them in for them), and that means I won't have to stay home to help them. But if the tour company is leaving tourists to do it themselves, that means I have to do this shit. And since it's at least a couple hours into my normal workday, it's possible I might have to take the whole goddamn day off. Just to help my parents pick fucking seats.
I raised this issue with my boss, and maybe I shouldn't have. My original line of thought was to ask to come in a couple hours late both Wednesday and Thursday. Then, after not getting a clear signal one way or the other as to the check-in/seat-selecting process for Wednesday, I had to convey that to my boss. He then said it might be easier if I am scheduled a couple hours later than usual both dates. That's when I had to remind him that Wednesday's still up in the air. And I didn't receive word from him before I left for the day yesterday/Thursday.
He fills out next week's schedule by Friday because Friday's my last workday and I need to know where I am working for Monday. But I don't know what's going on with this bullshit with picking friggin' seats online, so my Wednesday's unclear, and so I take it that my whole week is unclear. If my boss is frustrated that he can't schedule me yet, I can't blame him. This is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot see how something as trivial as picking seats is hanging up my work schedule. But dammit, it is.
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