I had had a very productive couple of days in Russia and was reflecting on how best to maintain the momentum when the battery on my ThinkPad died. Again.
I pulled Martin Amis’ “Money” out of my case and carried on reading the hilarious exploits of John Self until I became aware of a fast-moving person entering the waiting area.
He sat down hard. He seemed agitated and slightly nervous; he was the sort of person that stood out in crowd – not least because he was well-dressed, very dark and intense. I guessed that he was Sri Lankan or Mauritian, either coming back from meeting a Russian girl he’d found on the Internet, or on a business trip.
An attractive Korean couple entered the lounge. They were one of those middle-aged couples who still seem very much in love; chatty, affectionate and dressed in similar fashion. They sat next to me and I shuffled-up to make some space for them. The man nodded his appreciation so violently that his glasses nearly fell off. Shortly afterwards, his mother joined them and went to sit in the only nearby empty seat opposite me.
Realising that they probably wanted to sit together, I stood and ushered her towards my seat. She took it, and then her and her son both thanked me with vigorous nods of their heads. “Must be a family trait,” I thought.
I turned my attention back to my book for a few minutes before an announcement informed us that the flight back to Heathrow would be delayed by 30 minutes. Nobody stirred apart from the mysterious chap whose body language made it clear that he was not happy with this development. My only thought was that I could have stayed in the VIP lounge a bit longer and polished-off a few more of those tasty little pastries.
Thanks to Mr. Amis, the time passed quickly and people started shuffling towards the departure gate where the surprisingly friendly staff quickly let people through. I’m always pretty quick out of the blocks when it comes to boarding, but Mr. Mysterious had leapt up even faster than me (I do still have two knackered knees!) and was immediately in front of me in the queue.
The young ‘Inspector’, whose apparent role was to check people’s passports, adopted a rather quizzical expression on spying Mr. Mysterious’ passport. He flicked backwards and forwards through the tattered and curious looking document before asking if the owner had another British visa, as the one he was looking at expired. Mr. Mysterious explained that he did, and pointed it out. I’ve racked-up a few visa stamps in my team, but this chap’s passport should have been replaced a long time ago.
Satisfying himself that everything probably was in order, the Inspector let him through after a delay of some two or three minutes, which had Mr. Mysterious muttering under his breath and stomping down the gangway to the plane.
The Inspector took a cursory glance at my passport before smiling at me and telling me to have a good flight before I stomped onto the plane even more loudly. Mr. Mysterious was sitting in the row behind me with a face like thunder. I slid into my seat and delved back into my book.
It was coming up to 22:00 and I just wanted to be home. I leaned in my seat, noticing that there were few dents in engine cover, before closing my eyes. Soon, we were in the air and the cabin crew were distributing our supper.
“I ordered a vegetarian meal. Where is it?” said Mr. Mysterious in a firm but annoying voice dripping with entitlement.
“We didn’t have an order for a vegetarian meal, sir. Sorry, but we don’t have any on-board as we didn’t get any orders for then.”
“So what are you going to do? I requested a vegetarian meal.”
“We didn’t get any requests, sir.”
“Well, I was originally on another flight and I ordered one.”
“They didn’t pass your order on, sorry. Would you like this meal?”
“No, I want a vegetarian meal.”
“I can’t help you. Sorry,” said the stewardess before going off to continue distributing meals, which consisted of a brown bread roll, a white bread roll, two slices of cheese and a slice of ham. I thought about telling him to throw the ham away before chuckling to myself and tucking in.
Several minutes later, she was back at the front of the half empty cabin when Mr. Mysterious took us both by surprise.
“What’s your name,” he fired at her.
“Sorry,” she replied, her hands full with cups.
“Your name. I want your name. I want to complain about the way you treated me!”
“My name. Umm… Here it is, sir. On my badge.” She offered him her badge and stood in silence while he wrote her name down. Slowly.
“I’d like to see you manager too. Please get your supervisor.”
The look of disbelief on her face reflected well what I was feeling. Clearly, Mr. Mysterious’ pride, having been bruised, needed to be healed by taking it out on the innocent cabin crew.
The Purser arrived rather promptly and employed all of the tricks from her training manual. She knelt on the floor to look at him, said sorry about 12 times in the space of a couple minutes and agreed to severely reprimand the stewardess who had treated him so badly. This was not enough. He continued to press his point.
“She really should have apologised to me for not having a vegetarian meal. She didn’t seem sorry at all. You really need to explain to her that it is not good enough. I would like to have an official complaint form so that I can make a formal complaint.”
Barely able to believe what I was hearing, I put my book down on the seat and loosened my seat-belt. If there is one thing that I cannot stand, it is this sort of petty injustice – inflicted just to make the perpetrator feel better at the expense of a defenceless innocent in the wrong place at the right time. The purser headed for the back of the aeroplane.
I thought for a few moments. I undid my seat-belt and strolled up to the back of the aeroplane. Five of the cabin crew were there, obviously discussing the incident.
I tapped the Purser on the shoulder and apologised for interrupting.
“Hi. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just can’t ignore this. Your colleague did nothing wrong. The chap sitting behind me was embarrassed by your Inspector before we boarded and he is just taking out on your team.”
“I’m confused,” she said, “are you saying that she did nothing wrong.”
“Yes. She was polite to him and did absolutely nothing wrong. He is at fault.”
“Thank you, sir. I don’t know what to do now. I have to report it and she’ll get into trouble.”
“Take my name and I’m happy to confirm, as an independent witness, that she did nothing wrong. He was looking for a fight.”
“Thanks!”
I slipped back into my seat, comforted by the fact that, despite my tiredness, I hadn’t let the situation get out of hand.
The ‘guilty’ stewardess – rather foolishly – came to thank me. Fortunately for, Mr. Mysterious was now feeling much better having reasserted his importance, and was having a cheerful ‘business or pleasure’ conversation with the man sitting next to him, who could barely conceal his desire to be anywhere but in that seat.
Not content with nearly blowing my cover by thanking me, she then came back to talk to me again. By now, I guess that her shock had turned to anger and she looked like she was ready to rip his head off.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you sitting in your original seat?” she said, pretending to be addressing some ticketing problem. Being one step ahead of her, I flicked her a business card from my top pocket. She flashed a warm and genuine smile at me, clearly forgetting that she was on-duty.
“Thank you, sir. Sorry to bother you.”
No doubt, if Mr. Mysterious doesn’t see sense and drop his silly complaint, I will be asked to give my version of events.
It may seem like a trivial matter, but with women from Eastern Europe able to lose their job for looking at their bosses the wrong way, it would have been ungallant of me to allow that to happen.
The smiles and chorus of “Thank you!” when I left the plane confirmed that I had done the right thing - an eventful flight to end an eventful business trip!
