The customer service person for United Airlines last week was unusual, as she was laughing at my attempts at humor, playing around with me, not reading from a script, simply delightful. She also had a beautiful accent that was so pleasing to my ears.
She was helping me change my flights so I could travel back to Mexico two days later than planned. I was in a buoyant mood, having made an appointment with the passport agency to get an expediated passport.
Things were working out, and this was my last call I needed to make after three hours on the phone. When all of this was done, it would cost me an unexpected extra $1000.
What an ordeal!
But I wasn’t in a complaining mind-state. I was celebrating, and wanted to share that with my fellow customer servant.
After we were done with business I told her I had a surprise for her, and that she was going to want to record it. I asked her her name and where she was from. She said her name was Blossom, and that she was in South Africa.
I made up a song for her, filling it with love and honoring and celebrating her unique spirit, and when I was done, I heard a bunch of people clapping. She had put it on speakerphone.
Blossom was gushing gratitude, crying openly.
The name United had never seemed so appropriate.
Oh, and she threw in a free upgrade.
But my first class experience had nothing to do with where I would sit on an airplane, and everything to do with my willingness to uplift my fellow passenger, and fly ‘united’ with them.
The friendly skies had never been friendlier.
