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The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

dustincurtis.com

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Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#11

Post by edw519 »

AA searched their exchange database for the text I posted, found the guy, and fired Mr. X on the spot.

As upsetting as this is, it's just not that big of a surprise. Some companies take non-disclosure very seriously. Why didn't Mr. X just use gmail? I can't imagine discussing any company's internals on their own email system.

OTOH, maybe Mr. X just committed corporate suicide by email. That's one way to escape the insanity.

Thanks for the update, Dustin. I sure hope Mr. X lands on his feet fairly soon and I applaud your contribution. I like to think that integrity still trumps idiocy.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#12

Post by drusenko »

DarkShikari wrote: post #10
drusenko wrote: post #9

A bit off-topic, but Dustin Curtis' site really hurts my eyes reading on my MacBook pro... I have a really hard time reading his text, and when I look away, I have very pronounced stripe patterns in my vision.

I have the exact reverse here. I love sites and applications that use a dark background; bright backgrounds are like staring into a lamp. It probably depends on the environment you tend to read in; I usually read in a darker room.

I'm quite OK with a lot of dark sites, but this one produces an insane "buzzing" feeling. Might have something to do with the gray-ish text. I couldn't get through the entire article even if I wanted to.

I'm reading in a dark-ish room right now. I suspect it may have something to do with the type of monitor used to view the site, because on mine the physical effects are very pronounced.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#13

Post by dtran »

IMHO, any employee not on the customer service team that reaches out to customers should be awarded not punished, given that it's done somewhat reasonably. In most cases filing a complaint with the customer service people would get you nothing - you need to talk to the ux designer.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#14

Post by daleharvey »

its ironic that he signed the reply off with

     Very truly yours (and hoping I don’t get fired for being completely incompetent),
but yeh I hope it turns out positive, the guy seems to have a good attitude and is apparently talented, so will be nice to have people like that at companies where I can actually get the benefits of someone caring about ui

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#15

Post by butterfi »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #3

I hope Virgin hires this guy and makes a media event out of it. I will now never fly American Airlines ever again in my life. This sincerely pissed me off.

Clearly AA prioritizes the wrong things. I'm betting the guy broke some policy, but is it really a firing offense? Are they going to sack the middle-management bonehead who blew this up into a much more embarrassing spectacle?

Like I really needed another reason not to fly AA. These days, its Jet Blue or Virgin America if at all possible.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#16

Post by jrockway »

Ouch. I have top-tier status on AA, and they will be getting a note from me about this. Not cool.

That said, I am still confused as to why Dustin thinks AA's website is so relevant to its business model. Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true. But, they make up for that... I can fly non-stop from Chicago (my home airport) to thousands of cities around the world on AA quite cheaply. They have three-class international service, which means I can use frequent flyer miles to get a really nice seat once in a while. They have lounges. They have international partners where my status benefits can be used. I get free domestic upgrades to first class. They have customer service that cares. (I have never been greeted by name on Southwest, but it happens rather frequently on AA.)

So anyway, the legacies are not totally incompetent. I fly at least every month and I would never even consider WN or JetBlue. The fare is about the same, and I have no chance of receiving anything other than a middle-seat on the back of a 737. No thanks. Perhaps the website UX is nice, but the rest of the trip won't be. And when I'm in a metal tube for 18 hours, I don't really give a damn about how much AJAX the website had.

(I am a little defensive here, I know. AA has been really nice to me, so I feel that they deserve some compliments for that.)

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#17

Post by dschobel »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #3

I hope Virgin hires this guy and makes a media event out of it. I will now never fly American Airlines ever again in my life. This sincerely pissed me off.

Spare the boycott for a cause which merits it. AA just lost a competent and passionate employee and announced themselves as a lousy place to work for creative people.

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#18

Post by butterfi »

drusenko wrote: post #9

A bit off-topic, but Dustin Curtis' site really hurts my eyes reading on my MacBook pro... I have a really hard time reading his text, and when I look away, I have very pronounced stripe patterns in my vision.

I have to admit, looking at Dustin's site, I thought "huh, interesting choices from a UX designer." I also found it hard to read now that you mention it...

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#19

Post by potatolicious »

wakeless wrote: post #4

Its amazing how someone so obviously passionate can be completely screwed over by such bureaucracy. Do HR departments ever have humans running them?

Yeah they do, but it's a tough situation for everyone. If the HR person didn't fire Mr. X, someone else more opportunistic and less scrupulous would've done it - and the original HR guy's head would've rolled with Mr. X's.

Things like this will keep happening so long as we're willing to trample all over each other in our race to the "top".

Re: The Incompetence of American Airlines and the Fate of Mr. X

#20

Post by wakeless »

jrockway wrote: post #16

Ouch. I have top-tier status on AA, and they will be getting a note from me about this. Not cool. That said, I am still confused as to why Dustin thinks AA's website is so relevant to its business model. Their website is not very Web 2.0, it's true. But, they make up for that... I can fly non-stop from Chicago (my home airport) to thousands of cities around the world on AA quite cheaply. They have three-class interna…

I think this is less about AA being crap and more about you being a frequent flyer with ANY full service airline.
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