Help Desk?

Thursday, March 27
I was awakened out of a sound sleep by my cell phone at 8 a.m. Thursday morning in Oman (the weekend here, and my day to sleep in). It was Paul calling--midnight in Amherst) to tell me he was having a problem with the computer. He'd just worked very hard on a speech he'd e-mailed to himself and saved it, and could not find it anywhere (the mystery of temp files). So from Oman, I talked him through the steps to retrieve a temp file. Gave me some empathy for those tech guys in India.

Wednesday, March 26
Speaking of help, we didn't get any from KLM. Surprised though my family may be, I'm not the only one on this trip with lots of stuff. With our promotional materials, gifts for counselors and professional and casual clothes for an extended trip, when the 5 of us get in a car, the collection of luggage is impressive.

After arriving at the airport in Kuwait, Jenn, the light traveler among us, checks in easily. Then Jenny is told her bag (weighing the same as the rest of us) is over the weight limit of 20 kilos, with a hefty charge for more. Jennifer (the three Jennifer thing has gotten many laughs this trip) had two bags; one with extra room, so she offered to take some of Jenny's stuff. The woman behind the counter silently watched us rearrange bags, pull out extra bags, and redistribute weight. As Jenny put up her 19.6 kilo bag the clerk says, "that's 20 kilos total, not per bag."

grrrrrrrr.

More rearranging, stuffing as much into carry on bags as we can, and back to check in. The clerk then says, "maximum of 10 kilos carry on". (You sat and watched all of this and did not say a thing???)



grrrrrrrr.

My family members need to know that I was not the only one charged with excess baggage!

We asked the KLM manager why this couldn't have been handled differently and the response was KLM had a new no-exception policy on overweight luggage (On follow up: the policy that was applied to us does not appear on the KLM website).

The Sisters have a new policy as well. Never fly KLM.

Fortunately, the bad karma ended there, and once we arrived in Oman we had not only the weekend to look forward to (Thurs-Fri), but we were no longer in a dry country. We ended the day with a drink!