Tuesday 21 October 2003
Spontaneous Human Invisibility
Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility
"In the summer of 1994, I became aware of a very strange phenomenon, human spontaneous involuntary invisibility, which was apparently happening to people in the U.S. When I checked with other researchers and discovered that a number of them had also heard of such cases..."
I bet a lot of people can recount stories of this particular phenomenon!
Me, it reminds me of one particular incident in an airport that led to great irritation...
It happened at the San Francisco airport when I was getting a flight back to Ontario, California, on Sunday May 21st 2000.
I found an old entry (no longer on-line) about it...
This is what I wrote back then:
I waited in this line forever, and then when I got to the head of the line, there was this dorky clerk at the United Airlines check-in. He was standing up on the platform where one puts one's baggage to check, and leaning on the counter like some model, which he was not. He called for the next person, but he wasn't looking at me, even though I was the next person. He was looking at the blonde woman behind me. I went anyway, it was my turn. Because he was standing on that platform, he did not seem to see me standing right in front of him, he was looking over my head, probably at the blonde, still calling next. I kept saying "I'm right here, I'm right here," but he seemed oblivious! I was only about 6 inches away from him, if I bent my head forward, the top of my head would've bumped his abdomen, that's how close I was. Then, suddenly the blonde was next to me! She'd actually come over, and he started talking to her! I waved my hand up in his face and finally he looked down and saw me. I said, "I've been standing here for awhile now, did you not see me?" He said "Oh," and got behind his counter. The blonde woman went back to wait for the next clerk. This guy got snippy with me then when asking for my ticket information, as he kept looking over at the blonde! I said to him, "Listen, there's no reason to get snippy with me, I'm the one who was being ignored there for 5 minutes, and I've already been less than pleased with United Airlines." Now, at this point, any experienced professional customer service rep would've apologized. But NO. This guy actually said "Well, hey, if you're going to be like that, you can get someone else to help you," and he threw my ticket information back at me and called the blonde over! She pushed in front of me, and left me standing there! I found one of the floor walkers and asked to speak to a manager. She pointed me in the direction of another woman behind the counter, an older woman. I explained to her what happened, and she was actually quite accomodating. She said that she'd had many problems in the past with this guy, as she looked over at him with disdain, and stated that he would be talked to. Heh. What I'm wondering is why this guy hasn't been fired!
posted by Chloe | Tuesday 21 October 2003 5:40 AM
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