Because of Hurricane Irene, the Emirates Airline had pushed back my tickets bound for New York from Kolkata by two weeks. The delay was unacceptable for me because my classes had already started, and things needed my immediate attention back in town. So I embarked on a compromised reroute offered to me: an estimated 55 hrs long detour to Cambridge. Imphal to Kolkata, one nigh layover; Kolkata to Dubai, another night layover; Dubai to Houston, 6 hrs stopover; Houston to JFK; and consequently from JFK to Boston. It so happened that everything went as planned until I got to Houston. Emirates representatives made another careless mistake: they had booked my connecting flight to New York from a different airport in Houston (HOU) than where I landed (IAH), giving me almost no time for the commute. I was told the travel time between the two is about 45 minutes. After much haggling with the representatives there they reluctantly rebooked my connecting flight to New York from IAH itself. The worse was yet to come however; I had to spend the whole day waiting for weather conditions to improve in the east coast. All flights were grounded, and delayed because of heavy rainfall. The detour costs me three nights, and three days on the road. I was stretched to the limit, literally.
Finally when I got back to town, T-Mobile greeted me with a bad omen: they had sold my wireless number to someone else because they were "confused" between a "voluntary temporary suspension," and an unused forgotten unloved number. And the whole time T-Mobile has been charging me monthly suspension charges etc. The store, where I had originally filed a temporary suspension blames the systems department, who then blames the sales, who in turn says the operations people screwed up. The manager at the Harvard Square retail store simply ran away from me after handing me a 1-800 number for "any complaints." Dial this number, and you'll meet a pleasant sounding lady who puts you through an endless universe of stupid automated juggling. I mean who are you going to blame? That's the thing with big corporations; they are so big, bulky and busy that its becomes difficult to see which limb was the real culprit, and which ones can take the blame and fix it. That is until someone leaves everything they were doing and sue their asses. In the meantime, the poor guy who bought my number has been busy answering my calls and talking to my friends!
The case with Emirates was not very different either; I had to threat them with my "connection with The Telegraph in Kolkata," until they gave me acceptable reroute tickets. In any case, now after this detour back to the town, I'm scrambling all over to catch up. Usually, my starts are great but my finishing not so fantastic. The hope, this time, is that after having a very rough start, I'll be more focussed on having a happy ending.
Also, atleast I got to see Dubai, something I always wanted to do but never got around to it.
Finally when I got back to town, T-Mobile greeted me with a bad omen: they had sold my wireless number to someone else because they were "confused" between a "voluntary temporary suspension," and an unused forgotten unloved number. And the whole time T-Mobile has been charging me monthly suspension charges etc. The store, where I had originally filed a temporary suspension blames the systems department, who then blames the sales, who in turn says the operations people screwed up. The manager at the Harvard Square retail store simply ran away from me after handing me a 1-800 number for "any complaints." Dial this number, and you'll meet a pleasant sounding lady who puts you through an endless universe of stupid automated juggling. I mean who are you going to blame? That's the thing with big corporations; they are so big, bulky and busy that its becomes difficult to see which limb was the real culprit, and which ones can take the blame and fix it. That is until someone leaves everything they were doing and sue their asses. In the meantime, the poor guy who bought my number has been busy answering my calls and talking to my friends!
The case with Emirates was not very different either; I had to threat them with my "connection with The Telegraph in Kolkata," until they gave me acceptable reroute tickets. In any case, now after this detour back to the town, I'm scrambling all over to catch up. Usually, my starts are great but my finishing not so fantastic. The hope, this time, is that after having a very rough start, I'll be more focussed on having a happy ending.
Also, atleast I got to see Dubai, something I always wanted to do but never got around to it.
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| The Burj Al Arab, Wold's only 7-Star Hotel |
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| The Burj Khalifa, World's Tallest Building stands at 828 Meters |
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