Steve's Day From Hell

From the Customer Service Chronicles

Note: This is based on a true story related to me over a few drinks in a pub.

Steve was having one of those days that customer service training manuals conveniently forget to mention. You know, the kind where the universe seems to have penciled in a note on its calendar: "Today -- Make Steve question his career choices."

The fluorescent lights of the Anchorage airport terminal buzzed, a sound Steve ignored. His polyester uniform collar itched against his neck as sweat began to form despite the air conditioning. The recycled air carried the distinct scent of travel anxiety.

It all began when a group of three flustered guests arrived, radiating the particular panic that only comes from watching your cruise ship departure dissolve before your eyes. Anchorage is a major airport but to get to Seward was a two-hour transfer by coach. The last coach to Seward had departed, where their floating hotel was preparing to set sail without them.

"We have to get to Seward!" announced a tall woman with immaculately coiffed silver hair and oversized designer sunglasses perched on her head. Martha, as Steve would soon learn, was the self-appointed spokeswoman of the group. She clutched her Louis Vuitton handbag like it contained the nuclear launch codes. "Do you understand what's happening? We've been planning this Alaska cruise for fourteen months!"

Beside her stood her husband Harold, a man whose permanent hunched shoulders suggested a lifetime of yielding to Martha's force of personality.

"Now, Martha, let the young man speak," Harold murmured, his voice barely audible over the airport announcements echoing through the terminal. With thinning gray hair and quaky voice, he radiated quiet resignation.

"I'm speaking, Harold! Someone has to take charge!" Martha's voice cut through crowd noise with a tone that makes souls shrivel.

Enter Steve, Customer Service Hero™, armed with nothing but a clipboard, a smile, and the desperate optimism of someone who wanted to help.

"Folks, I understand your concern," Steve said, in a soothing tone. The clipboard in his hand was slick with sweat. "But I think we have an option. There's a flight to Seward available that will get you there in time for the ship."

The small group fell silent, the terminal's cacophony of rolling luggage, muffled announcements, and distant jet engines suddenly seeming louder.

"A flight? Is it safe?" asked a younger woman, maybe in her thirties, with anxious eyes. " I'm Debbie, by the way. " She smiled nervously, extending her hand to Steve with a tentative gesture that suggested this level of assertiveness was new to her.

"Perfectly safe, Debbie. These pilots navigate Alaskan skies every day," Steve replied, shaking her hand. Her palm was clammy against his. "The alternative is missing your cruise entirely."

"How much?" barked Martha, her fingers already reaching into her handbag.

Steve named the price, wincing internally as he said it.

"Highway robbery!" Martha exclaimed, the veins in her neck becoming more pronounced. "Harold, can you believe this?"

Harold, who had been silently wishing for invisibility, turned and nodded. "Whatever you think best, dear. The ship won't wait."

The credit cards emerged from wallets. “I will make the arrangements”, said Steve, already mentally calculating that his shift would end after he had helped them out.

.The sharp, plasticky smell of new luggage and desperation mingled as Steve guided them outside to the company van. Steve slid the van door open. "Your chariot awaits," he said with a smile that felt increasingly strained. The road to the airstrip was a series of potholes, each bump sent shock waves up their spines.

At the small carrier airstrip, the wind whipped across the tarmac. Steve herded his charges toward the check in building. On the tarmac stood a tiny plane, its metal skin gleaming dully under the cloud-diffused sunlight.

"That? We're flying in that?" Martha's voice reached a new octave. "It looks like a toy!"

"It's a DeHavilland Beaver," Steve explained, raising his voice over the wind. "Legendary bush plane. Alaska's workhorse."

"Well, I hope it’s safe, because if I die in a Beaver, my children will never be able to engrave it on my tombstone with a straight face," Harold commented.

As the plane took off, Steve exhaled deeply, watching it disappear into the vast Alaskan sky. He was taking the van home and allowed himself a fleeting fantasy of going home, enjoying a beer, maybe even experiencing what non-customer-service people call "relaxation at the end of a long day."

Steve almost made it all the way home, was about to turn in his driveway when his phone rang, its harsh electronic trill cutting through his momentary peace. Caller ID said it was the airstrip.

"Steve speaking," he answered, his stomach already clenching in anticipation.

Alaska's weather, like a toddler on a sugar high, had abruptly changed its mind. But the truth was crueler – the plane had actually made it to Seward, had even circled above the cruise ship so the passengers could see it through the clouds, their vacation tantalizingly visible before the painful decision was made to return to Anchorage. The captain had been forced to abort the landing and head back.

"They could see their ship," the voice on the phone explained. "They're... not happy."

Steve's fantasy popped like a soap bubble in a hailstorm as he turned the van around. So close and yet so far. When Steve arrived at the airstrip, the guests were already there in the terminal building, seated on an L-shaped couch arrangement with a long glass-topped table. They were positioned at the point of the table, faces twisted with the kind of anger usually reserved for lost luggage. The flight personnel were nowhere to be seen, having wisely abandoned these fuming travelers.

Steve strode in confidently, ready for battle and determined to give it his all to absorb their anger and somehow make things better. Their vacation was crumbling, their cruise ship was leaving, and clipboard-wielding Steve was now their only hope—or more accurately, the focus of their frustration. In their minds, it was somehow his fault they had booked air too late for the last coach, and even though he had tried to save their bacon, it was now his fault they hadn't made the ship.

Remembering his training, Steve made a split-second decision to sit directly in front of them, on the coffee table rather than taking a seat perpendicular to them on the couch.

Customer service rule #37: Always be at eye level with distressed customers. It creates connection and trust.

What the training manual failed to mention was rule #38: Make sure the glass coffee table top is actually attached to its base.

Time slowed as the tabletop tilted like the deck of the Titanic. The vase of fresh flowers—placed on the other end of the long coffee table to create a "welcoming atmosphere"—launched into the air in a majestic floral explosion. Water arced gracefully, catching the light in a fleeting rainbow before gravity reclaimed everything.

The sound of shattering glass punctuated Steve's internal scream.

Water splashed everywhere, dousing his face, soaking his shirt and pants, and splashing Debbie’s shoes. There was this excruciatingly long moment of awkward silence as everyone processed what had just happened. But with absolutely no pride left to lose, Steve ventured into an apology for their missed cruise and laid out their options. Surprisingly, neither he nor the guests ever mentioned the unmentionable Flower Incident. To their credit, they moved straight to the business at hand. The sheer absurdity of the situation had shaken them out of their anger, and the distraction gave them the ability to listen.

Maintaining his professional smile, now more of a facial muscle spasm, Steve delivered the coup de grâce: "I'm afraid your only option now is to stay overnight and fly to the next port tomorrow."

The only available accommodation? An establishment whose Yelp reviews consisted mostly of creative reinterpretations of the word "avoid."

As Steve drove them to their new lodgings, a moose—because Alaska wasn't done with him yet—decided to play chicken with the van. Steve swerved, his life flashing before his eyes, his life choices coming into sharp focus. Much to the guests' delight, this was actually a highlight—after all, this was still their few hours in Alaska and they'd gotten to "flight see" and now spot a moose. The former wasn't exactly a positive experience, but the moose sighting definitely was.

As they continued driving through Spenard with the radio playing softly in the background—Steve trying to maintain a calming atmosphere as it was now around 9:30 PM, still light in Alaskan August but nearing dusk, the news broke in with the shocking report that Princess Diana had died in an automobile accident.

The guests weren't British, but they didn't have to be to feel the heaviness of that announcement. That somber news accompanied them all the way to the hotel and may have either humbled them or further defeated them, as they didn't give Steve any grief about the accommodations, as questionable as they were.

The hotel lived down to its reputation. The smell was an unholy fusion of decades-old cigarette smoke, industrial-grade disinfectant, and what Steve could only describe as "essence of despair." The carpet pattern seemed designed to hide stains that science had yet to classify.

As he hauled their luggage into the room, one of the guests looked at him and asked, with complete sincerity, "Is this the best day of your life?"

Steve managed a smile that deserved an Oscar as he backed toward the door. "Just another day in customer service, folks. Just another day."

As he drove away, Steve contemplated a career change. Perhaps something less stressful, bomb disposal, maybe.

But he knew he'd be back tomorrow, clipboard in hand, ready to face whatever fresh hell awaited.

Because that's what customer service heroes do.

They endure. They persist. And occasionally, they destroy coffee tables in spectacular fashion.