June 29, 2007

“Please pardon us this morning.  The plane is dirtier than usual.”

For several years, our group from the same office in Maryland did quite a bit of traveling to our headquarters in Florida and to client locations around the country.  We went through the entire spectrum of normal headaches that all travelers experience.  Some of the difficulties were understandable, others inexplicable. 

On one particular morning, a few of us happened to be on the same flight out of Baltimore.  As we boarded, the flight crew was under obvious pressure to turn the plane around and get us on our way.  Most of the passengers were seated.  A few still tried to find stowage room in the overhead cargo bins.  Those of us who were seated quickly became aware that the cleanup walkthrough between flights had either been abbreviated or aborted altogether.  Thankfully, we would only be surrounded by trash for a short flight. 

Programmed to hear the flight attendant queue the microphone, welcome the passengers, and remind us of our flight number and destination, what we heard on this occasion was, “Please pardon us this morning.  The plane is dirtier than usual.”  One of my colleagues immediately leaned over and said, “quote book”, meaning I needed to record the statements we had just heard.  We then amused ourselves for the next ten minutes discussing “dirtier than usual”.  Is dirty the norm?    

Expectations determine much about how we act to meet them and how we react when they aren’t met.  It was obvious that the flight attendant knew well the reputation of this airline.  Dirty was, in fact, the norm.  Everyone who had flown on the airline before knew exactly what to expect.  The flight attendant was simply notifying us that expectations (dirty) on this flight would be exceeded (filthy).

We would all do well to know our reputation.  We have, after all, earned it.