Greasing the Palms on Planes: 在飞机上送礼
2007-10-08 3:28PM / 標準BLOG
/ 會員可以看
4個評論
Picture this. I'm sitting in economy class on my Shanghai to Melbourne flight. It's a packed plane, and I've got a guy next to me who just loves to talk. Now I don't know about the readers, but I'm the kind of passenger who's okay with some short chit-chat, but most of all I just want to relax - by myself. This Aussie guy, however, had spent the last six months in 南宁 and hadn't spoken to anybody in English almost the whole time. "Do you know the difference between ground speed and air speed?" Not really, and I don't really want to know anyway. If only I'd said that. Instead I tried to pretend I was sleeping, even covered myself in a blanket, but still the guy went on like we were separated at birth! Finally I tried to take away his attention by fiddling with my little inbuilt television - but the machine didn't work! Sadly, neither did his.
And this is where the story takes a real turn. I complain about the TV to the stewardess, and when all else fails they send over the customer service manager to apologise. Now I don't know if that's his official name, but these are the guys who almost look like pilots, just without the hat. They have the dark tie and the white shirt, and all types of little badges on their sleeves that make them seem important. The moment I saw this guy I felt a sense of respect. Heck, I used to sit in the cockpit as a kid every now and then, and seeing this pilot look-alike brought me back to the days when that outfit was the coolest. So the passenger next to me, Theo, says, "Tell him I'm mad. See if he'll move me to business". I grudgingly convey this onto the service manager, who sadly doesn't speak English. And he leans over to me, dead serious and asks, "He really wants to move to business?". I nod, I want the guy to move to business too. And then the manager half whispers, "他愿意给多少钱? / How much money is he willing to give?". I'm floored, is the plane service manager asking for some money under the table? You bet. No cards, no RMB, just Australian dollars. Wonderful, I get to play interpreter on a dodgy transaction on a plane, just my luck. The bidding starts at 600 Australian dollars to move Theo to business. Theo then tries to bargain it down to 100, but the manager won't budge past 150. Theo finally agrees, then flips open his wallet. It is empty but for a few 10 yuan notes. Half expecting this, Theo turns to me, "Hey pal, could you lend me 150 bucks, I'll pay you once we land, I promise". I realised just how stupid I was when I actually began to consider his proposal. I had to stop myself. Who is Theo to me! I don't know this guy from a bar of soap! So sadly, I had to tell the pilot-look-alike that I was terribly sorry, but there wouldn't be any transaction as my "pal" had no hard cash. And that was that. I spent the next eight hours in continued misery, listening to Theo's upbringing and what each of his relatives does - and who they were married to.
You couldn't scrīpt that flight, crazy. I'll never see those cool looking pilot look-alikes in quite the same way again either. Let's hope my flight back is less adventurous...
BLOG評論 (4)