Difficulties accessing Qantas Club with e-passes - Rude Staff

[Deleted member 59596]

Some interesting feedback
I agree about the pass linking to specific flights - I wish there was the ability to do it at the door (especially for connecting flights!).
Several other passengers affected by the same outage were turned away while I was on the phone to Customer Service.

I won't post the video (sorry!), it shows faces and I don't actually intend to shame those staff, but instead I think management should look at the situation and be asking them why a passenger was treated in this way.

The feeling I got was that there's a pretty egotistical culture amongst (some) staff where a positive experience for the customer actually isn't the centre of their focus.

 

[TomVexille]

Yep

I had to ask as we see too many reports of people angry they aren't let in without linking the pass

 

[RichardMEL]

While I understand the notion of not sharing people's faces and the like to not "shame" them - sorry but in a way you have - you've given names. How many agents working at the SYD lounges would be named Sarah or a manager Paul? I don't know anyone who works there, but no doubt plenty too. I think it's a bit of a double standard in some respects. Also I am sure QF would not be too thrilled about having their staff filmed in this maner, though the arguments about what is and isn't acceptable can go in circles (as in, is a airline lounge - including entrance - a public or private place).

At the end of the day though it's going to wind up a bit murky - even if someone from QF reviewed the footage. I mean you want "but instead I think management should look at the situation and be asking them why a passenger was treated in this way. " - but they may err on the side of the staff involved, specially if the staff felt you were being agressive or threatening - and this is such a subjective thing isn't it? Again I wasn't there, I'm not trying to assume anything here. Maybe if the footage was shown to a group of average people they'd think that it wasn't reasonable at all. The whole comment about "You're taling one on one with a man" seems pretty poor (but on the other hand, it reflects a sensitivity towards treatment of women by SOME out there - not you perhaps) and possibly a manager being protective. - but going about it in a possibly poor way.

Also remember we have only one side of the story here. I am reminded of last year's "Banned by QANTAS" thread relateding to behaviour in the Singapore lounge which took a sharp turn. Is this even remotely close? No... but it is a situation of humans interacting where it can become very subjective and various participants' perspectives will likely be quite different.

At any rate I am curious now if your BP was annotated as above with the lounge access code. if so this should never have even been an issue.

 

[Hvr]

NOTE: I already sent this info to Qantas Customer Service - they didn't even see fit to respond in the last 3 weeks.
I've changed names in this story.

While I understand the notion of not sharing people's faces and the like to not "shame" them - sorry but in a way you have - you've given names. How many agents working at the SYD lounges would be named Sarah or a manager Paul?

The OP noted that they've changed the names of the people involved. Therefore the incident is anonymous to all but those involved.

 

[Deleted member 59596]

While I understand the notion of not sharing people's faces and the like to not "shame" them - sorry but in a way you have - you've given names. How many agents working at the SYD lounges would be named Sarah or a manager Paul? I don't know anyone who works there, but no doubt plenty too. I think it's a bit of a double standard in some respects. Also I am sure QF would not be too thrilled about having their staff filmed in this maner, though the arguments about what is and isn't acceptable can go in circles (as in, is a airline lounge - including entrance - a public or private place).

At the end of the day though it's going to wind up a bit murky - even if someone from QF reviewed the footage. I mean you want "but instead I think management should look at the situation and be asking them why a passenger was treated in this way. " - but they may err on the side of the staff involved, specially if the staff felt you were being agressive or threatening - and this is such a subjective thing isn't it? Again I wasn't there, I'm not trying to assume anything here. Maybe if the footage was shown to a group of average people they'd think that it wasn't reasonable at all. The whole comment about "You're taling one on one with a man" seems pretty poor (but on the other hand, it reflects a sensitivity towards treatment of women by SOME out there - not you perhaps) and possibly a manager being protective. - but going about it in a possibly poor way.

Also remember we have only one side of the story here. I am reminded of last year's "Banned by QANTAS" thread relateding to behaviour in the Singapore lounge which took a sharp turn. Is this even remotely close? No... but it is a situation of humans interacting where it can become very subjective and various participants' perspectives will likely be quite different.

At any rate I am curious now if your BP was annotated as above with the lounge access code. if so this should never have even been an issue.

If you read the very beginning of my post you'll notice I have actually changed the names in this story when publishing it online to prevent the shaming you've mentioned. Qantas Customer Care have the correct names so they could follow up as needed.

I think there are fairly common definitions of aggressive or threatening behaviour that most people would agree on. Perhaps a small amount of subjectivity... but in most cases, it's clear if someone is being aggressive or not.

The manager of the lounge (keep in mind he should be the expert in customer service) should have been beyond sure I was being sexist before ever suggesting such a possibility.

Also keep in mind that I had already raised this, privately, with Qantas Customer Care weeks ago...and they ignored it. This post is also about bringing to light the issues in that process as well.

 

[RichardMEL]

The OP noted that they've changed the names of the people involved. Therefore the incident is anonymous to all but those involved.

oh my sincere apologies. I missed that. I take my comment about that back.

 

[RichardMEL]

@mjenko24 - again I apologise for my mistake in missing that salient point re the names being changed.

(I will leave my comment above intact so anyone following the thread is less confused, though I feel silly)

You definitely have some valid poiints that I agree with so I am not trying to attack you per se. I disagree somewhat to "I think there are fairly common definitions of aggressive or threatening behaviour that most people would agree on. " I absolutely understand the point, but also feel this kind of thing CAN be open to interpretation and can also have a cultural factor sometimes. This is a general comment not related to this situation. Many years ago I was in a situation with a female colleague at a workplace where my well intentioned interaction with her was seen totally diffeerently by her - in hindsight it made a lot of sense - but I did wind up with an uncomfortable (but required) conversation with people about this unfortunate situation. It's embarassing to admit even in a simi-anonymous forum, but it happened and I learned a valuable lesson. Perhaps this background illustrates my above comments more.

As for the the lack of response from QF customer care. I've noted sometimes they take a long time to get back on issues. Sometimes never (which is poor) but sometimes it does take a long time. Which again is not good enough I totally agree with that..

.. although one look at the QF facebook page and the numbers of comments and complaints and the like there makes me think there must be hundreds, maybe thousands of complaints to deal with on a daily/weekly basis.

Finally, a belated welcome to AFF.

 

[eatcandies]

We can establish whether or not someone is being aggressive/threatening through reason and argument (subjectivity is not a reliable metric). For instance, if I were to swear at someone, it would be reasonable to suggest that behaviour is aggressive/threatening. However, if I were to shrug my shoulders at someone, although that may be considered rude, it is hardly aggressive or threatening.

It seems like in this situation the OP acknowledged that he came across as rude and tried to apologise for his behaviour. I think the staff members did not believe his intentions.

I felt as if the manager could have handled this better (and defended his staff) without throwing around accusations and causing a scene.

 

[muppet]

I’ve witnessed a few minor interactions like this and in every instance it was the airline staff member that escalated the situation by getting on their high horse, “my ruling is final” arrogant mentality.

Rather than recognising a customer arrived with expectations, that no doubt the airline intentionally fostered, and those expectations are inexplicably being met with a patronising tone and ridicule from staff.

In my personal experience with lounge access entitlements, the more wrong they are, the worse they get. Once you whip out the oneworld website terms they’ve practically called the cops.

 

[muppet]

We can establish whether or not someone is being aggressive/threatening through reason and argument (subjectivity is not a reliable metric). For instance, if I were to swear at someone, it would be reasonable to suggest that behaviour is aggressive/threatening. However, if I were to shrug my shoulders at someone, although that may be considered rude, it is hardly aggressive or threatening.

It seems like in this situation the OP acknowledged that he came across as rude and tried to apologise for his behaviour. I think the staff members did not believe his intentions.

I felt as if the manager could have handled this better (and defended his staff) without throwing around accusations and causing a scene.

I agree, we can’t tell people how they feel, But just because they felt threatened doesn’t mean they experienced a threat.

If you’re rude and condescending to someone, and they subsequently ask to speak to your manager - you may feel threatened, but that’s on you not them.

I love in this story (noting we heard one side but it seems too familiar to be totally made up) ... that the manager comes out and criticises the customer for “threatening to report his staff” ... wow now you can’t even report people!!! Either they did something wrong, which he should want to know so he can prevent, or they did nothing wrong in which case the threat is baseless.... I don’t get why he thinks customers reporting people is an issue!!!

 

[Daver6]

Can I suggest you do this to automatically blur out faces

and post the video.

 

[nutwood]

Interesting discussion. On the one side, it's easy to see the "rude to staff" position, but these situations can be viewed another way. The OP was entitled to access is a very good starting point.
I recently had a flight cancelled and my concerns brushed off with it's OK, we're providing a bus from the new destination. I thought the staff member had hardly noticed me but when I later asked the same person to ensure a taxi was available instead of their bus, I heard the phone call; "I've a P1 here who doesn't want to go on the bus...". Anyone who's worked in a customer service position knows that there are games that the customer is only indirectly involved in.

 

[Nerdnotgeek]

I had a situation when returning from my Sydney trip a couple of weeks ago too, also at the Sydney lounge. Wandered up to the entrance to be met by one lady standing and one at the desk. I showed my boarding pass on my phone to the lady standing, she asked if it was a complimentary pass to which I said yes. She asked if I had linked it - also yes. She then said she would need to see the email confirming it was linked.
I moved to the side so others could pass and tried to find the email but my hotmail account on the iphone will only scroll back a certain number of emails and the confirmation wasnt recent enough. I asked if there was no other way we could find out , like by looking at my details on the computer that we were all stood next to, at which point the lady at the desk asked to see my phone boarding pass. She looked at it for a second and said Yup thats fine , you can go in.
Once inside I had a look to see what I could see and at the bottom it said "LPAC" , as somebody mentioned earlier - its not a huge leap to assume that stands for Lounge Pass Complimentary or something similar.
The question I was left wondering was how was it that the standing lady wasnt aware that she could tell simply by seeing those letters? Was she really being paid to greet people without having all the knowledge necessary to do so?
This was only my third time in a lounge and they really did make me feel rather unwelcome. If I hadnt stuck to my guns or had been a meeker person I might have just been turned away, which kind of relates to OPs original tale.
Maybe he was a little over confident shall we say, but at least some of the staff appear to be dismissive to the point that some confidence is required when the situation isnt run of the mill.

 

[Deleted member 59596]

I had a situation when returning from my Sydney trip a couple of weeks ago too, also at the Sydney lounge. Wandered up to the entrance to be met by one lady standing and one at the desk. I showed my boarding pass on my phone to the lady standing, she asked if it was a complimentary pass to which I said yes. She asked if I had linked it - also yes. She then said she would need to see the email confirming it was linked.
I moved to the side so others could pass and tried to find the email but my hotmail account on the iphone will only scroll back a certain number of emails and the confirmation wasnt recent enough. I asked if there was no other way we could find out , like by looking at my details on the computer that we were all stood next to, at which point the lady at the desk asked to see my phone boarding pass. She looked at it for a second and said Yup thats fine , you can go in.
Once inside I had a look to see what I could see and at the bottom it said "LPAC" , as somebody mentioned earlier - its not a huge leap to assume that stands for Lounge Pass Complimentary or something similar.
The question I was left wondering was how was it that the standing lady wasnt aware that she could tell simply by seeing those letters? Was she really being paid to greet people without having all the knowledge necessary to do so?
This was only my third time in a lounge and they really did make me feel rather unwelcome. If I hadnt stuck to my guns or had been a meeker person I might have just been turned away, which kind of relates to OPs original tale.
Maybe he was a little over confident shall we say, but at least some of the staff appear to be dismissive to the point that some confidence is required when the situation isnt run of the mill.

100% Nernotgeek!
It was so frustrating because I was standing in front of the counter, literally showing the lady the available passes on my phone and demonstrating how the system was crashing. She could see it all but was unable to process it. I think she should have been allowed to make that call and management should have had a backup system to record passenger details and manually follow up later (like they eventually did with mine).

I agree that it is so unwelcoming to new passengers!

 

[juddles]

Hi all,

I've been a reader for some time but not posted before.........Manager called me a rude, aggressive, theatening misogynist.
..........
I asked who she was and what role she had (maybe the duty manager?) but it came out a bit wrong, as though I was putting her down. I tried to apologise and say I wasn't meaning to be rude when she told me that I was, in fact, a very rude person.
.......

Paul came out next, ...... he said, "I've just been told you've been aggressive and rude to my staff, and you threatened to report them.".......

Now, I'm about as assertive as they come. And I really wanted to use those passes before they went to waste. But aggressive and rude? I don't think so.
.......

Then he said something I've never been accused of before in my life:
"You're talking differently to me because we are talking one-on-one as men."

I've never been accused of being sexist or a misogynist before. It took a moment for me to process what he'd actually said to me. ..........

Hi there mjenko24, welcome to the forum.

Having been a reader for some time, you would no doubt be aware that starting a thread such as this can trigger lively debate, and I am sure that you would expect to get posts from some that do not simply agree with you. I have a couple of niggling doubts about this episode, but only in the finer detail. Overall I agree that it is unacceptable that Qantas manages to so frequently disappoint people in situations like this. But still, a couple of things:

(btw have redacted the quote of your post above to focus on the content I wish to refer to here)

You have stated in your post that the manager called you a "rude, aggressive, threatening misogynist". Did he actually say that, or is this what YOU interpreted from other less direct conversations and words? The actual quotes of exact words that you posted do not contain that highly direct passage. If you just felt that what you were told added up to being effectively that, this is important, as it means that you are admitting that you (as most people do) have the ability to perceive things like insults without the person actually doing so. Surely that would help you understand how the staff may have similarly taken offence from your overall conduct and speech?

You describe yourself as "assertive as they come", and further that in this situation you really really wanted the access. Is it perhaps understandable that you may have been a little over the top, overbearing, even maybe perceived as threatening?

The manager using the "talking man on man" is extremely unusual. As others have noted, this manager was appearing after being briefed of the situation by his staff, who clearly felt threatened. You may not think you talked differently to him, but are you sure? And even if you were exactly the same, you perhaps should acknowledge that a heightened conversation with another human being involves far more than just words. Body language is also a huge part. And in my experience a female is more likely to feel intimidated by the same physical body language. And many "assertive" men seem to lose much of their body language when dealing with a man twice their size.

As I said at the start, it is unfortunate that someone who clearly should have had access to the lounge ended up having a confrontation to get what should have been gracefully and peacefully theirs. But I also get a sense that maybe there is a tad of blame on both sides for the escalation of this incident.

 

[vandy]

The inconsistency around entry process is what confuses me.

Sometimes I am waved into the lounge with just a quick flash of my BP or QFF card.

Sometimes I am asked to scan it at the counter, and wait for the computer to say OK. If I have a guest it's 50/50 on whether they ask to see/scan their BP or not.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

The inconsistency around entry process is what confuses me.

Sometimes I am waved into the lounge with just a quick flash of my BP or QFF card.

Sometimes I am asked to scan it at the counter, and wait for the computer to say OK. If I have a guest it's 50/50 on whether they ask to see/scan their BP or not.

For domestic lounges they don't need to sight a guest's BP as your guest(s) do not need to be travelling.

 

[davidj]

If you won't post the video as is, can you blur faces? Or perhaps post an audio clip only?

 

[Daver6]

If you won't post the video as is, can you blur faces? Or perhaps post an audio clip only?

I've already pointed out how easy it is to blur the faces. The fact the video hasn't been posted suggests to me that perhaps the account given doesn't quite match what the video shows.

 

[suze2000]

Or that the OP works and has not made it back here. Though I suspect the OP is unaware how sometimes a man being "assertive" can feel very threatening to a woman. There have been studies about how a man merely raising his voice can seem result in feelings of fear and risk and even victimhood (as in, they feel like they've already been hurt) amongst vulnerable women.