In his comment about my Mesquite restaurant post (official title: Consistent = Boring), Roger von Oech asked if I'd want my bank or airline to Surprise or bore me, and if I'd accept inconsistent service from them.
Well, I guess I should've made this clearer earlier: when I speak of the power of Surprise, I speak exclusively of the positive. Obviously, a negative Surprise gives you a kick somewhere in a vicinity 180 degrees removed from Roger's proverbial "seat in the pants."
Actually, I get Surprised at the bank all the time. My bank is RBC, and I happen to be B L E S S E D with an account manager named Mauro Pampena. He--are you ready for this?--calls ME to tell me things like mortgage rates are going down and that he has ALREADY pre-arranged a re-financing of my current one to take advantage of the change. Examples like this are the norm, not the exception. The only way I'd even consider changing banks is if Mauro would leave for another one.
As for the airlines, I'd be T H R I L L E D if they would improve their service to reach the lofty level of inconsistency. I beg, in vain, for even the littlest of my definition of Surprise from them. I could constipate the world's bandwith with my personal flying horror stories, but I'll recount just one--my recent flight from Philadelphia to Las Vegas on USAirways. It was delayed two hours while the airline had to escalate matters to a Board Meeting (I'm serious; so explained a very sheepish pilot) for a decision whether to remove cargo or remove last-minute stand-by passengers to bring our overweight plane down to acceptable take-off poundage.
T W O H O U R S !!!
And guess what USAirways did for all us passengers during these 120 minutes of suspense?
N U F F I N G ! S W E E T F.A. !
They pulled a Bret Easton Ellis, an Elvis Costello--they did Less Than Zero.
So Roger, my long-time idol, my new-found blog pal, I would've accepted any sort of Surprise from this so-called airline. A Micro-Surprise would've sufficed. A Nano-Surprise even. A bag of pretzels. A movie (they eventually showed one once we were airborne and had to gall to charge for it). A sing-along. A glass of water (okay, to be fair, we did get some at the 100-minute mark).
Here was a golden opportunity to change a bad situation into one I'd always remember, and talk about for ages. That's how Surprise works. That's what Surprise does. Instead, it was yet another flight experience I'll have to go into therapy to forget.
Maybe USAirways should hire Mauro Pampena...