Chapter 2: Don Juan in customer service

When I first called AirFrance in the morning, I was notified that my luggage had been found in Vienna, but that it was impossible at the moment to find out when it was going to be sent to Paris, so I should call back later. This is what I did - a first time around noon, failing to acquire any information that I had previously been unaware of.

Another call in the late afternoon did not yield any significant progress, but merits a more detailed description: I first learned that my luggage had arrived at the Roissy Airport in Paris, but it could not be delivered before Monday. When I objected that I had been assured on the morning of the very same day that I would receive my luggage during the day, the charming clerk on the phone just asked me if this information had been given out by a female employee of AirFrance. When I gave an affirmative answer, he promptly answered "doesn't surprise me at all, yet another one who doesn't know her job" [sic!].

Resting polite I abstained from any further comment and just tried to explain that this delay put me into a highly uncomfortable professional situation, since it obliged me to find a means of notifying my business partners on a Saturday evening (!) to cancel the presentations on Monday. Once the gentleman on the other end of the line had heard that I worked as a business consultant, he was clearly delighted, since he "was just searching for one" [sic!]. The fact that a delay in the delivery of my luggage represented a severe professional and private annoyance didn't seem to bother him all that much. His enthusiasm deepened even further when he heard that I lived and worked in Vienna and he told me that he was highly delighted of the idea of a little visit of the Austrian capital, now that he had my address in this city. Since I apparently seemed appealing to him and we had been talking on the phone for several minutes already, he started to talk to me in the familiar form of address of the French language, made two-bit compliments about my "beautiful voice" and proposed a meeting in Paris for the same evening. When I categorically answered to the negative, the audacious young Don Juan of AirFrance customer service undertook yet another attempt: Maybe he could call me under the French telephone number I first gave at the airport when my luggage was lost?

Forcing myself to stay calm upon those propositions I tried to guide the conversation back to the subject of my lost luggage and attempted to obtain some information about the estimated time of delivery of my backpack - and most importantly the work-related documents contained therein - on Monday. This turn of the conversation seemed to inspire the young employee much less than the prospect of a romantic date in Paris and he soon assured me that he had no knowledge whatsoever on this matter, I was just to stay at home on Monday between 8 am and 10 pm in order not to miss delivery. Another possibility would be to contact the partner company of AirFrance that is trusted with the delivery of lost luggage, being the only possible source of information about the estimated time of delivery.