Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Ryan Air Staff Mannerisms

I came across this article and then went to follow the entire trail of blog messages that it was referring to. It's quite entertaining to read, trust me. The story goes like this...

There is this freelance developer blogger who goes by the name of Jason Roe. While booking a flight to Ireland, Jason was convinced he stumbled against a software bug in the Ryan Air online system that allowed anyone to get free tickets to any Ryan destination. Eventually the story proved bogus, but that didn't stop three loyal Ryan Air staffers, more Catholic than the Pope in their love for Ryan (if you know what I mean), to get online on Jason's blog and repeatedly take the piss on him, calling him an idiot and a stupid f@ck.

I know the Irish love to dress their oral expressions with strong and foul epithets, four letter words and their adjective derivatives starting mostly with the sixth letter of the alphabet, on any given occasion. If you don't quite mind or get offended, it's fun to hear them talk like this. Watch the movie "In Bruges" and you'll understand what I mean. I personally enjoy their ways a lot!

Oral expression is one thing though. Posting similar rhetoric on online blogs and behaving like hooligans behind their company's firewalls is of course another. Reading the Ryan staffer #1, #2 and #3 comments on Jason's blogs is plain disgusting. Jason, in comparison, remained civil all the way.

The French have an expression that goes like: Fish rot from the head down. In other words, having staffers like these in the company, Ryan Air tells us that this attitude of aggressive and arrogant addressing of the outside world must be somehow inspired by the company culture and the management policies their wonderful leader(s) define and implement throughout. It brings to memory their bully stance against the Belgian government, and the city of Charleroi a few years ago in order to maintain landing privileges via subsidies offered to them in the past.

Pity... When will some people ever learn! I betcha, lots out there rather be a-holes than descent folks.

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