A Series of Blamable Events
Here is what happened today from around 5 am in Bay Area until around 11 pm in Orange County and Los Angeles. This should give you an idea about 2 different ways to look at certain days.
I woke up this morning around 5 am to get ready to head for the airport. I printed a few things on the computer and then got a ride with a friend. We left the house about 15 minutes late and got stuck in traffic. Once at the airport, the plane left about 30 minutes later because the cleaning crew was taking some time to clean the plane, and maybe also because the pilot was walking around enjoying the terminal.
Car rental company gave away my reserved and paid for rental car because of my flight being late
Then the rental car I was expecting from Advantage Rent A Car in Los Angeles because of my travel reservations through Expedia was not available anymore because of my flight being late. Then the car rental company charged me almost 4 times the amount to get me a brand new PT Cruiser, 2007 edition, which was the only thing they had left. Then the rental company gave me wrong directions to downtown Los Angeles, which were supposed to be shortcuts but resulted in me wasting an hour trying to find my way in a place I had moved away from less than 3 months ago.
People told me after I flew down around 500 miles that they needed more papers
Then the business people I had to go visit told me that they needed some more documents that they had forgotten to ask me before. Then the university appointment I had got canceled because of me being late. I was told to come later at night. Then when I got there, I was told that the professors in question had already left for the day, even though they told me earlier in the day that they wanted to see me. I also canceled 2 other appointments because of me being late due to the rental car.
Hotel reservation and computer at hotel both messed up
The hotel reservation got changed because Advantage Rent A Car notified Expedia that I had came to a new agreement with them for the rental car, resulting in the hotel reservation getting canceled for unknown reasons. Expedia support told me that I needed to book again and apologized. After getting the hotel room, the computer at the hotel that I had reserved for going online had a broken space bar, something that I have experienced in the past. Thus, every space you see in this post required me to push the central space bar connector built into the keyboard very hard, resulting in a lot of time spent going through the entire post to make sure I have the necessary spaces and that I do not have any extra spaces.
I met good friends at night
Later in the night, I met a few friends I had not met for a long time, and even though our meeting was very short, it was good.
Should I look for something to blame, or should I be happy because of what happened later in the night?
Here is the golden question: Who should be blamed for these series of blamable events? Here is the priceless question: should anyone or anything be blamed at all? This is a normal day in Southern California, but it seems like a waste of energy compared to what can be accomplished with better planning:
List of blamable events
- If only I had waken up a few minutes earlier.
- If only I had printed important things the prior night.
- If only the plane had left on time.
- If only the rental car was ready for me the minute I landed.
- If only the rental car company would not argue with someone who just posted about the dangers of telling someone they are wrong.
- If only the rental car company would give correct directions.
- If only I would not ask for directions.
- If only I had been told that more papers were needed for a business meeting.
- If only the university could reschedule me for another appointment soon.
- If only the professors would stay after their late night class instead of telling me to come while they leave early to head for the bars.
- If only appointments could be rescheduled when you call people in advance, instead of being told “Sorry, I can only cancel appointments at this time but you have to call between 8 am and noon to make new appointments.“
- If only Expedia would not cancel entire itineraries simply because some part of a trip changed due to the mentality of a car rental company.
- If only the space bar on this computer did not warrant more attention than the rest of the keyboard.
So tell me, my online friend: would you look at this day as a way to see who to blame based on “If only“, or would you look at this day as a day you met good friends? 
Loading ...
( March 28th, 2007 at 8:54 am )
I think the full blame lays with the rental car idiots. You being a bit late didn’t matter because then the plane was late, and that is nowhere near in your control. Rental companies should know that planes are often late and should hold the cars for longer than a few minutes before renting them out. If you never showed, they could then charge you for the day anyway, isn’t that what hotels do? If you reserve but never show and don’t cancel (usually by 4pm or something) then they charge you for one night. The rental company was completely irresponsible and they should have given you the PT for the same price you’d reserved. If I were you, I’d keep on them about it, take it to the BBB or something, try to get refunded. They cost you a lot more than just the money on the car, considering how the rest of your day went. Those morons!!
( March 28th, 2007 at 9:05 am )
I dont think it was your mistake at all.
As for the big list of “If only”, it all started with the plane being late. But again they have their own reasons for being late.
( March 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am )
I don’t think it would have mattered if you left 15 minutes earlier; the plane would still have been late, which is what lead to the rest of the events with the car rental and the hotel. My comments about the car rental place is the same as Valerie wrote above. That’s just ridiculous. If they gave away the car you had reserved *and* paid for, they should have given you a replacement, not charge you 4x as much for it.
That is very irresponsible of the professors and people who forgot to tell you that you needed other documents. They shouldn’t expect that you have them if they’re the ones who forgot to tell you, after you came such a long way too.
As for the spacebar thing, I would have either copied&pasted a blank space each time I needed it, or pulled up the on-screen keyboard (I’m assuming it’s a PC that you were using. This might be possible on a Mac too, but I’ve never looked for it, so I’m not sure). Should I not mention the one place where you missed a space?
Sorry you had such a frustrating day. I hope you’re looking at it as a day that you met good friends!
(also, did something on your blog change? the font size in this comments box looks smaller than I remember it being)
( March 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm )
It sure does sound like a pain-in-the-butt day, but you DID have a good time with friends and it gave you food for a good post. One question, though. Did you tell the car rental people they were wrong?
( March 28th, 2007 at 4:50 pm )
Clearly, you are not a frequent traveler. You identified the reason for most of your troubles: almost all of your list contain “I”. Yes, YOU are the reason for your troubles. YOU left late. YOU believed and airline schedule (Ha ha ha……Want to buy a bridge?) You failed to call ahead, or arrange for the rental to be time flexible. YOU lived in LA, but couldn’t find your way into town from LAX. See a pattern here?
( March 28th, 2007 at 7:16 pm )
Bes travels more than most people I know
This is just a classic example of bad customer service unraveling in all situations. With expedia, the rent-a-car, hotel room, ticket and stuff is all paid for in “advance.” It simply is unacceptable for someone to give away your rental car, change your hotel reservation, and more when the credit card has already been charged.
If you have the time and patience, I would contact Expedia and see if you can get your money back on the rental car. That was just unacceptable. If Expedia can’t help, then try to get Advantage on the line. Keep barking until a cat falls out of the tree.
( March 28th, 2007 at 10:18 pm )
Yeahhh, I agree with Ronalfy (not sure what ccfr8er is smoking), Bes is quite the traveler and the events he experienced here are completely unacceptable and he should be reimbursed.
( March 29th, 2007 at 9:02 am )
Thank you everyone for the comments, I am glad you took the time to type out your responses.
Also, I am sorry for responding a bit late. I just got to a computer and am going through all the backlog. I think I should have a laptop with me at all times.
Valerie, thanks! The rental car people did cause a lot of issues. They work at and near LAX, an airport famous for having a lot of traffic. They should be prepared for such situations. If I would not have shown up, Expedia would have still charged me, and not cancel any hotel reservation. =\
I think I will keep pursuing them about this. I made a lot of mistakes also, but they made things way more complicated!
Sawai, thanks Sawai! You have a point. The plane was late, even though, like you said, they had their own reasons and did not do it on purpose just to ruin Bes’s day. The”if only” list is interesting, is it not? =P
Stacee, thanks, and also, please, do mention the place where I missed a space!
I fixes something somewhere, and am still looking for a missing space. 
Yes, the late plane probably caused the chain of events. If I pay for a car and reserve it, they should hold onto it even if I don’t show up.
It’s funny how those people simply said “Sorry” and when I met one of them last night and today, they did not even bring up the issue. They knew I am coming from the North, and still they tell me things on the day I call to let them know that I have arrived.
About the spacebar, that is a good tip! Control v should help, thanks! Yes, I am using a PC. It is hard to find Macs in hotels or public computer labs/libraries.
Thanks! I am also looking at it as a day I met friends after reading this!
Hmmm, about the blog change, I don’t think I did but then again, about a week ago I was playing with layout widths here and may have accidentally messed something up. Does it look better or worse? I will change it accordingly then. Thanks Stacee!
Carolyn, thanks for the comment Carolyn! I like the way you emphasize “DID.”
Haha, your question is awesome! Unfortunately, after a few hours, I did start saying “This is not fair” and things like “I just don’t understand how you think this is justified/right/ok!” which is another way of saying “I just don’t understand how you don’t know that you are wrong!” =P They did not get offended, though thy kept saying “You are mistaken” and “No, you are wrong, that is not how it works in special cases like these.” I used to think that late flights were not special but normal cases, though it seems Advantage didn’t think so!
ccfr8er, thanks for stopping by and weighing in on this. As much as I would like to say that it was not my fault at all, I do see the pattern! You are probably right: I left late, I depended on the airline schedule. I planned this trip quickly and simply headed out the door within almost 15-20 hours of booking and paying for the trip.
I did call in ahead, to all the people, though I did not call the rental company in advance; I thought being late 30-40 minutes, or even an hour or two would be ok since I already paid for the car and rental car agreements are daily and not hourly.
I do travel a lot though, like Ronalfy and Valerie mention below your comment. I think I have spent most of my life traveling than sitting in one place. I lived in Orange County, south of LA, though yes, I did travel a lot in LA before. I simply asked them a shortcut and they told me the directions with such confidence, I simply followed what they told me. I should have verified that info or a map or something, though when someone like a rental company by the airport gives directions, I usually think that they deal with a lot of tourists and travelers and can easily tell accurate directions to freeways and places.
I guess I have to keep all of this in mind for the next time I travel! ccfr8er, thanks for your input on this!
Ronalfy, thanks Ronalfy!
I agree! Everything was paid in advance and I was charged already, and even then these things happy. You are right; they cannot just give away my car if I am late. It’s already paid for, so let it sit in the parking lot waiting for the customer to come and drive!
I am going to do that. I am already contacting Expedia and trying to make sure that they know this situation is beyond weird; this is pathetic.
Thanks Ronald!
Valerie, thanks again!
I should ask for reimbursement or something. I am still trying to make up for all the incomplete tasks that were supposed to be completed the day I arrived here. Maybe being a frequent flier/traveler member with certain companies may help avoid this in the future?
Thanks everyone! I really appreciate your feelings and input on this! I should print this page and show it to Expedia or Advantage rent-a-car or someone.
( March 29th, 2007 at 9:54 am )
Ok, I don’t have much to say about this, since everyone pretty much said it all. LOL. I really don’t think it’s your fault!! Just because you were late actually didn’t affect your flight… Your FLIGHT was the one that was late, and that’s the one that caused everything to be messed up, and with your flight being late, it definitely is out of your control! Sorry to hear about the car, and the directions also… And your appointments having to be rescheduled… Wow, sounds like one of my bad days… LOL.
But I’m glad that you’ve met up with your friends, though! That definitely would have made my day/night!
( March 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pm )
As ridiculous as this may sound, which I believe that it isn’t the case at all since I’ve just experienced it a few days ago….
the car rental place is to fully be blamed. As valerie mentioned, they should know that flights get delayed and all that jazz. But do you know what? They try to grab customers and can careless about you. Seriously, they all have issues.. what’s wrong with them? Sheesh, when your the customer, they will serve you to the best of their ability but when you over, they treat you like your nothing or of no concern to them.
Why it is that they always end up saying: “Oh, we don’t have the car you’ve rented.. but we do have ____ but its a bit pricer?” Do you see something wrong here? It gets on my nerves… perhaps its the states haha.
Second thing is that.. what’s up with the hotel booking being cancelled? Do they even have the authority to do that? Talk about a bad experience, keyboards are frustrating too especially when they are missing a gazillion of keys, or rather, placed in wrong areas of the keyboard.
All in all, sucks to be late sometimes because it may come with a series of unfortunate events X_X!
( March 30th, 2007 at 8:30 pm )
I would have looked at your day as quite a profitable day with a lot of lessons to be learned from it.
Glad to be back in touch with you. I see you haven’t changed much - still blogging just as faithfully as ever!
( April 6th, 2007 at 8:47 pm )
The place I found that you were missing a space was in the last sentence of the second paragraph:
“…because the cleaning crew was taking sometime to clean the plane..”
sometime should be two words - some time - because of the way it is used in the sentence.
( April 6th, 2007 at 9:00 pm )
oh oops. I forgot to type in the rest of my answer/comment before I hit submit.
Regarding the text size in the comment box: It’s just weird (and probably bad usability) that the text here is so much smaller than the size of the published comments and posts, which are the main things people read. It’s not just that it’s smaller, but it’s incredibly small, which makes it hard to read.
A lot of people increase the text size using their browser on text that’s larger than what’s in this box, so I imagine that they can’t even read this. My eyesight is pretty good, and I can read this fine. I brought this up originally because like I said before, it looked different to me but I might have remembered wrong. Still, I wonder if maybe you’re missing comments from readers who aren’t able to see what they’re typing in here?
If no one else has said anything about this, maybe my browser is displaying this to me differently than what others are seeing? If that’s the case, nevermind and forget what I said
(for reference, the size I’m seeing is smaller than the smallest text in the sidebar [the answers in the poll, the comments summary, etc.], it’s about 7px.)
( April 6th, 2007 at 11:35 pm )
[...] could then start driving to go to different places to do many important things. I was wrong. Some Series of Blamable Events were about to change my entire trip. One of those events was that Advantage Rent A Car would not [...]
( April 7th, 2007 at 7:51 am )
Hmmm… looks like about 9px to me, but it is quite a bit smaller than the main text, yes.
( April 7th, 2007 at 2:37 pm )
Chau, thanks for the reply.
Yes, my flight was the main factor that caused the first major delay that resulted in the overall time schedule changing. 
Yes, they were focusing on customers and probably on people who will start spending more or paying more because of gas consumption and insurance instead of me, a customer who did not show up right away.
Vera, thanks for the reply.
Yes, their sentence sounds very weird, and does not make sense. I paid for it, and I have the receipt. The car should be there for me.
The hotel booking was such a mystery! Apparently Expedia has the authority to cancel the reservations, and they did because Advantage Rent A Car told them to do so.
A Series of Unfortunate Events; have you seen that movie?
I am glad you are blogging again on the previous site. Have to visit it more often again now.
Chelsea, welcome back and nice to hear from you again!
Thanks, I am looking at the day as a “profitable day” also.
Stacee, thanks! I edited it now and it says “some time” instead of “sometime.”
Regarding the comment box text size, I had not paid much attention to it at all and had continued using it without focusing much on the font size. Now that I think of it after you and Valerie bring it up, it was indeed very small! Thanks for bringing it up!
Also, multiple comments are good and better!
I changed the size now. It should be much bigger; almost the same size as the normal comments, if not a bit bigger.
I got another idea because of your comment: I thought of putting in a “Live Preview” feature so users can see what they are typing too. Thank you.
Please let me know how it [font type, size, etc] looks now, and if the live comment feature helps or not. 
Please let me know how they look overall now; both the comment box and the live preview.
Valerie, thanks for bringing it up too! I just fixed it while you were online and showed it to you, and you offered a suggestion regarding the live comment preview font size too.
( April 7th, 2007 at 8:20 pm )
I see the LivePreview plugin, but the text size is still the same for me. I’m convinced now that it’s my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.01 on a Mac).
Yup, just checked on Safari and it’s definitely a lot larger there.
Here, have a screenshot though, so you can see what it looks like for me:
While on the topic of comments, I don’t like the plugin that auto-scrolls the page up for me after I post my comment. I think it’s pointless because well, that part of the page is already visible on my screen. I know my comment will be there, at the end after all the other comments. Also, I like having control of my own browser, I generally don’t like anything that does something for me without my telling it to first.
It’s your site though, so ultimately, it’s what you want. Just letting you know what I think though
And while I’m at it, I also think the Live Preview plugin is useless as well, as it’s just showing me the same thing that’s in the box I’m typing in. I’ve never understood why so many blogs use it. The only case I think it’s useful in is when someone posts html and can see that it’s correct, but more often than not, comments are just plain text sentences/paragraphs, and it’s just redundant have it shown again.
It also makes posting a comment more of an effort than it was before it was added, because now there’s scrolling that needs to happen to get to the submit button when before it was just right there (especially when it’s a long comment, with a long image like in this comment). I realize that scrolling is a very simple thing to do and requires less effort than changing the channel on tv, but my point is that it’s an extra step that’s uncessary.
But again, it’s your site.
And I really do think they’re neat plugins and appreciate the scripts. I just don’t think they’re useful/necessary on most blogs.
( April 7th, 2007 at 8:24 pm )
Does html/images get stripped out from comments? My screenshot image didn’t show up, so I’ll assume so. Here’s the link to it: http://i12.tinypic.com/3y50jn4.png
(and if html is not allowed, that’s more reason not to have LivePreview, which lead me to believe the image would show up as it appeared in the preview.)
( April 7th, 2007 at 9:11 pm )
Stacee, you bring up good points. Don’t worry; I think I am going to agree with you instead of saying “This is ma site!!”
Ok, so here is a summary of what you do not like:
1 : Auto-scroll up because of ajax commenting. You prefer the page to reload and then take you to the comment, right?
2 : Live Preview: I was so shocked when you said it was useless as I spend time working on it, heh, but when I see your logic and actually see it in different browsers, I agree! It does add extra time to things, which leads me to point 3:
3 : Hmmm, I moved the live preview below the submit button. Is that better? I can remove the thing all together, though I am seeing if it can be useful in any manner.
Also, you can post html tags in it like bold, italics, links, and image tags to see the preview.
5 : Hmmm, html is allowed and not supposed to be stripped out. For example, following was showed using the img src tag inside this comment instead of http://i12.tinypic.com/3y50jn4.png:
I will work on the page reload tonight to make it look like a normal submit page where the page gets refreshed/resubmitted like other pages when a comment is submitted instead of the Ajax thing where the browser window is scrolled up automatically. I have to go out for a while and will be back soon.
Thanks again Stacee! I really appreciate your input.
Again, don’t worry, I am not much into the “ITS MY SITE!!” phenomenon when it comes to usability :D.
( April 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm )
Ok Stacee, the page reload should be fine now. Any submitted comments will result in a normal page reload and bringing the focus back to the comment instead of the AJAX shifting where the comment is submitted and the browser control is lost while on the same page.
Please let me know how it feels/looks/acts now. Thanks again for the suggestions.
( April 8th, 2007 at 11:49 pm )
Thanks for taking my suggestions into consideration and implementing them!
1. “You prefer the page to reload and then take you to the comment, right?”
I don’t care where it takes me after it reloads, as long the page loads like a regular page and doesn’t do anything without me initiating the action. Thank you for disabling the auto-scroll.
3. Well. I still think it’s redundant and a waste of space because it’s showing the same thing I’m typing. But if it has to be somewhere, I’d put it above the comment box.
My reasoning for this is because if you’re typing a long comment, and you have the comment box at the top of the screen so you can see the Live Preview below it, you’d only see the beginning of your long comment unless you scroll down, but if you scrolled down to see the text down there, the comment box is no longer on the screen for you to type on, and you have to scroll back up to get it.
If it was above the comment box, the closest thing you see is always the last thing you typed. But then, maybe people prefer seeing the first few paragraphs in case they forgot what they wrote there. But it is a “Live Preview” so I’ll assume the idea is to see what you’re typing as you’re typing, which would be the last thing and not the first.
So I don’t know. Thanks for putting the submit button right by the box again though; much better!
5. I did use the img src tag.. I wonder why it didn’t work for me? Oh well.
Thanks again for the changes. Oh, and the text size in the comment box is a lot bigger for me now! Did you change something on that too, or is it my browser again?
( April 9th, 2007 at 12:27 am )
No problem.
Thank you for offering the suggestions.
1 : Yes, I see what you mean.
It should work faster too now.
2 : I moved it before the comment box, as that will save more space, and it is below the username/email/url field box still. I might remove it in the long run, though let us see how it goes in the meantime. Thanks for the suggestion yet again! It seems like some changes are in the test phase and you are beta testing everything.
I think having the live preview box above the comment box is nice too.
I am just playing with the text around the comment box ["leave a comment", "live preview", etc] to see if I can explain things better and to keep things simple.
5 : Hmmm, that is strange. Sorry about that! =\ I am guessing the ajax thing ate the source code or something bad happened.
Also, I changed the text size in the comment box yesterday to be a bit bigger yesterday, so it should appear bigger in all browsers.
Is it better now? 
Thanks again Stacee!
( April 9th, 2007 at 11:01 pm )
A small update: I removed the Live preview completely for now. I could not get it to blend smoothly with the rest of the comment area. Until I can figure out a solution, I will keep testing it on the side while keeping it away from the main production area. The editing feature allows people to edit their comments as many times as they wish, so I will keep that and remove the Live Preview, unless I can get Live Preview integrated into the other one somehow. Thanks for the suggestions Stacee!
Now my next dilemma is to figure out whether the comment text box should be before all the comments [right after the post] or at the bottom of the page [after all the comments].
( April 9th, 2007 at 11:26 pm )
I was just going to comment saying that I didn’t see the Live Preview the comment box. Did you remove it just now? I didn’t see it this morning either. (not that I’m not glad to see it gone ;p)
I like reading through comments before making mine, in case someone else has already said what I said. That’s usually when I don’t comment, or sometimes I just “me too” it.
You have 3 use cases:
1. People who read the comments before making theirs
2. People who comment first, then read the other comments after
3. People who comment and don’t read others’ comments
In the last two examples, it’s more convienent to have the comment box at top. In the first one, it works best where it is currently.
You can (a) have the comment box both at the top and bottom, (b) keep the comment box at the bottom but add an anchor link at the top “Leave a comment” or something that links to the comment box at the bottom, or (c) reverse the last option so the anchor link is at the bottom and the comment box at top.
Or. do it the way it is done on LiveJournal: an entry contains 2 comment links - one to leave a comment, and one to read comments. The leave a comment link brings you directly to the comment box, and read comments takes you to the start of the first comment.
( April 11th, 2007 at 10:10 am )
Thanks for the reply Stacee. If I remember correctly, I had it remove the night prior to your last comment above.
I was not completely satisfied with the way it blended in with the comment box. I am still trying it in different places to see if it works well or not. Right now, Ronald’s excellent comment editing plugin should do the trick. The reason I liked Live Preview in the first place is that it allowed people to make less mistakes in spelling or their html coding.
Thanks for the suggestions. If I have the comment box both at the top and the bottom, I wonder if people will start writing things in one box and then start writing in the other box, and then when they press submit, get confused and wonder where some part of their comment went.
Also, right now, some posts have many comments. Users/Readers have to scroll down in order to find the comment box. I wonder if many people simply move on to other sites because of that. For example, this very page is around 18 pages long. I wonder if everyone is patient enough to scroll [or space bar , or even control+end] for pages with many comments?
The way LiveJournal does it is very interesting. I might have to start applying it to this site somehow.
I like that feature on LJ, though I always wished that LJ would allow us to comment on the same page as the place where we read other comments, instead of clicking on another link to comment. I think I have to send in that suggestions? 
Thanks again Stacee! I can feel my blog is improving way beyond my expectation already thanks to your input and other people’s suggestions too, heh!
( April 25th, 2007 at 11:12 pm )
[...] home in the evening, for a total of 4 hours of hitting the brakes and speeding up slowly. Even on my recent trip to Los Angeles and Orange County, I saw people hitting the steering wheels, throwing coffee cups out of their windows, and lashing [...]