Dear Readers:
This posting is from the first day of our trip to New Mexico. I was operating on approximately four hours of sleep, which is a tad less than I really do best on. It was written on small pages of a pocket notebook pad of paper, about forty-five minutes into a two and a half hour flight from Chicago to Denver. My reflections were as follows: (Keep in mind the whole lack-of-sleep issue.)
I am not a lover of rules but I do understand the need for them. Having been an educator in a discipline where all the students in my classroom had a noise-maker in their hands (band), I had to have classroom rules or 'guidelines' simply to keep some semblance of order and enable the students to become a unit that could operate as one, thereby giving the students the best chance for success.
In general, I believe that most humans will respect rules that were created from a common-sense approach. I also believe that rules will be more consistently adhered to and respected when the rules are CONSISTENTLY enforced, applied and/or followed by the people or person who created the rule(s). To personalize this, I must lead by example and I cannot expect others to follow the rules when I disregard them myself.
I also believe that if a stated rule is not consistently enforced then why should it exist in the first place. Allow me to apply this to the airline industry.
The carry-on baggage 'guidelines' seem to be fragrantly ignored by both the passengers and the airline industry employees. I have a good spatial concept of the printed size limitations for passengers to follow and I can say, without hesitation, that this is consistently and patently ignored on a high-percentage basis. Also largely ignored is the number-of-carry-on-bags limit. As I sat and observed the passengers entering and deplaning, I was astounded at the number of 'things' passengers were lugging and toting. Furthermore, sitting on the plane watching people try to stuff their carry-on luggage into the overhead bins was worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit. Never was people-watching so much fun.
But, back to the whole rule 'thing'. As far as I can see, the airline industry rules about the size and number of carry-on luggage is a farce and the passengers know it.
I refer to my posting title: Why have a rule...............
Ancora imparo
