Day by Day: March 24, 2020

Tuesday, March 24, 2020. This day was an adventure in many ways. After picking up sterile gloves and Cata's handmade face masks from FLORECE, Jenn Taylor and my sister Terri and I drove to Unimarc to obtain groceries for a mom in need. It was not our usual grocery store but centrally located between FLORECE and the home we needed to visit. Arriving a few minutes before 10 AM, we were at the front of a line waiting to be permitted entrance after the early hours for senior adults ended. Terri waited in the car as Jenn and I were waved through by a guard offering a squirt of alcohol gel at the door. Our list was basic: beans, oil, potatoes, carrots, bananas, eggs, milk, and clorox gel. Thankfully, we were able to find all but carrots and clorox gel and the young mom was so grateful. After delivering the items, we proceeded to additional shopping. We tried to be careful to wipe off cart handles with clorox wipes and disinfect hands with alcohol gel regularly. Upon returning to our homes, each of us showered and washed our clothes as we have been advised. It was only afterwards that I watched a video encouraging grocery items to be wiped clean before storing as well! Fortunately my own items were few and easy enough to pull out of cabinets to do so.

Besides shopping, the second big task on this day was attempting to contact LATAM Airlines to reschedule our long-planned Garcia/Fisher/Rubin family vacation to Puerto Varas. This was the biggest disappointment for our children so far. Plane tickets for family members had been purchased back in October during an airline sale on faith that Fishers would make it Chile in time (and praise God, they did!) Though we'd initially held out hope that our trip could go on as planned, the past few days had made it clear this was not going to happen as airlines first shut down international and then national flights. We'd been told that due to the overwhelming number of flights being cancelled, we had to wait until 48 hours before ours to make any change.

And though LATAM had created a webpage intended to allow travelers to make changes themselves online, not surprisingly we only achieved error messages by this means. So I reached out by online chat and at 3 PM I was number 1,059 in line! I decided to let this run its course but after three hours I was frozen somewhere in the 400's with no end in sight. Finally, I made a phone call with little expectation that I would reach an agent anytime soon. Unbelievably, I quickly found myself talking to a woman named Gladys who would soon become my personal hero. I didn't realize it at first, however, because almost immediately we ran into a roadblock that threatened to derail our hopes completely! She insisted that we were already checked into our flights and for that reason no changes could be made. I insisted that I was looking right at my computer screen and we were NOT checked in. Based on prior experiences, it would not have surprised me in the least if she had dug in her heels and our opportunity to make changes would have ended then and there. But she didn't! She put me on hold instead. Again, based on prior experiences, it would not have surprised me one bit if our connection ended and I never made contact with an agent again. But it didn't! Not only did she not shut us down or cut us off, but she invested the time and effort needed to get the glitch solved on their end and to walk us through rescheduling our flights from March to October. 

jokingly "crossing our fingers"

I was so desperate not to lose this angel of an agent that I called my sister Terri to come over and my husband to come downstairs so that she could change their flights (in total, our family had three separate reservations) while we were still on this one call. At the very end of our nearly hour-long conversation we lost our connection, just as Gladys was making the final changes to the last reservation. Eeek! Holding our breath, we waited for the confirmation e-mail and/or a callback - BOTH of which came. I am not exaggerating when I say this felt like a miracle, because we live in a country where customer service is truly "not a thing" (to put it gently!) Thank you, God! Even though I never "tweet," I tried my best to write a glowing few words about Gladys in hopes LATAM would recognize this patient and gracious agent and of course I thanked her profusely as well.