Be Excellent To Each Other

At Amsterdam airport on my way to Zurich the other month I got fucked around by the airline in a way that meant I ended up ground-side. A lovely staff member wasn't just helpful she skipped me straight to the front of the immigration queue and told the border agent to rush me through saving at least an hour (it being too late to just walk back airside by that point).

The Dutch come across very dismissively, off-hand, brusque, even rude to us, because they don't have insane British politeness sensibilities. They're nice people once you get passed that.

We were there for only 12 days, so my experience is limited to that time. Obviously some people were very helpful, and kind. Still efficient and maybe a little brusque, as you mentioned, but I think there is also a more general feeling of the inconvenience of other humans and wanting everything to be someone else’s problem.

The people in the airport were not in any way kind or understanding. One of the worst examples of this was actually at passport control where a young family were travelling and there had been some issues and they were trying to speak to someone. The guy overseeing the passport checks for outbound flights was a complete arse. He was just so rude and arrogant. The woman was just frying to get some clarification from him and he was just shouting at her to move around the queue, she was teary and he just shouted ‘I am not listening to you!’. At this point an American lady queuing behind them just lost her temper with how he was talking to EVERYONE and called him a terrible person with no humanity and said that the whole queue would go a lot quicker if he would just stop being an ‘asshole’ to everyone.

But generally that seemed to be the issue in a lot of places. On the way to that same queue we were approaching a guy who was stood splitting the lanes into two. He said only one word ‘passports!’ So we went to get our passports out about as we slowed to do so he shouted ‘DON’T STOP WALKING!’ But in a way that made him seem extremely angry.

Anyway, then I had a huge panic attack, ended up crying, and yeah, I don’t think they were just efficient and direct, I found them quite distressingly upsetting at times.

And if it hadn’t been for the contempt they were showing all of us that had been on the cancelled flight we might have been able to avoid staying all that extra time by going to London, or Luton, etc, where we could get a lift home from my folks.

I think being a twat is a job requirement for passport control officers, I haven't met any yet that didn't come off as otherwise.

The people actually doing the passport checking were fine. A bit nondescript on the Dutch side, but absolutely fine. It was the guy who was overseeing the lines that was a complete prat. His boss seemed to be there the next day. I don't know if he was Dutch with an impeccable English accent when speaking English, or an English guy who spoke Dutch fluently, but he was reassuring and helpful to those people who were in the queue, keeping everyone updated as to how long it would take to get through passport control and checking flight times for those who were anxious, etc.

When we arrived back in the UK, though, the passport control was excellent. Firstly, most people were sailing through the e-gates (we couldn't use those in the Netherlands as Darwin is under 14 years old). Here in the UK he has to be over 10 years old to use them, which he is just shy of. The chap who was organising the lines was friendly and directed us where to go. The guy checking the passports though was great. He just finished the whole experience on a nice note, to the point where we talked about it on the way home.

He noticed Darwin's age and addressed him directly and bubbly. "Darwin! Probably next time you come here you won't have to walk up and see me! Your birthday is in a month, so once you get to double digits you'll be able to go through that special area that will just scan your passport. You just walk up there and it will beep you through. Hey Darwin, Happy Birthday mate - you have a good one, yeah?'

Or something like that. We were all exhausted, and it was just appreciated and a small little bit of personal interaction after a tough 48 hours. I was very grateful for it.

That's a nice finish to a difficult experience. Some people seem to have the knack of putting others at ease when they're in a potentially stressful situation and you encountered a really good one. And it was a really nice touch to speak to Darwin directly.

Airports are weird places

We have had the misfortune of using Los Angeles airport on a couple of occasions. It was a hateful shithole each time, the worst being when we were just transiting through. The people were just horrible.

Spanish airports on the other hand seem to be both rude and yet not really care about anything much, I recall being waved through without even opening my passport once; and then when we visited not long after covid they had all these signs about checking for vaccinations but they guy at the counter didn't even look at the paperwork, he just asked 'vaccine' and I said 'yeah'