Missed flight woman goes absolutely mental An anonymous woman who on 4 February demonstrated at Hong Kong airport exactly how not to deal with missing your flight has become a huge YouTube celeb after the mother of all tantrums was caught on camera: The drama queen in question was apparently en route, or not in this case, to San Francisco on Cathay Pacific. A …
Do we know why the check-in staff had a hidden camera secreted on their person? Given that it would be picking up all the names etc. on the flight itinery, I think that's a bit dodgy. What were they planning to do with the recording? I'm assuming they weren't just recording on the offchange of a loony passenger turning up...
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@ Waggers: Here in the 21st century, most people in developed countries carry what are called "mobile phones". I won't go into all the tecnology, but most of these "mobiles" contain a camera with video recording functionality. They have a handy feature whereby you can turn on the video recording functionality whenever you want to - so you don't have to leave it running the whole time in the hope that something interesting will happen in front of it.
Reminds me of this (woman took the wrong bus, and got lost for 25 years, because she could not speak the language and did not have enough money or knowledge to get home. She survived by begging and sleeping rough for 25 years, her family thought she was dead in Malaysia):
http://cambodiacalling.blogspot.com/2008/10/thai-woman-takes-bus-to-malaysia-and.html
Sometimes missing a connection, can be like a near death sentence to some people, so it's not so surprising she's so upset.
Sarah,
I hardly feel you can take the moral high ground over the anonymous coward there. Do you have a transcript of what this woman is saying? Are you clear that it's "just" a tantrum and she isn't highly disturbed, whether emotionally or mentally? Looking at the comments on Youtube there's a whole series of mocking and racist comments, and what I've read here seems little better. Oh, but it's The Register, and so effortlessly superior to the blogosphere echo chamber, so you're all right, right?
Is there a translated transcript? Cause, boy, I'd like to have an idea on the... the WHY. Also, on the one hand, we see that the people in Hong Kong polite and civilized, as she did NOT get the taser-mistreatment everyone here seems to expect as the "normal" result of stepping out of line anywhere on an airport, but then why would one be so disappointed about not being able to leave that place? Translation. Please.
quote: we had already offloaded their checked baggage to comply with the security requirements end-quote
So she was in the airport, it is not like she had been stuck in traffic. She was one of those who fail to show at the gate and every one else has to wait whilst a call goes out for the passengers, then wait some more as their bags are unloaded.
I have no sympathy for her.
Well done ....... a 1st class audition!
She's amply demonstrated many of the atributes necessary to score big points with the media ....... all she has left to do now is: prove that she's tone-deaf, dance with a pensioner or know someone who knows a football player to have completely cracked it!
Strewth, she even appears to have attended the Naomi Campbell School of Social Awareness Coaching.
It'll only be a matter of time now before she gets her own Reality TV show. Hoorah!
I can hardly wait.
@ Rag Week - that's really low ........ are you a 'celebrity' too?
Of course I can take the moral high ground. Suggesting that a woman is flipping the fuck out because she's got her period is manifestly moronic, offensive and base. It's not the only moronic and offensive standpoint expressed around here, but I tend to have a go at many of the others, too.
Dear Sarah, keep in mind that some of the geeks have no social interaction with women beyond work. There for women are a foreign species to them even they the did have mothers I think. So they have no Idea how to deal with women. If s women were to touch them with a hint of sexuality their heads would explode.
Either that or they are a US experiment gone horrible wrong .An experiment were they up the IQ of a beer drinking knuckle dragging red neck . Just enough so that he can get on the net a type .
Go easy on the knuckle-draggers, Sarah. Most men are just envious that women have any excuse at all, no matter how degrading and overused it is*, whereas men have no such excuse for their non-stop poor behavior. Men have to either rise above disgusting and crude adolescent behavior and become decent, respectable members of society, or become proud of such behavior and call it the "manly" thing as if that's how men are supposed to ask. Sadly, most males seem to choose the latter.
As for the rest of my thoughts, kain summed them up nicely so I needn't repeat them.
* While it is most often males that use menstruation as a ridiculous defense for bad behavior (as opposed to "I fucked up, and now she's pissed at me" or "She's fucking psycho"), it doesn't help that there are many women who still use this reasoning in an effort to get out of something or to explain unexplainable emotional behavior (as if human behavior is something that CAN be explained all the time).
I think I have a way to eliminate the "rag time" line. The first time a man uses it, he'll get a verbal warning. The second time, he'll get a verbal warning and a kick to the balls. The third time, he'll be Bobbitt-ized (it's hard to believe it's been 15 years). As deterrents go, I think it'll be very effective.
Nobody here speaks Cantonese? While mine isn't the best, I'll give it a go. Please see the gentleman in the grey[?] suit and pink shirt holding the tickets. Now then, it's his fault for not getting on the plane earlier. You see if he was on the plane, they would not have left without her. That's about all I can make out with a whine at that particular pitch.
I think she is right, he should have gotten on earlier, with both boarding passes and if he were clever, on an earlier flight.
Oh @ grumpy, how very chav.
Oh when women use that as an excuse , I tell then you know they have come along way in the fields of medicine. Doctors no longer think PMS is in the head. They now have drugs that help with those mood swings.
I do not like when people use gender as an excuse . I do Tech support and it piss me off when I get the occasional women that use her gender as an excuse. I once had a women tell this is to hard , we are women here we have heels
Racism and misogynistic behavior pisses me off , but lately people using gender and race for why they cant do some thing pisses me off more .
Impressive that the authorities recognised a freak-out for what it was, and didn't over-react. They were thankfully forbearing. They didn't taze and kill like in the incident with the distraught Polish (?) gentleman at an airport a while back.
Thanks for the lesson, Cathay.
What exactly is the relevance of this article to the I.T. industry? It seems that the Reg has lowered itself to the standards of the gutter press by publishing it.
If the story was about how someone's life had been made a misery by youtube showing this video, I would say well done, but no, you perpetuate the ridicule by calling her a “drama queen”. Perhaps the woman in question isn't just going mental, but actually has a real mental illness? It seems to me that if you did have to bring this story to the attention of your readers, then maybe the correct journalist angle would be to question youtube's ethics in not blocking it for its questionable content.
I think there should be more fits thrown whenever possible. Airlines get paid in advance for lousy service and questionable reliability. A missed flight is less than nothing to an airline because they already got the money for it. It is a big deal to an individual. I have missed flights because the same airline couldn't be bothered to arrange connections between it own planes. The explanation was the same cool uncaring " the doors are already closed". Only on at least one occasion they weren't. The gate agent was simply lying..............
I've seen this quite a few times lately; given your inevitable hostile reaction to anyone who makes a comment that might in any remote way be construed as being disparaging of women... you wouldn't happen to be a member of NOW by any chance would you? Or is it that you just need a holiday away from all the femininically-challenged geeks in here?
Methinks the next Reg meme might be "baiting the Bee"... >;D
Some people aren't cut out to be moderators.
"Of course I can take the moral high ground."
No. You can not. You are a moderator.
"Suggesting that a woman is flipping the fuck out because she's got her period is manifestly moronic, offensive and base."
Wrong. PMS (PMT to the Brits) is a chemical thingie that DOES happen to some woman. Like it or not, it's science, not imagination & schoolboy humor. The first lady I nearly married went off the deep end for three days every month. It wasn't until she was in Vet school that someone convinced her that meds might help ... and indeed might help her get her DVM. She agreed to see a specialist, and was diagnosed with LLPDD, now known as PMDD, and prescribed (I can't remember what). After nearly flunking out of Vet school, she now owns her own practice, is Board Certified in several advanced surgery types, and is overall a hell of a lot happier at that time of the month. She's my friend again, too, which is to me the most important thing.
My wife ovulates on one side three out of four times (as verified at Stanford). The forth time, the dogs & I are on eggshells until she figures it out and says something like "I'm ovulating on the wrong side again, aren't I?" ... If I bring it up before she does, she bites my head off. After she figures it out, she uses the mood swings as a form of hospital humor, in a kind of coping mechanism. She copes without meds, and we are working on a way of me and/or dogs giving her an early warning that she can recognize. So far, it seems the Whippet figures it out before any of us ... The last year or so, he's been demanding lap-time from her during that time, which seems to be working as a flag for her.
"It's not the only moronic and offensive standpoint expressed around here, but I tend to have a go at many of the others, too."
Whatever. See my first line. Moderators should be here to moderate, not comment about personalities. If you must comment, try to be professional about it and do it as a civilian. I speak as a long term (over a quarter century) Usenet and mailing list moderator.
Maybe I didn't make my point clearly enough. I'm not suggesting it's absurd to link women's bad moods with their hormones. I'm suggesting that it is spectacularly ignorant and appallingly narrow-minded to attribute *any and all* of women's bad moods, upsets, freak-outs, whatever to their hormones as a matter of course, and in such sniggering, belittling tones. You don't think? No one I've ever encountered who's expressed that view has been worth talking to for me, because they tend to turn out to be galloping great bigots when it comes to women and others. But thank you for your bushel of evidence.
As to moderating - don't tell me how to do my job, you patronising sod, I don't care if you were appointed Grand High Moderator Level XIV. I moderate an awful lot of comments here every day and most of the work I do no one sees (as you know, being a moderator). The rest of it - well, I like to be hands-on. That's how I do it.
In fact, now I think about it, that whole 'some ladies get this thing called PMS, it's scientific and everything' thing there - did you actually think I needed that explaining to me? I'm a girl, have been as long as I can remember and probably longer. I have female friends. I live in the world. What?
But hey, let's not fight. It really isn't worth it. How about I just concede that you're a better moderator than I am, and that you know more about women's hormones and societal attitudes to them than I do. Yeah?
Jokes about womens hormones are off the table. Apparently ladies with potential oestrogen issues are just not funny.
Kinda funny though, when Sarah flipped out in the comments, I had visions of a middle aged asian lady in El Reg being filmed on a mobile phone as she moderates a certain comments section.
We can ridicule anything else we want as Sarah is ok about that, but for the love of god don't joke about PMS..... Or Tesco's selling beer to kids (apparently the legal dept at El Reg gets uppity about that too)
Group hug before we carry on?
Ps. Sarah, the original comment, I'm pretty sure it was a Joke (no please don't rip me a new one for stating that).. Or maybe I am doing it wrong and I should be going mental when people joke about northerners and take the piss out of me?
PPS. Yes I know this comment will never see the light of day. Oh well.
Icon because we need hugs all around.
Having nearly missed a Cathay Pacific flight myself at Hong Kong airport owing to the fact that the gates are at least half an hours walk from the lounge and there's no warning* (that I could see) it is so far, I think I know exactly how she felt.
*on complaining to the crew at the gate I was told there was a map and instructions on the back of the boarding card. I showed him - blank!
Right, let's get this clear once and for all: I've nothing against those of the chinese persuasion, as a whole they are quite pleasant and often quite interesting people to meet. But once in a while a real corker shows up, a little emperor or empress, and somehow they manage to do that role much, MUCH better than any other nationality. This movie fits nicely in with what I've experienced on my travels - the one bad apple in a barrel of quiet ones really stands out, not so much for rudeness as style. Hence, my comment.
If I gave offense to the non-royalty chinese out there, my apologies. The emperors/empresses can however go take a jump in the ocean, I've had it with 5-year-olds in adult bodies pouring water, fish, or whatever else they no longer need into my shoes, drooling on my shoulder in their sleep, blocking the aisles for ages for no good reason at all etc. And noone even serves Watneys Red Barrel on the flights any more. Silly bunts...
Hey, I never said they were off the table. There's one in this very thread that I did a big smirk at. It's all in the context. And it's not about 'lady issues' - it's the smaller stuff that flags the bigger stuff, y'know? If the first one was a joke, well, I missed it.
Also, if you look around you'll find that I bawl people out for all sorts of things. If there's a hacker-in-prison story today, chances are I'll be nixing comments wishing horrible torture and rape on the perpetrator in question.
I don't know about the group hug. But you can have a biscuit. It's gone a bit soft but it's still edible.
I will pass on the biscuit thanks as we are just about to sit down to dinner of beef heart and cheesy mash (all homegrown/reared save the cheese), but thank you :]
I have of course noticed your hands on approach to moderating and 99.9% of the time its very welcome so keep it up,I think it actually helps readers feel a little more involved with when we sometimes get a response on comments from someone at Reg Towers.
/hug
any person of the female persuasion, who a)works with the people at the Reg and b)attempts to moderate the various insane persons who inhabit it is undoubtedly a Godess in both technical and feminine terms. I don't choose to contradict or judge such a Lady.
Posted as AC in case the wife thinks I've found love online.
Ok I'll concede that there maybe a bigger issue here but really if they had already off loaded her baggage then it looks to me more like she's one of those people who you see on every flight. Totally convinced that the check in and boarding times don't apply to them. I've been on more than I care to count where I've seen people go into almost this level of histrionics when their arrogance caught up with them.
Either that or it's a damn good audition tape for you tube stardom =P.
@Sarah: You're fully half the reason I read the the entire comments section on articles, just to see if you respond to something :-). Keep up the good work.
Haven't read all comments yet, so forgive me if someone else has done it.
Video here with English subtitles of what is being said.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHp7tn9yfm4&feature=related
No (apparent) mental problems, no separated child (really, what airline wouldn't get a child off a plane - what a stupid comment Pat Ar!). It is just a video of a pointless, childish tantrum.
Of a conversation that some "ladies" of a rather feminist persuasion were having in front of me in a cafe a few years ago, in voices loud enough and with glances that indicated the display was largely for my benefit. The conversation culminated in something along the lines of:
F1: "Never! He asked her if she suffered from PMT? During a job interview? What a pig! " - with frequent glares at me being the only male around. Being a shy retiring type, I felt I had to bring myself to comment. In the news at the time (which will date me!!) was an item about how a woman had been acquitted of murdering her husband because she was suffering from PMT.
Me: "do you think it was unreasonable for a man to ask a woman he was interviewing for a job whether she suffered from PMT in case it might affect her work?"
F1(almost spitting): "What an idiotic question! Of course it is unreasonable. Having PMT in no way affects here behaviour at work! How could it? What a typically male thing to say!"
Me: "So, given that statement, how would you explain the defence of the woman acquitted for murdering her husband on the grounds that her PMT affected her behaviour so much that she was unable to control herself to the point where she was unable to stop herself killing someone? Is PMT so trivial it should never be asked about, or so severe it can lead to a woman taking a life?"
F1 was Apoplectic but speechless. I love the sound of bigots being hoisted by their own petards!
Paris because I'm sure she would never kill anyone.
First, I believe you meant 'hoist'.
Second - are you sure it's kosher for a prospective employer to ask *any* medical questions at interview? Because I'm not.
Third - congratulations on your brilliant smackdown. You must be very proud. Righteous, too. Those bitches sure needed telling.
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