Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Did you miss the footage?
Well, please let me recount it for you. (I’ve posted a couple of highlights below too.)
A 71-year-old United Airlines customer at Houston Airport was having trouble with a badly-printed boarding pass. He walked up to a United employee to ask for help.
When push came to shove, it seemed for all the world as if the United employee, Alejandro Anastasia, shoved him to the ground.
The customer, Ronald Tigner, lay there motionless.
Anastasia didn’t help. No one from United did. It took a nurse who was passing by to check on him and get him help.
I wrote about this in June, as it had all the potential of a slightly egregious form of customer disservice.
The incident happened two years ago, but only now is there a lawsuit, with Tigner suing United Airlines and Anastasia for $1 million.
Update: Anastasia, who was fired by United and charged with injuring an elderly individual, is now suing Tigner.
At the time of the charge, he agreed to anger management classes and paid restitution, so the case was dropped.
Oh, but now he’s suing United too. Yes, for a similar $1 million amount.
I return to the tale only because both men have now spoken to KPRC-TV. You might find the highlights edifying.
Anastasia insists that Tigner uttered racial epithets.
Tigner thinks this is piffle. He says he offered neither slurs nor threats.
“He was smiling and smirking and I told him, ‘I really don’t appreciate you smirking,’ and all of a sudden he said I’m going to kick your bleeping a**,'” said Tigner.
He said what happened next was painful.
“I passed him and all of the sudden he just goes like that (he indicated a pushing motion) and the next thing I remember, I remember sort of stumbling back and I remember hurting.”
Over to the Anastasia corner.
“When I turn around, he (Tigner) steps on my toe and he gets in my face, you know, like an inch from my face and tells me ‘wipe that ******* smirk off your face,'” Anastasia said.
Wait, I hear you thinking. The video shows that Anastasia seems a lot bigger than Tigner.
Anastasia confirms this: “Now, he’s smaller than me and I’m bigger and supposedly, you know, he’s an elderly man… and I just back away, you know, backed away.”
A neat use of supposedly, some observers might sniff.
Still, Anastasia says he only extended his arms to get away from Tigner.
“That’s when I think he lost his balance and that’s when he fell,” the former United employee explains.
A neat use of think, I hear you say.
And now for the line that you’ll either believe or, well, not.
“Honestly, I was just scared of him.”
Yes, that was uttered by Anastasia, not Tigner.
You’re wondering why Anastasia didn’t come to Tigner’s aid, as he laid pole-axed on the floor, aren’t you?
“I didn’t want to get near him, just because somebody might think I want to continue hitting him,” said Anastasia.
But wait. Continue hitting him? You didn’t hit him at all, did you? Or did I get that wrong? He lost his balance and fell, didn’t he? These airline customer service issues can be vexing.
The scorecard so far: Tigner is suing Anastasia and United for negligence. Anastasia is suing Tigner and United for quite a few things. Negligence and damages, for example.
His lawsuit offers that United didn’t “adequately train Anastasia and other employees to deal with unruly and abusive customers such as Tigner.”
Ah. It was the lack of training that made him extend his arms in order to get away from a customer?
Are you still with me? Or do you need to hear from United?
Here is the airline’s statement: “As this is an ongoing legal matter, we are unable to discuss beyond what we’ve previously shared.”
What United previously shared was this: “We have seen the video from 2015 that shows completely unacceptable behavior by a United employee. This employee is no longer with our company. The conduct shown here does not reflect our values or our commitment to treat all of our customers with respect and dignity. We are taking a thorough look into what happened here and reaching out to our customer to profusely apologize for what occurred and to make this right.”
Customer service isn’t often easy. Here, though, we have just a few seconds when something went incredibly wrong.
Do you have a verdict upon which you are all agreed?
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.