Who ‘nose’ what they’re
saying? 11.12.08
I'VE been wondering
recently why the people who make announcements in
airports have got to talk like they have a peg on their
nose.
You know, those people who do the talking after you hear
that ‘bing bong’ noise that comes every few minutes.
I was wondering this having recently travelled through
Dublin Airport and having made a conscious decision on
my way there to really listen intently to see if I could
understand what they say.
I did listen, and while I can’t say this with any real
degree of certainty, I think they might even have been
speaking English.
What I can’t say though is that I understood much. |
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Normally this wouldn’t
bother me, but recently I’ve been wondering if I was
needed in an emergency situation or if I was running
late for my plane or it had been changed to a different
boarding gate, would I know what the hell was going on?
And I think now that I wouldn’t, well at least not on
the evidence of what I heard, or perhaps more correctly
what I didn’t hear at the airport.
What made things ever worse this time was the fact that
the words I could hear were just ones that would add to
the stress of travelling.
At this point I would normally try to type out a kinda
phonetic version of what I did hear, but honestly folks
the announcements are so bad I wouldn’t even know where
to begin.
What I did hear was ‘passenger’ or a word that sounded
like passenger followed by a whole garbled mess and then
‘immediately.’
Now usually I’m a kinda laid back traveller, helped by
the fact that my better half is so super-organised that
we normally get to an airport with ages to spare and
always know where we have to be and at what time.
The rushers, and I have some in my family, can’t
understand why we do that.
You know rushers, the people who time check-in to the
very last second, and who board when you’ve finished the
pack of sweets you brought for take off and you’re
sitting wondering why you’re still not in the air.
I’m thankful that my better half is so well organised
because left to my own devices I think I’d probably be a
rusher and I’m pretty certain that might be very
stressful.
I say this because my theory is that many of those
garbled messages you hear at airports are for the
rushers.
Among the words that you often can make out are ‘this is
the last and final call for,’ and I’m certain that
organised people never have to worry about such things.
But what if, …what if you were there on time and you had
checked in and you were sitting at the gate they said to
go to and you were there for ages…and then they decided
that the plane would go from a different gate and that
was at the other side of the airport.
What then? If you were an organised person who usually
didn’t worry about not understanding Ms Airport
Announcer, would you be able to tune in and understand
that you had to leg it across the terminal to a
different gate.
I also began to wonder about the many international
travelers who travel through the airport and whether or
not they would have any chance whatsoever of
understanding the announcements from the ‘bing bong’
woman.
On the other hand there was no fear of anyone not
knowing that they shouldn’t leave their bag unattended
even for a few minutes.
That announcement, made every few minutes, was crystal
clear, and left nobody in any doubt that their bags
would be removed if they were to leave them lying
around.
Then I began to wonder why that guy didn’t just make all
the announcements. After all he was very audible and
clear and seemed to make a far better job of things than
the other announcer. |
Apparently it’s all down to
seniority. He is not as far up the ladder as the other
announcers so he can just get to make recorded messages
and then spend the rest of the day running around the
car-park rounding up trolleys or something like that.
Those there longer though know that the announcer’s job
is a handy number, nice and warm in some office and they
devised a method of sorting out who gets the job.
Apparently, whichever of the longest serving staff has
the biggest nose…they get to pick it… |
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A DROP OF
PORTER is
the weekly
column of
Inishowen
Independent
editor,
Liam Porter. |
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