I never want to be one of Those People who takes great pleasure in asserting her right to good customer service. These power-starved people who feel that any lapse in customer service, no matter how tiny, is a direct and intentional assault on their Rights As A Customer. Or else a personal slight that goes deep down directly to the very core of their human dignity.

You know- those people who become incensed when they learn that the plane has just run out of the chicken meal and -no -they don’t want to eat beef or a cold plate because they have paid just as much as the last chicken-eating customer. It is not the beef. It is the principle. You know those Principled People. Then these people ask to speak to the manager and begin their story with, "you know, I’ve been a loyal customer of x company for x years. For the last x years, I’ve flown on your airline day in and day out. I even bought my daughter a child-size air hostess uniform when she was younger. I sing your praises any chance I get. But after this [insert offensive incident] that is all gonna change, I tell you. I’ve never been treated like this before. I don’t know what is going on here. But It Just Isn’t Right."

Their outrage is loud and sometimes they’ll bring you into It as a prop. Like when you are sitting behind one of them and she whips around and points at you and says, loudly, "how do you feel learning that x company thinks you are a second-rate customer and that you don’t deserve chicken and that you should eat whatever dregs are left over from the front-of-the-plane customers? Hmm?" And then you are in a lose-lose situation where if you say something to agree with this person, you are guaranteed to have air hostess spit in your next coffee, and if you disagree, or honestly admit you could care less about the chicken because you had pre-ordered the Asian Vegetarian meal, not because you are Asian or a vegetarian, but because you were curious about it and the option was open to you, you may have to prolong your embarrassingly loud and public conversation with this person. Or worse, have her wrath transferred onto you.

No, I never want to be one of those people.

Or one of those people who thinks that vanilla is a valid flavour of ice cream.