Why is this job not handled by a machine yet?
Counterpoint: a few years ago, having been stuck in abnormally high traffic on the way to the airport, I was running right on the cusp of the arbitrary check-in deadline for my flight. I began the automated checkin service, which was comparitively extremely slow on that day also. It let me start the process, but threw an unspecified error when I got to the final stages to print my boarding pass and bag tags. Upon retrying, I was past the check-in deadline. Buggery.<p>Walking over to the check-in counter, a polite explanation of the situation I found myself in (and, possibly, my moderate-level status with the carrier but I don&#x27;t fully know) made the service attendant remove the problem in about 30 seconds, guaranteeing that both I and my luggage would make the flight with no problems despite being &#x27;technically past the deadline now&#x27;.<p>Flesh-based interaction points, by their very nature, have a tendancy to span a far broader range of service quality than machines. The bad are far worse because machines don&#x27;t gossip and hate their jobs. Conversely, machines have little hope when things go south compared with a good service employee, who&#x27;ll do their level best to go above and beyond their basic responsibilites to make whatever issue you have either go away or minimally impact you.<p>My experience is that one of the most apparent examples of this is if you ever find yourself significantly up the greasy ladder of the airline status game for whatever reason. I postulate that because carriers have realised that &#x27;bending the rules&#x27; is a relatively 0-cost commodity to exchange for brand loyalty and this is precisely factored into the training and job directives of their employees.