40 Comments

He was pretty clear Richard it seems like you're the one tying yourself up in knots

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Frustrating, Time Waisting, Confusing, Repetitious. I hope you had plenty of time to spare.

Bot was ‘on’ something.

What was the food like as it was also prepared by Bot?

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You might also note that the stupid bot could not figure out what I was asking and didn’t actually answer my question. I think that I rang back afterwards to try and figure it out rather than try to make sense out of a chat bot’s responses.

AI is really, really thick.

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It’s annoying and frustrating having to spend time responding to such incompetence.

A bad reflection on the airline. Good that you didn’t waste your money on them.

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I flew Etihad in the end. Probably because of price but maybe a little because of time that they flew as well. Food was fine.

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A lot of people got the vaccines as a magic potion so they could fly.

I don't think that it did grow them any wings actually, so that was false advertising.

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That flight I took to Brisbane before Australia had announced that they were open to we unvaccinated was kind of fun in hindsight for many reasons. One of them was the woman sitting next to me who desperately wanted to remove her mask but was silly enough to ask permission. I just told her that she didn’t have to wear it but that if she didn’t want to openly defy the authority of the airline hostess that Americans were getting around it by eating a peanut every 5 minutes.

She kept her mask on….

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Airline hostesses were friendly to me. They even told me that I could get away without a mask on the plane but once I got to the airport I would have to put one on. Of course that was also unnnecessary.

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Still seeing people in masks who take them off to eat finger food and chat.

I must admit to not being as open to their wisdom when they speak.

I am surprised when they say something sensible.

It's hard to not tell them that wearing a mask is unhealthy for breathing for the maskee.

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PS: finger food was AGM sausage rolls etc not cannibalism.

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Unless I’m at somebody’s business, and corporates don’t count, then they usually get some sort of opinion from my direction.

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How was Etihad? Did you achieve what you wanted for your business?

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Etihad is fine but on the way there it’s a painful 10 hour stop at Abu Dhabi. Yes I did achieve what I needed to for business but clearly it’s difficult dealing with Russia right now not because of Russia but due to the restrictions in place and extra duties (41% from Russia vs 5% anywhere else) and so on.

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10 hours is a long stop. I guess not long enough to leave the airport and do any

sight-seeing. Did you suffer from jet-lag?

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Maybe on the way there. But was up at 6:30 am first morning as I was for the whole time that I was there. It was reasonably warm for that time of the year, first few days I didn’t need an overcoat. More recently I saw that it got to 23ºC in mid April.

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I didn’t get out of Abu Dhabi airport, didn’t seem worth the effort for 4 hours.

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Russians are very keen to help I should add, as they dont’ want this either. They’re generally a lot more critical of their government (in private) than Substackers are that’s for sure.

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Those at the top politically can’t let go of bitter resentments.

The grooves in their mind run deep. Occurring mostly in these old countries.

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I wonder who is at top there. Putin himself is from St Petersburg/Leningrad.

http://www.saint-petersburg.com/history/great-patriotic-war-and-siege-of-leningrad/

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But yes you do need a different way of asking questions if it is a bot. Kind of like talking to a robotic Dr Spock...

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Similar to talking with a diversity hire receptionist.

Cheerful demeanor but low understanding other than a few set responses.

Useful brick wall for the company though as no one is surprised when the call back with the answer never happens.

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