Reading your email is not a matter of luck

I just got a notification from Air Canada telling me that my flight had been changed. Okay, whatever, flights change sometimes, although I note that Air Canada flights from Toronto to Thunder Bay change a little bit more often than normal levels of sanity might imply.

But what annoyed me about their email was this:

Unfortunately, replies to this e-mail will not be read.

Oh, really? Unfortunately? It isn't unfortunate at all. Unfortunate is something like this: "Unfortunately, we had to change your flight." You know, to explain away bad luck, whether it be bad luck in flight scheduling technicalities or bad luck in choosing your management team.

What they really mean is, "Because we don't like you and don't care about the quality of our customer service and feel that our emails to you are much more important than the opposite, replies to this email will not be read." It would also be accurate to continue with, "And if you try to contact us by phone, we'll make you wait on hold for half an hour and then, unfortunately, drop the call because we and/or our communications devices are incompetent."

(Every time I complain about Air Canada, I feel bad, because Westjet is much better in every way. I don't know if they read their emails either, but I do know that they answer the phone. Unfortunately, there's no sane way for me to get from London, Ontario, to Thunder Bay, Ontario via Westjet.)

::li