Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Julius]

Belligerent dumb alcoholic males around the age of 40.

[twg]

[JMO]

When I first was coming to korea I thought I had landed the seatmates from hell on the way to Dubai(my first stopover). It was an indian lady and her handicapped son. I was in the window seat so I literally had to climb over him to get to the toilet. He also kept calling me daddy. He was cute though and he kinda grew on me. I really like his mother. She seemed like a very strong woman and she was pretty funny. All in all a good experience in the end. The funniest part was the kid didn't know he was on a plane, thats what the mom said anyway. An interesting ride that went wuicker than I thought it would.

My worst seatmate was a pregnant woman who was air sick the whole way. I was in an aisle seat in the middle row(i always ask for this seat now) and there was nobody in the middle seat. So she lay down on this seat and I gav her my pillow. She was heaving for the duration. I felt really sorry for her and wanted to punch out the guy who was smoking in the toilets not far away. The smell smoke must have made it worst. I puke easily and was getting close just looking at her.

[bluelake]

I've experienced most of the choices in the poll, along with a few not listed. I chose the alcoholic one as I remember one incident quite well that happened many years ago. It was a time when my son was not flying with me, so I traveled alone. I had a hard time finding a flight, so I ended up taking a mixed route to get back to Korea. By the time I got to the int'l airport where I was to board a KAL flight, I felt miserable; I was tired and had a sinus headache. I was in no mood for any mishaps.

I got in a very long line to get my boarding pass for the flight. When it was my turn, the counter person (Korean) couldn't find my reservation, even though I had confirmed and reconfirmed it. I had to get out of line and call my travel agent, who again reconfirmed my reservation. I went back to the counter person who told me I had to get in the stand-by line, to which I said I wanted to speak to her manager; she told me I had to get in the stand-by line, as that is where her manager was. I waited and waited again, in a line that moved maybe two inches per year...

When I finally got up to the counter, I was ready to lay into the manager (Korean), as my head and nerves were at the breaking point. He just said, "Wait a minute..." and started keying in things to his computer. He then said, "Please follow Miss Cho; she will take care of you." I was beyond caring at that point.

Miss Cho took me to another computer terminal and she keyed in a few things, and then handed me boarding passes for the Morning Calm class, or whatever business class was called in those days at KAL. She explained that someone (not my travel agent) had pressed a "9" on their reservation computer instead of an "8" (September instead of August). My flight was scheduled to leave the next month! I gratefully took the boarding passes and thought, "Well, at least I'll have some comfort in my misery."

I boarded the plane, went up the spiral stairs, and looked for my window seat. Well, that seat was occupied by a guy who was out like a light. Although I would have liked the window seat, I took the aisle, as any seat in that section of the plane was comfortable. This is where the drunk comes in...

Seated across the aisle from me was an old Korean man. He was wearing a loud Hawaiin shirt and was drinking whiskey straight by the tumbler full. During the flight, he was loud and obnoxious, and demanded that the flight attendants wait on him like slaves. He even demanded one take his shoes off for him and place the complimentary slippers on his feet. He kept demanding more whiskey. Finally, he passed out. I thought that would be the end of it, to which I was sadly mistaken. He jerked around in his passed-out stupor and swatted a nearly full glass of whiskey that flew across the aisle and soaked my trousers. The flight attendant quickly came over with a towel and apologized profusely; although I felt they should have cut the guy off with the booze long before (and hog-tied him to his seat gagged), they had been through a lot and I just let it go.

While having the upgrade was nice, the drunk and sinus headache kind of muted any benefits.

[Big_Bird]

[Big_Bird]

[Cheonmunka]

1: A smelly backpacker.
2: A baby hater.
3: A salesperson.

[yingwenlaoshi]

Someone who shat their pants.

[Cheonmunka]

Damn Yingwenlaoshi, let me get in my edits!

[yingwenlaoshi]

Oh, I forgot...

And a baby.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[cwemory]

Someone who is airsick should really be option. The sound of wretching and vomitting trumps crying babies and drunken ajossis everytime.
I spent a very uncomfortable flight to Fiji (originating in Beijing with a connection in Seoul) in front of and behind four constantly sick Chinese passengers wh spent the entire 10 to 11 hours vomitting. I spent the whole flight with my legs curled up, convinced at any moment a river of puke was going to run under my seat.

[peppermint]

I'm with wondering on this one.

I'm not a fan of kids on planes, but that's because I did a lot of transcontinental flying as a munchkin myself and hated every second. No matter how many presents my grandparents gave me upon arrival, the flights felt like being punished.

Flying is generally an unpleasant necessity, and if I can make it easier on someone else without major inconvenience to myself, I will. Switching seats so a big family can sit closer together, keeping an eye on kids while parents go to the washroom, common decency- no?

worst seatmate I ever had was a little kid travelling alone to visit his dad. Poor thing was scared witless, first time flying, alone, and he was barely old enough to be crossing the street by himself. We chatted, played lots of tic tac toe and the like, got him a tour of the cockpit ( they still let kids up there at the time) but we hit turbulence on landing, and he had a rather violent burst of air sickness. Best evidence to date that I'm not mommy material.

Newbie, I took that flight a few years ago, outbound wasn't half bad. The flight back, with all the excited ajuma and ajoshi in kimchi withdrawal was much, much worse.

Mr. Guru, surely a man leading the stylish, dangerous, mysterious life that you do would've heard of this by now.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[OiGirl]

I voted an obese person because it would be more like seated under.