Compensation Olympics

Back in the day, when I regularly traveled all over Europe and America to interview game developers about their upcoming titles, I once was involved in America's compensation culture; I have good memories about it, because it earned me a 1000 dollar airplane ticket, to be used as I pleased, and allowed me to visit my country of birth, Suriname, basically for free the next year.

_{source: The Blue Diamond Gallery}

Compensation culture is a bad thing though, even if I got lucky with it in the spring of 2001. What happened was that PC Gamer, the Dutch edition, got us a three day return ticket to Los Angeles in order to visit E3. The return flight back to The Netherlands was overbooked for some reason, so me and the editor in chief who accompanied me had to stay an extra night and return the next day. That was when we were both completely, and pleasantly I might add, surprised that not only were all additional expenses taken care of, but we were given a luxurious 4 star hotel room for the extra night, including dinner, breakfast and room-service, and we received at the airport the next morning a 1000 dollar airplane ticket which we could spend on any flight on the company's roster.

Little did I know back then about the compensation culture that lies at the root of the generous treatment we got from the airline. They have this as a standard policy and they gladly pay for all I just described, in order to prevent even higher costs; not being able to board on overbooked flights is categorized as being "voluntarily denied" boarding if and when you agree to their standard policy, as opposed to being "involuntarily denied" boarding, which is subject to the maximum amount of compensation for the passenger. The video below describes such a case, and in it I learned that the standard for domestic flights is a 400 dollar voucher, where I got a 1000 dollar voucher for an intercontinental flight. But like I said: me nor the editor in chief knew about this, and we had other pressing things on our heads, like having deadlines to meet. Also, all prices I mention here are just the ones I heard in the video and what I got myself; I haven't investigated the specifics any further, as I'm just trying to make a general point here.

The point is that it's bad, so bad... The case discussed in the video is thought provoking to say the least, and a perfect example of how this compensation culture is just another symptom of a society that glorifies individuality and individual responsibility. The discussion is about a passenger that had to stand for 7 hours, because he was seated next to a severely overweight person who had to leave the arm-seat up in order to be able to sit, and took half of the seat next to him as well. Now everything was sorted out amiable between the passengers and the flight attendants, but what followed is plain ugly. Who is responsible? That's the extent of the discussion. Who do we blame? "Compo culture" is used to describe a "where there's blame, there's a claim" culture, which fits neatly within the neoliberal paradigm that recognizes only individuals and ignores the society in which they function. Should we now raise an "obesity tax"? Should overweight people be forced to pay for two seats? In the discussion they even contemplate erecting a database for keeping track of obese citizens...

Identity politics, the identification and protection against injustice of marginalized groups, is often mischaracterized by the political right as some celebration of "victim mentality", even calling it oppression Olympics and other derogatory slogans, while championing a socioeconomic reality that reduces everything to the individual and demands from each and every participant to prioritize the pursuit of personal gain above everything else, a culture in which every misfortune in life calls for a search for someone to blame. The airline is under pressure to fill each flight to the last seat in this culture, we can't really blame them for being economically efficient. The overweight passenger is a victim of the same ideology that underpays him and overworks him; microwave dinners and fast food fit in the schedule of the 24-hour economy. Can we blame him? And do we need to punish him by making him pay more? In the discussion, the passenger that had to stand for 7 hours, the only victim recognized in this story, only got a 200 dollar voucher for his trouble; it's not explained, but my guess is that the airline decided on 200 dollar because it's half of the 400 dollar standard for domestic flights, and he did have half a seat available to him... That's rubbish of course, I'm just thinking out loud and I sometimes have crazy thoughts ;-)

_{Man Stands on 7 Hour Flight Because of Obese Passenger}

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