Here comes the Judge.

 Review, review, review.

I never saw myself as an expert on anything. I mean, I know my job. Still, I would never call myself an expert. At best, all I know is how it works for me. Yet every day I open my email, and there they are, the mails, asking me to review whatever I have bought or signed up for that particular day or week.

“Nigel, how would you rate our performance in delivering the parcel you ordered?” How am I supposed to answer that? Did the truck driver have a bad day? Was he encountering highwaymen keen on stealing my parcel? Did he have to fight them off? What is the usual way parcels are delivered? I ordered it and a few days later it arrived at my house. That’s it, end of contract. How do I ‘rate’ that? Is it 0-5 stars? I’d say 5, but I don’t know the whole story. The driver might have had a long lunch, which caused at least a half-hour delay. I need to know the details. If you want me to ‘rate’ your performance, please give me the whole story. 

“Nigel, you recently flew with our airline. How would you rate it?” Here we go again. I booked a flight, and it took me to my destination. End of story. Have there been recent cases of aeroplanes losing their way and dropping people off at places they weren’t planning to go? 

I wasn’t expecting anything other than what I got, so I’ll give you a 4-star rating. I mean, I could argue about the legroom or the taste of the on-board coffee. Still, I always take those two as a ‘given’. Maybe next time you can put all the passengers with small children in the same row, so we can be cut off from them and get some sleep. 

One other thing, please tell the pilot to shut the f*** up so we can watch some film in peace, we don’t need information from the pilot about altitude and turbulence, we get it, we are high in the sky and sometimes it gets bumpy, you fly the plane we’ll just carry on watching 9/11 on Netflix. 

Feeling sympathy for the employees, I always complete these questionnaires. I feel like someone (low on the company ladder) will lose their job if I give a bad review, so I offer a maximum rating, even though my new shirt arrived ripped and was first delivered to the obese guy down the road. 

I know these mails are sent out by company ‘bots’, algorithms, and as such, untouched by human brains (which, by the way, are becoming a thing of the past). So, I could and should not answer the emails, but hey, I’m an artist, and I know ‘we all need a good review’ now and again. 

So…

Dear Ryan Air, I recently flew with your airline. Can you take 5 minutes to fill out this questionnaire about my performance as a passenger?’ How would you describe your experience of having me on your plane? Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve as an airline passenger? Please send your thoughts, and I’ll do my best to implement them on my next flight.’