**rant**
My, how the Australian social landscape has changed in the last 25 years! How glad am I that I left! I'm leaving 22/05 for a different destination from the one I was originally booked to, have to book a hotel and a car to get to where I was originally going, can't cancel existing reservations, lost money yada yada. That's life, and them's the breaks. I'm not thrilled, but I'll cope. I won't be living in a gutter, or a cardboard box as a result. Even if I was, I wouldn't totally respond by negating the fundamental right of an employee to withdraw their labour ... just because my vacation got scr*w*d around. And it sure doesn't make me want to suddenly give human qualities to companies (it's a company for f's sake, not a baby), and put a curse on "evil organized labour" for "daring" to say something about their working conditions. Even in the 21st century. Nope, they don't work in mines against their will, as has been so astutely pointed out. But I'm sure if someone bought a house and one day the original owner came along and took back one of the unused bedrooms and 250m2 of excess garden, there'd be b*tching about a breach of contract and unfair withdrawal of contractually - and legally - protected rights. And I'm fairly certain that no one here would be sitting around saying that there was no basis for complaining, because of extenuating circumstances like the weather, freak geological events or an adverse prevailing economic climate.
I get that this is a forum of status chasers, and all that that entails. I'm here, so I can relate. Some of the comments I've read, however, are so way off-base that I just have a really hard time not saying how truly revolted I am. And how much it makes me sometimes regret my nationality of birth.
EDIT And I hesitated adding this, but what the hell, I AM old. I get that some of the comments are made by people of, shall we say, less life experience. However, shame on you just the same.
**/rant**