Fog City Media Blog

I am not sure if you have been following WIRED’s Terminal Man series on their Autopia blog but if you have you’ll recognize these two:

Josh and Dan DuVall Photo: WIRED/Brendan Ross

Josh DuVall (@JDDuVall) has been following Terminal Man (aka Brendan Ross/@Flyered) on Twitter and when he saw Brendan was headed for Charlotte, NC he offered to buy him lunch at his family’s airport restaurant, the Stock Car Cafe. As a result Josh and his dad Dan had their photo taken by Brendan and included at the bottom at one of Brendan’s posts. The DuVall’s are living proof that southern hospitality is alive and well.

Odds are most people won’t remember to stop by the Stock Car Cafe next time they are passing through the Charlotte, NC airport but for those that do it would be great if they sat down and had a proper meal so that the DuVall’s good deeds don’t go unrecognized. I tried to do my part by giving @Wachovia and @Ask_WellsFargo a heads-up about Josh’s additional offer of assistance:

@Wachovia employee @JDDuVall taking initiative to provide customer service to @Flyered. Maybe some kudos for this guy, @Ask_WellsFargo?
4:27 AM Sep 20th from twhirl

Josh works part time as a customer service rep at Wachovia and had just offered to help Brendan out with his banking needs if he ever found himself dealing with Wachovia. Wachovia picked it up and sent this reply:

@fogcitymedia Thanks for the tip. We’ll look into it! ^IM
about 10 hours ago from CoTweet in reply to fogcitymedia

Hopefully, Josh will get some recognition for his efforts and this whole thing will come full circle. What strikes me most about this experiment is that it seems few, if any, businesses are taking this opportunity to show the kind of hospitality that the DuVall’s were able to serve up. A little kindness would probably do their bottom line some good.

While I am sure the DuVall’s would love to welcome a few more visitors I bet they would prefer that folks lend a hand to Brendan who is still out there flying around the friendly skies. I would hope that at least @Peets_Tweets (Peet’s Coffee) and @Starbucks would offer him a free cup of coffee. Perhaps @AAirwaves (American Airlines) could comp Brendan a free pass to the Admirals Club for a day so he could take a proper shower. I recently flew American home for a visit and their lounge in Chicago looked pretty nice from the outside.

Terminal 5 at JFK has a dozen eateries and various shops all of which could have stepped up and Twittered their offers. I am also a bit surprised that no NY news outlet and/or publication has at least sent someone down to the JetBlue terminal to meet up with Brendan. While I wouldn’t expect Conde Nast, which owns WIRED, to send a GQ or Traveler writer down to Terminal 5, I could envision a local TV network arranging an interview. (I don’t have any @’s for local NY news so please pass ‘em on if you do.)

The point is Brendan is out there sleeping on benches and living on burritos. I don’t think it would be too hard for a marketing department in a hub city to show Brendan a little hospitality and maybe even buy him a new sleeping pad, which he seems to be in need of. Those who do manage to treat Brendan to a meal might be able to convince him to send out a courtesy Tweet to his 2,687 followers on Twitter and maybe even give them an honorable mention on WIRED. While I am pretty sure the DuVall’s never had that intention it might turn out that thanks to their kindness their restaurant becomes one of the more popular stops in Charlotte. If not, at least their hospitality is now well known.

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