Opting for Convenience over Disrepect?

when did this notion to opt for disrespect over convenience begin?  in 2008 when the gasoline prices hit an all-time high companies began charging their customers "fuel surcharges" as if they were the only ones who were required to pay these absorbent prices!  did you or anyone you know get to expense this to your employers because you were still required to go to work?  i know i didn't and would've been laughed out the door had i tried.  utility companies, trucking companies, grocery store chains, airlines - they all stuck it to us like WE caused the gas price increases.  wouldn't this just be a "cost of doing business" like we all learned about in marketing classes?

it seems to me that we are all becoming to complacent with poor service, inferior quality and nonchalant attitudes.  there should be a public outcry, consumer protests!  we're not going to take it lightly!  but, alas, we are too busy to even fight for ourselves.  it is more convenient to just withstand the disrespect of  being corralled into airline seats that are entirely too small for a non-overweight full sized adult.  we groan and complain about the price of the tickets and are outraged by paying airfare for our luggage including our carry-on bags.  we are trafficked through the skies on ancient airplanes held together by no more than duct tape and chewing gum, on flights whose on-time records are minuscule at best, unfed and told we must pay for the most minor of in-flight luxuries like peanuts, water & headsets to listen to the movies.  yet we obey and continue to give them our hard earned money and hope they'll get better.  they don't.

but, oh, doesn't this instinct to accept the worst while closing our eyes and hoping for the best stem from our personal lives?  the spouses and significant others who treat us poorly, take advantage of our kindness, lie, cheat and con us into getting what they need from us - isn't it more of the same if we never demand more for ourselves?  in the infamous words of a well known talk show psychologist, "we teach others how to treat us."  if you're sitting around wasting time with someone who doesn't treat you with the dignity & respect you deserve, waiting for your Prince or Princess Charming to come, and they pulled up to the gate in a fully stocked 747 with plenty of leg & shoulder room, you'd miss the flight if you're to inconvenienced to tell the wrong one to take off, get up and walk down the tarmac alone.