Only some of the employees know what they are doing, and only some of them care. I had a flight that was supposed to go from CLT-HOU-SFO; my parents' flight to Dallas was two hours later. They left before me because my plane had mechanical problems and no one could figure out whether to repair our damn plane or just switch it out. When they finally did get a different plane for us, it was three and a half hours later meaning that we missed our connecting flights.
Rebooking a new flight was a nightmare because it was the holidays. The Southwest HOU employees that rebooked us onto an LAX flight and put us up in a hotel were pretty pissed and even admitted that the Southwest CLT employees should not have delayed our flight by three and a half hours since they knew we would miss our flights; they should've just waited another day and put us up in a nearby hotel for the meantime. I sure would have appreciated that, seeing as I was already sick, stressed, and jet-lagged even before I arrived at the airport.