"Happy wife, happy life" is a common phrase we hear when a husband seeks to please his wife, the premise being that he can positively change the atmosphere in his marriage.

The same quote can be applied to corporations that seek to please the consumer or do well with their own employees.In recent weeks, we've seen two notable enterprises, one a major airline and the other a sports franchise, show the best and the worst involving their people skills.Delta Airlines made a major public relations fumble when it charged a father an extra $88 to sit next to his 4-year-old daughter while he was taking a flight from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Montgomery, Alabama.Frank Strong said when he booked the flight on Delta's website, he supplied his daughter's age, yet the company assigned her a seat 11 rows away from him.When he spoke with a ticket agent at the airport, Strong said he was told he could pay $88 to switch seats or try asking a gate agent during boarding to switch his seat for free.Strong decided not to risk having his seating problem fixed at the gate. He opted to pay the additional charge, which was in addition to the $1,200 he paid for the airline tickets. When he boarded the plane, however, Strong found that there were plenty of empty seats on the flight.News about a company trying to squeeze a few more dollars from a concerned parent who just wanted a seat next to his young daughter is not the kind of publicity that enhances a company's image.A more positive story came courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles baseball organization who took care of their stadium workers after last month's civil unrest in that city.As a result of the rioting and tensions near the stadium, which forced the Orioles to close the Camden Yards in the best interest of fan safety, the Orioles and Major League Baseball postponed two of their scheduled games and played the third game in an empty stadium, the first time it's happened in MLB history. Baltimore's next four scheduled home games against the Rays were switched to Tampa Bay.Despite losing millions in revenue due to the canceled home games, the organization still managed to remember the stadium workers who lost a week's worth of work and wages because of the shutdown.The workers, many of whom are dependent on their stadium paychecks, were compensated for all the hours they would have ordinarily worked that week.In an otherwise dark chapter in Baltimore history, the Orioles' management provided a positive ray of light to the city's tarnished image.By JIM ZBICKtneditor@tnonline.com