As someone who traveled many times as an unaccompanied minor (without a cellphone) in the early 2000s under United Airlines, American Airlines, and Northwest Airlines, I'm shocked to hear this story. I always felt safe and knew who was in charge of taking me from place to place. I'm astonished that United's service has deteriorated to this extent. Yes, it was only a very small sample size of United's service staff, but the fact that this situation happened does not bode well for the quality of their service and will hopefully spark something in the administration and leadership to revitalize the culture that currently tolerates such treatment. If not, well, there are plenty of cheaper airlines with superior service and United's marketshare and reputation will suffer. There's always someone willing to provide the service you do for less. You have to figure out what you can do better than the other guys and capitalize on it.