Yup.Not just UOR, too. Capacity hungry managers are a huge problem at some parks, to the point where they become vicious and counter-intuitive to both employee morale and customer service. You have no idea what replacing anyone at load for being too slow does to both an employee's self-esteem and the pressure put on the remaining TMs.
Like Joe says, management is seeing guests as a number instead of people. Case-in-point is back in my ride op days where managers would sit on deck at control watching the numbers tick up as the hour passes on and is screaming "FASTER! FASTER! REPLACE (BLANK) NOW! THEY AREN'T FAST ENOUGH!" If that grouper lets a person a seat go empty they are immediately replaced as the manager screams their head off to the dispatch leads, straight to the groupers who are radio'd by the schedule board lead to rotate them out. Just so the number can be nice and high so they can pass it on to their higher ups who notch it down that one ride's operations was picking up the slack that day.
That's what causes these situations, it's the vicious underbelly of ops that is rarely witnessed by normal guests. Now it's bitten them on the ass when a guest is furious and uses the poor customer service to their advantage. IMO nothing more, nothing less. Universal should've accommodated and she was denied because of this culture.
The next time any of you guys are at UOR (or WDW), take a moment to watch the TMs at load. They may wave and put on a fake smile for you right before you leave, but up until that point they are very likely stressed and moving quickly to send the ride vehicle off at 100% capacity ASAP.
I get wanting to keep a high capacity for the day, but if this TM didn't have it in the back of their mind that they need to fill the whole truck or management will get pissed at them, this wouldn't have been an issue. There does need to be a line on what you can allow, but this woman's request was not unreasonable. Guest Service basically completely goes out the window when you start thinking like a calculator and looking at all of the guests as numbers to fit into your equation.