Based on our several flights, the average TAM experience is something like this:

Arrive at the airport three hours early. After an hour of waiting in line at ticketing, discover that your partner's ticket is not showing up in the reservations system because the system that manages such things is segregated entirely from the system that manages, say, boarding passes. There's also another system that's entirely separate, but no one seems to know what it does. Your ticket may be in that system. They're not sure. Three gate agents spend at least 20 minutes frowning at computer terminals that include information for one, two, or all systems, none of which are integrated. Get sent to the customer service desk/ticketing office/miscellaneous TAM bureaucratic closet and stand in line for another hour. Return to ticketing and check bags, if they haven't already been studiously checked and shipped off to the wrong destination. Now you have a boarding pass. And your plane is delayed for five to seven hours. They'd give you an exact time, but no one knows. Several hours later, you finally board the plane and the woman at the gate wants to know where your ticket is. You don't have a ticket. No one gave you a ticket. They gave you a boarding pass. Much shrugging all around. Someone else in a TAM uniform is summoned to stand anxiously and frown at your boarding pass. More shrugging. Finally someone decides that since no one knows what's going on with your boarding pass, it's not really that important. You are allowed to leave the TAM terminal.