So I’m sure both of you are wondering what happened on the way home.
Just a day in the life … but it was a day that illustrates why one of my colleagues says that people don’t pay us for expertise … they pay us to travel.
It started with my drive to the airport in Minneapolis. Let’s just say I was cutting things a bit close … so close, in fact, that for the first time in 10 years of travel I abandoned the rental car at the Hertz facility.
Just left it.
Looked at the checkout guy. Yelled: “Tank is full, keys are in it.” Ran for the terminal. ‘Cause if I miss that flight, I’m going MSP-Charlotte-Philly and getting home at midnight.
I did make the flight, and ended up in … Pittsburgh. It seems the entire Northeast was in weather-related travel lockdown hell, and every 737 between Atlantic City and St. Louis was paying the price, flying endless racetracks over agrarian America, waiting to divert to other destinations and take on fuel. We went to Pittsburgh … which is good, because it’s East. Divert to Chicago on a Friday night, and you’re coming home Saturday.
And despite the promise of a 15-minute refuel in Pittsburgh, this diversion turned into a 90 minute gate hold due to a full ground stop for traffic into Philly. We did finally leave, and I got into PHL somewhere around 9:00 PM EST.
On the whole, I like the travel. And days like this: they’re just part of the job. They’re nobody’s fault; there’s nothing worth getting pissed about. But they do amplify your longing for home, and they do take a toll on your body, and some days, they take a toll on your soul. And if you’ve not lived the life of one of this company’s top 500 fliers, they can be hard to appreciate, especially after this (a day, BTW, in which I was on an early-morning flight to Chicago).
So I'm pretty shredded. Luckily, Wife has infinite patience and reservoirs of appreciation. I wonder how patient she’ll be when she learns we may have just bought one of these, courtesy Hertz?
Posted by Avocare at June 14, 2003 12:34 AMWere you running through the terminal like O.J. in those commercials?
Posted by: michele at June 14, 2003 07:34 AMYeah, but without the cops following me.
Posted by: Alan at June 14, 2003 09:18 AMdon't mind owning one of those, but if it was, say, a Mustang, that would be an entirely different issue.
Posted by: kt at June 14, 2003 06:32 PMI did the same thing at Hertz in DTW three weeks ago...I wasn't getting stuck there for an extra night (and it was a Mustang...damn Hertz and their Mustangs). To my surprise, they never charged me for it. The initial charge from my Gold account was not on my credit card, so when I called for a receipt they were baffled. Smarty pants me...they said that if I wouldn't have called they wouldn't have charged me.
Posted by: CB at June 16, 2003 04:44 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)