After having met with a customer at our plant for a training seminar I was providing, it became evident that what he needed done required some hands-on measuring. As such, I made arrangements to fly out to Albuquerque, New Mexico and photograph and measure everything to ensure the project will work out. (I am scheduled to fly out in July and work for 2 weeks, installing the equipment I have been designing. It better fit correctly when I get there, right?)
Ok, enough of the background information, let me explain why I seem to believe I can draw a parallel to the likes of Tom Hanks'character, Viktor Navorski ...
My whole plan for this trip was to get in, take the pictures and get the measurements, then to get home as quickly as possible. With that in mind, I had scheduled an early flight (6:00 AM) and a "Red-Eye" return with me landing in Tampa by 11:30 PM. The outbound flight to New Mexico was fine, no problems there, but I sure had problems coming back!
To begin with, when the ticket was booked, the travel agent couldn't get seat assignments for the run between Tampa to Denver and the entire return leg of the trip. (Hmm, that's odd, I thought to myself.) When I got to the airport in Tampa (at 4:30 AM), I tried to get the seat assignment fixed, but unfortunately, the computer wouldn't let me (or anyone else for that matter) do it. What was really interesting was that I got a coupon that would get me through security, so I could get to the gate in order to get my seat assignment for the flight to Denver from Tampa. Oh well, I figured that somehow, I would get the return leg straightened out in Albuquerque when it was time to come home (FATE: Hah! The Fool! Thinking he can control his destiny...) Well, everything worked out well at the customer's site, and I was at the ticket counter an hour and a half before flight time. I found my situation was unchanged and I was a man without a seat, although I wasn't a man without a plane (maybe I should have checked myself in as baggage).
After asking for assistance, I ended up with yet another coupon for a seat asssignment to be presented at the gate. When I arrived at the gate, nobody was at the desk and a "Counter Closed" placard was on the desk. That's when I noticed the LED sign over the counter was indicating that the flight is delayed for 1/2 an hour. Since I now had some extra time on my hands, I went to get something to eat. When I got back, I watched a fellow passenger stalk over to another gate and drag this hapless young man over and ask him all kinds of questions about the flight and why it was delayed all the while pointing at the now blank LED sign over the counter. When she was done with him, I walked over and asked if he give me a seat assignment and wondered aloud if I would still make my connection. His answer: A simple "Yep!"
Well, the plane came in even later than had been announced and I knew that I didn't stand a chance of making it to Tampa this evening, but this was the only option I had...
After we made it to Denver, I checked my watch and saw that it was 6:26 PM, with my connection scheduled to depart at 6:22 PM. A quick question directed to the gate agent by the jetway confirmed that the Tampa bound flight had indeed departed, then he directed me to a service counter for help. It took some waiting, but I finally was able to tak to an agent whom explained that there were no flights into Tampa until the following morning. He then printed a 'coupon' (with no seat assignment or gate number on it) and 3 vouchers. The first 2 were for dinner and breakfast (9 and 4 dollars, respectively) and a voucher for a hotel room.
Since I haven't had good luck so far, I called the hotel only to find that they had a power outage and were running on a backup generator, which means no way to check people in and no air conditioning in any of the rooms (it was 95 degrees). I decided to wait in line at the help counter for another 1/2 an hour only to discover that the hotel with the power problem was the only hotel they issue vouchers for, and practically all of the ones in the area were booked up due to a couple of plane-loads of passengers missing their connection. Well, time to face reality and find a place to camp in the terminal. I took a train from Terminal B over to Terminal A to be closer to my departing flight in the morning (at 10:00 AM). After checking that all of the chairs in the area were of the standard fixed arm type, which means no laying out on on any cushions, I found a relatively secluded spot away from all of the glaring lights, and bedded down on the floor, using my backpack as a pillow.
I was only disturbed every 20 minutes or so thoughout the evening by a guy who vacuumed the entire carpet in the area (which was also my bed), sprayed it down with a floral scented cleaning solution, brushed the daylights out of it and then finally used a scrubbing carpet cleaning machine. I tell you, it was getting pretty hard to hear the mechanized announcement from the automatic walkway as it was telling all of those non-existant riders that they were reaching the end of the walkway (you know, it wasn't jabbering on like that when I decided to bed down earlier).
Well needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. When I finally did get up, I noticed I had something of a roommate, a large moth that seemed to have figured out that if he stayed next to me, he wouldn't get nabbed by the carpet cleaner guy.
There were more consternating moments than these on my journey towards Tampa, but I eventually made it by 3:30 PM on Saturday, 15 1/2 hours after the airline said they would get me home.
And my company wonders why I hate flying...
