I finish up my business here in Minneapolis tomorrow and then I begin the journey home to Moncton. I will get back home by Saturday morning and then I can enjoy my weekend. However, I would like to share with you the story of how I ended up getting here despite the weather problems and other interesting pieces to the whole story. If you want to hear about a VERY long day I had on Tuesday, click on for more.
Really, this all started on Monday morning when we had that storm come in. All flights out of Moncton were cancelled and I was supposed to fly out at 11:30. All having been said, I got bumped to an 8:30 flight which would then have me stay in Toronto that night, and fly into Minneapolis early in the morning. I would then do my training Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning, and get home a little past midnight on Friday night.
Of course, that 8:30 flight was cancelled, so the travel agent put me on a Westjet flight from Moncton to Toronto so that I could still make the connection in Toronto. Around 11:30 Monday night, Westjet calls me and tells me that this flight has been cancelled I have been rebooked on another flight. The other flight would have been useless since I needed to connect in Toronto.
Called the travel agent and got booked on a flight from Moncton to Halifax, Halifax to Chicago, and Chicago to Minneapolis for Tuesday morning. That would mean I would train Wed-Fri which was fine. But, if you can guess this, the Halifax flight was also cancelled so here I was, wondering wtf I am going to do to get to Minneapolis. I couldn’t cancel the whole thing because I don’t have the authority to do so. I then figured I could rent a car and drive to Halifax to catch the flight to Chicago. Seemed easy enough, and sure enough, it was.
Left Moncton’s airport at 1pm in a rental car and got to the Halifax airport around 3ish. Dropped the car off and went to ticketing. The flight was scheduled to leave at 4:30, getting me into Chicago at 5:30 Chicago time (2 hours difference, 3 hour flight). My flight out of Chicago was to be at 8pm. I got to the gate and they told me there was a 2 hour delay on the Chicago flight. That meant that I would have about 30 minutes to get from one gate to another in O’Hare airport. If you know anything about airports, you know that’s basically an impossibility. So, I called the travel agent again and she reserved me a seat on the 9:40 flight out of Chicago so if I missed my 8pm, I could get out on the 9:40. Sounded good.
At 7:45, they boarded the plane in Halifax. By 8pm, the plane was boarded, we went off the gate, and sat there. I really have no idea how long we sat there but we took off eventually and I thought all was well. I watched a movie and a pile of South Park episodes and then realized that we should have landed already. The pilot told us at some point that we had been circling the city for awhile due to weather problems. We finally landed and got on the ground but we were not allowed to go to a gate. They parked the plane and turned the lights on telling us we would have to wait to get to a gate and that it would be about 30 minutes. It was 11pm Chicago time which meant I would definitely have missed my 9:40 flight, assuming it had left at all.
The weather in Chicago was a mess. The engines on the plane were turned off and the wind and snow was strong enough that the plane was rocking back and forth a bit. It felt like we were actually moving even though the plane was stationary.
11:30 came and we still sat there. Sometime shortly after midnight, the plane powered up and we began moving. I walked off the jetway into the airport and looked at the time in the hallway and it said it was 12:30. I had called the travel agent from the plane and asked her what my options were. She got me on a flight that would leave Chicago at 7am and get me into Mineapolis at 8:30. Training was to start at 9. I told her to book it, and get me a hotel for the night.
I know a lot of you have not done a lot of air travel so let me enlighten you about a few things. First off, most airports have piles of hotels in the area and Chicago is no different. Because there are so many people using them, they usually have shuttles to and from the hotel at no charge. You go to a specified area, wait for the shuttle, catch it, and you are on your way to the hotel. Well, in Toronto, it’s only about 5 minutes from the arrivals area to the shuttle area. I swear it took me about 20 minutes to walk to the shuttle area and when I got there, I heard the guy say that it would be another 45 minutes before another shuttle came, and that the one leaving was full. Frig sakes. So, I walked all the way back to the main terminal and went to catch a cab, only to find a very long line of people waiting for cabs. Turns out the line moved quickly and within 10 minutes I’d say, I had my cab to the hotel.
Got to the hotel, no one at the front desk. After making a racket at the desk, someone finally came out and informed me that I had no reservation. I was irritated and said give me a room anyway, which they did, and I went upstairs where I contemplated shooting myself from having been up all this time. I made it into my room at 2am Chicago time. Sent off a few emails, and tried to get to sleep. I woke up shortly before 5am.
It would appear that my travel woes ended with that hotel because my flight in the morning left exactly when it was supposed to, arrived when it was supposed to, and to top everything off, I was given a seat in first class where it was quiet, I had pillows and a blanket, and sort of slept the whole way. Got off the plane, changed my clothes in the bathroom, and drove my rental car to the client site, where I then delivered my 8 hours of training and called it a day.
By the time I got to my hotel and could actually rest, I was somewhat wound up. Ended up sleeping after watching Lost.
Folks, I enjoy my job, like the traveling, but this was one time where it took a lot of patience to not tell someone to fuck off after going through all of this bullshit. I’m glad I head home tomorrow and am contemplating taking a “mental health” day off next week. We’ll see how it goes.
