Week from Hell...Part 1 of 4

So here is part one…

My crap of a week began with a trip to Chicago on business.  I left for Chicago on October 2.  A car service was supposed to pick me up at3PM.  I got a call at 2:55 saying thatthe car that was originally sent had broken down but they were sending anotherone right away and that the car would arrive at 3:15PM.  The car finally arrived at 3:30PM afterseveral phone called back and forth to the car service company.  My flight, which was out of La GuardiaAirport (which is 15 minutes from my house) was to depart at 5:05PM so youcould say that arriving to my home at 3:30 was cutting it a bit close.  The driver began driving and went towards theLIE which I knew was a mistake but I knew she could get to the airport thatway.  She got off the LIE and I assumedshe was going to bear right at that exit to go on the Cross Island towards LaGuardia but instead bears left after the exit going in the wrong direction towardsJFK.

“Shouldn’t you be going the other way?” I quicklyasked.  I had gone to and from La Guardiaso many times I could do it with my eyes closed.

“Maam, I do this all of the time.  I know where to go,” answered the driver.

I thought, “alright. Maybe this is just a new way to go that I have never gone before. 

Well, we reached JFK and ended up approaching La Guardiafrom the other side.  The problem wasthat I made boarding by only 10 minutes. The bigger problem?  Once we hitJFK there was so much traffic in the direction of La Guardia that the driverdecided to drive 80 miles an hour in the shoulder of the highway.  Not only that, but she was weaving in and outof traffic, almost missing several cars.

I got out of the car absolutely furious.  As soon as I got through security I called thecar service company and went off.  Theyapologized profusely and pulled the driver off the road immediately.  They also said that my company would not getcharged for the ride. 

I got on the plane and headed for Chicago for a weekend oftaking inventory in our largest distribution center.

The trip itself was tiring, but very good.  I learned a lot and met a lot of greatpeople.  I contact a lot of the people Imet on a day to day basis so it was nice to be able to put faces to emailaddresses.  We all went to meals togetherand got to know one another a little better.

The next part of the trip was not so great, though.  We finished inventory early on Sunday,October 5.  I got to O’Hare Airport atnoon for a 6:05PM flight, thinking that I’d go on standby and get on an earlierflight without a problem.  I waswrong.  Every standby list had at least120 people on it.  The airport was acomplete zoo.  Finally my regularboarding time rolls around and they make an announcement that there was weatherproblems at La Guardia.  Total lie.  I called my mom and she said there wasn’teven a breeze.  I called Delta (I wasflying United) and asked if they had any flights from Chicago to New York butthe last had departed just 10 minutes earlier…on time.  I asked if any of their inbound La Guardiaflights were delayed and they said no and that the flights were in fact landingearly.  An hour passed of people gettingpissed off since every other flight to La Guardia was departing and they makean announcement saying that there are mechanical problems with the plane.  An hour passes and they come on AGAIN and saythere are still delays at La Guardia. They come on a fourth time saying that the flight attendants were notthere.  We finally bored at 9PM.  We take off and the flight itself was fine.

We landed at La Guardia to find an airplane on the taxi-wayon the wrong frequency.  The plane wasbeing pulled out for maintenance and air traffic control kept giving the pilotthe go-ahead to move but since they were on the wrong frequency the pilot hadno idea he could move.  An hour later, wefinally get to the gate and off of the plane. Not before it taking 20 minutes for them to find people to get thewalkway to the plane.

And that was just the start of what I now refer to as “hellweek.”