Thursday, April 2, 2009

I Spend 33% Of My Life Waiting

So here I sit in the El Paso airport waiting... waiting...waiting... and waiting some more... the story of my life! This trip's itenerary has changed so many times I have lost count. After discovering some serious issues yesterday on our job site here in El Paso, I had to call our company travel agency last evening (since our Denver office was already closed at 7pm EST!) and change my early flight this morning. I was supposed to fly Frontier early this morning to Denver (which probably got delayed anyway because of the snowstorm they had this morning) and then connect to Atlanta. I really need to stay longer this morning so I could attend our bi-weekly Progress Mtg with the Owner/Engineer on site. I wound up having to buy a one-way ticket on Delta to Atlanta for early this afternoon for the cheap price of $915!! Crazy I know! Well, I went to the meeting and was packing up to leave afterwards only to find out that there was a hostage situation on the interstate somewhere between the jobsite exit and the airport exit. With the border wars going on just a few hundred yards away from here, who knows what kind of craziness this hostage situation involved! So I had to take the "transmountain" route the back way around the city and up through the mountain range. Needless to say, I drove like a mad woman trying to get the airport at least an hour before my flight time... and then I get to the ticket counter. And wouldn't you know- the flight is DELAYED! Over 2 hours!! And because of rain/thunderstorms in Atlanta... WHY me? Why does this always seem to happen to me? Especially when I am so ready to be back home... rain, wind, snow- you name it- one of these conditions ALWAYS delays my flights!!! And always when I am by myself on an out-of-town work trip... weather is not my friend I tell you.
This whole day has been turmoil for me... I stayed up way too late last night trying to prepare for this big on site meeting earlier this morning and then all of my worrying put my stomach into knots. And unfortunately, I had to use the jobsite porta-john when my upset stomach turned worse- NOT fun at all. It is bad enough having to use it but for that ritual? And then when we got into the meeting with all the project players, they dropped a big ol' bomb on us and informed us that the Owner's electrical/instrumentation people need two additional weeks at the end of of our Project Schedule to complete their work on integrating the new system to the old one. That would extend the project until the first or second week of May! And they want our written "plan" submitted ASAP for the duration of the project work- great- it is a good thing I worked on it half of last night! Now I just have to put my butt into high gear tomorrow in my office in Atlanta and finish it before the FedEx man arrives. Why is it even the best laid out plans just never happen the way we intended?? One of my life's biggest mysteries...

No comments: