Wichita or Bust?
It was a bust.
Well, sort of.
My trip to Wichita on 2/14, for a job interview with Cargill Meat Services as their #2 IT person, was already off to an inauspicious start due to my car accident on 2/12, but I was trying to view the accident as a positive sign. After all, if I hadn't had the accident, I would have still needed to schedule a doctor's appointment w/ my GP because I was out of pain meds; the ER doc prescribed pain meds, so that was one positive outcome. If I hadn't had the accident, I'd have had to have paid for parking; now, with my car in the AA police impound lot, no BWI parking fees would be owed. See, a positive thing.
So, off to BWI I went, with a limo to take me there (total cost = $88, including tip; that was only slightly more than the taxi I'd had to take home from the hospital on 2/12, a comparable distance, so the limo was well worth it), and hopped a Northwest Airlines flight to Memphis, TN. Everything was running on schedule, I had 4 hours layover, so I got a Memphis pulled pork BBQ sandwich before my flight and then headed down to the gate to fly to Wichita from there.
The plane was a little late in arriving, but not too bad. The weather front that we'd all been worried about was now way to the north of Wichita, so the flight in ought not to be too bad.
We boarded a Canadair jet that the smaller commuter routes for Northwest use. I didn't know there was such a thing as "Sardine class", but hey, you learn something new every day.
The flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker that he was missing a "demo belt" and we couldn't take off without it, so could we all check our seatbelts to make sure it wasn't attached to them as an extender?
I thought this announcement was weird for two reasons: (1) Practically every flight attendant I've ever encountered carries their own demo equipment for this very reason (so that if one goes missing, you can still do the FAA required demo), and (2) Memphis is a Northwest hub, so it wasn't like it should be a major issue for someone to go fetch one from maintenance if one really was missing. However, it accomplished its goal: Everybody stopped watching the front of the plane while they checked their seatbelts.
Everybody, that is, except me. I noticed instead that while everyone was looking away, a maintenance guy hopped onto the plane.
Now, I've been in this exact situation before, where the flight attendants tried to distract the passengers from noticing the maintenance workers getting on the plane. They do this because (1) it can cause panic, and (2) the sight of maintenance workers on a plane means pretty bluntly that something's busted and it's something bigger than the crew itself can handle.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, we got an update: "Well, now we have a demo belt, but we've got some paperwork here that has to get done before we can push back. It'll be just a few more minutes."
Paperwork = "logging that maint had to get on the plane". This usually means "bad maint issue".
About 20 minutes later, we got the initial indication that things were not going well. "Ladies and gentlemen, we know you're anxious to get moving, but we've got a slight maintenance issue that we need to take care of. Give us a few more minutes."
"Slight maintenance issue" = "This plane ain't goin' nowhere and now we need to figure out what to do next."
Finally, the pilot came over the speakers. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're sorry for the delay. This aircraft has a known maintenance issue. It comes up whenever we have to fly into icy conditions. It looks like the storm's over in Wichita, but once we get to Wichita, we'd have to re-evaluate whether it would be safe to continue on. Therefore, we're asking the airline right now whether they want to get us another plane or send this one on or what. Just hang in there."
Direct translation: "Yeah, we knew this plane was broken when we flew it in here. Probably won't make a difference getting into Wichita, but we won't be able to fly back out again, and I don't want to spend the night in Wichita. Sure, you guys are screwed, but, hey, at least you won't be stuck in Wichita."
Now, very few things make me completely and totally lose my cool any more, but incompetent airline personnel are guaranteed to be button-pushers. When moments later they told us to get off the plane, I told the captain bluntly: "The next announcement you guys had better make is 'We've got a replacement airplane', because if it isn't, the next person who'll be hearing from me is the Northwest Airlink manager in Memphis. I've got a job interview tomorrow morning in Wichita. If I don't get this job because of your airline screwing me over, you'd better be polishing up your resumes, because your total incompetence and lack of customer focus is definitely going to be brought up."
Long story short: No replacement airplane. No real effort made to get 50+ passengers booked on other flights to Wichita. (I rebooked myself onto the American Airlines flight from MEM to DFW to ICT.) No effort made to get our luggage on the one NWA available flight to Wichita that night (it was full, so no people, but they promised us they'd put all our luggage onto that flight; yet another empty promise because when we reached ICT, the luggage wasn't there and was, in fact, still in Memphis.) Worse, now it was after midnight, so no hotel shuttle was running, and my reservation had been auto-cancelled.
So, here I am in Wichita, job interview at noon, with no clothes other than the clothes on my back, no hotel room, no extra money, and no rental car. I am a basket case. Literally. I'm sobbing out of control, absolutely certain that God hates me. I finally got the Northwest Airlink luggage clerk to take a lost luggage report (he was actually quite nice--I think he understood how bad the Memphis end had screwed up) and headed back down to the shuttle wait area to call the hotel again and see if they had a room of any kind available and what the best way to get there would be.
Fortunately, God either doesn't hate me or He pities old folks, infants, and cripples, because He sent a guardian angel in the person of Jamie, the night clerk at the Holiday Inn who was just getting off work when I called to inquire about the hotel shuttle. She noticed that I had no reservation--it had been auto-cancelled--so she pulled out the folio for me, put it aside, and said that she would be there in a few minutes to pick me up. Moments later, she arrived at the airport, loaded the van with my luggage and helped me climb into it, then drove me back to the hotel and checked me in personally before heading home for the night. I was still weeping, but finally got enough pain meds in me to relax my body and went to sleep.
Next morning: Still no luggage. Northwest Airlink didn't answer their phones. I know from checking the airline schedule that the next flight from MEM to ICT isn't due in until around noon, which is when I have my interview. Fortunately, the clothes I wore the day before aren't too casual looking and are still presentable, so I get a shower, spend a few extra minutes fixing my hair and makeup to compensate for the lack of appropriate business attire, and then called the front desk for a shuttle ride to CMS.
The interviews at CMS couldn't have gone any better, and I walked out of there sure that I had at least made a good impression, and knowing that if I didn't get the job, it wasn't because I didn't give that interview everything I had. I returned from the interview to find my luggage at the front desk, delivered 2 hours after the interview started. Thanks, NWA Airlink folks. I had dinner in my room--a big beefy burger, cheese sticks, and a hot fudge brownie sundae--and got into bed to get some sleep for the flight out the next morning.
The NWA Airlink folks were just as bad in Wichita as they'd been in Memphis. At one point, I was seated next to a woman with Down's Syndrome, traveling by herself, who also had a hearing problem and didn't understand what was being said by the attendant who was giving instructions about "only 1 carry-on per person--and ladies, if you're carrying a purse, that is your carry-on..."
I was trying to explain, "The plane is small, so they don't have room for extra bags inside the cabin. Take your duffle bag over to him and get a green ticket, and they'll put it under the plane for you..." when the attendant looked over at me and said, "Hush!"
I looked at him oddly, but quieted down and said nothing else.
He continued his announcement, put the microphone down, and smiled at the folks in line to get their bags tagged.
I shrugged, then decided to demonstrate by example what to do. I came over and presented my carry-on for tagging.
He immediately stopped smiling. "Ma'am, you were too loud, and nobody could hear what I was saying."
I tried to explain that the woman I was with was hearing-impaired and I was repeating for her sake, but he cut me off again. "You were too loud, that was why she couldn't hear. Show some respect."
I backed off and said, "O.K., fine."
He ticketed my bag and made me carry it to the gate--this even after the announcement was made to allow "passengers needing assistance should come forward at this time". Now, I can carry my own bag--that wasn't the problem. The problem was the out-and-out rudeness.
And, as I discovered later, he was just as rude to poor Lisa, the woman I'd been trying to help earlier, because she didn't understand that she was supposed to let him tag her extra bag. When she tried explaining that it was because she couldn't hear him, he said that was because I'd been too loud--but she corrected him quickly and said that I wasn't too loud; in fact, the only reason she knew to come up with her bag was because she'd heard me say that much before I got cut off. "He was SO mean!" she told me when she got on the plane.
We arrived at Memphis uneventfully about an hour later. I told the crew on the plane that I needed a wheelchair at the gate--knowing we were going to land in terminal A but my flight was due to leave from terminal B, I knew I couldn't walk that far without help. They said they would notify Memphis before we arrived.
See if you can guess what WASN'T waiting for me when I arrived in Memphis. Go on, take a wild guess.
I got off the plane, checked my watch, knew I had to be down at the other gate within the next 45 minutes, and was none too pleased to see no wheelchair within sight (even though the crew assured me they'd been told by Memphis one would be waiting for me at the top of the jetway). I decided to wait a few minutes, hoping they were just running behind.
Lisa came off the plane behind me. "Where's your wheelchair?" she said, looking annoyed. "I heard them say they were getting you one..."
"It's not here," I sighed. "Oh, well."
"That's not fair!" she said, then found the nearest gate attendant and demanded to know where my chair was. They called for another one, and she came over to me and looked happy.
I thanked her profusely, offered to buy her a soda (she'd been upset that they hadn't let her have the entire can of soda on the plane), and asked where she was going next.
"Gate A-12," she said, "but they won't tell me where that is. They keep pointing all sorts of ways but won't say where it is."
I can understand her confusion, and I've flown out of Memphis a gazillion times. Gates A-4 through A-10 are down below the main gate levels because they serve the smaller NWA Airlink flights; gate A-12 is the first gate up on the main level above, but if you aren't familiar with the layout, all the pointing toward some vague area "up there" doesn't make sense because (1) you can't really see the gates above, and (2) the escalators are also just out of visual range, so if you don't know they're over there, you might not be able to figure out how to get upstairs. "Tell you what," I said, "I have to go right past gate A-12 on the way to my next flight, so I'll walk with you."
"Where's your chair?" she said in frustration. "They said they were sending one..."
"I know," I reassured. "It's O.K. We'll probably run into them along the way. Let's start walking."
Sure enough, we were almost to the escalators when the wheelchair finally arrived. I got in it, then urged her to come with us up the elevators to the main level. (I also instructed my pusher to take us right to A-12 first.) We arrived at A-12, I gave her some money for a soda ("since I won't have time to stop and have one with you"), we exchanged a hug, and went our separate ways. I was reminded of the Bible verse about not forgetting to entertain strangers "for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2). Thanks for the Angel, God.
The remainder of the trip home was uneventful.
So, Wichita or Bust? Well, I got both. I got to Wichita. But the job was a bust.
I did, however, get a surprise a couple of days ago: A callback from Cargill's corporate offices. They're interested in me for a position at their Minneapolis headquarters.
So, Wichita or Bust? Or What?
Who knows?
Well, sort of.
My trip to Wichita on 2/14, for a job interview with Cargill Meat Services as their #2 IT person, was already off to an inauspicious start due to my car accident on 2/12, but I was trying to view the accident as a positive sign. After all, if I hadn't had the accident, I would have still needed to schedule a doctor's appointment w/ my GP because I was out of pain meds; the ER doc prescribed pain meds, so that was one positive outcome. If I hadn't had the accident, I'd have had to have paid for parking; now, with my car in the AA police impound lot, no BWI parking fees would be owed. See, a positive thing.
So, off to BWI I went, with a limo to take me there (total cost = $88, including tip; that was only slightly more than the taxi I'd had to take home from the hospital on 2/12, a comparable distance, so the limo was well worth it), and hopped a Northwest Airlines flight to Memphis, TN. Everything was running on schedule, I had 4 hours layover, so I got a Memphis pulled pork BBQ sandwich before my flight and then headed down to the gate to fly to Wichita from there.
The plane was a little late in arriving, but not too bad. The weather front that we'd all been worried about was now way to the north of Wichita, so the flight in ought not to be too bad.
We boarded a Canadair jet that the smaller commuter routes for Northwest use. I didn't know there was such a thing as "Sardine class", but hey, you learn something new every day.
The flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker that he was missing a "demo belt" and we couldn't take off without it, so could we all check our seatbelts to make sure it wasn't attached to them as an extender?
I thought this announcement was weird for two reasons: (1) Practically every flight attendant I've ever encountered carries their own demo equipment for this very reason (so that if one goes missing, you can still do the FAA required demo), and (2) Memphis is a Northwest hub, so it wasn't like it should be a major issue for someone to go fetch one from maintenance if one really was missing. However, it accomplished its goal: Everybody stopped watching the front of the plane while they checked their seatbelts.
Everybody, that is, except me. I noticed instead that while everyone was looking away, a maintenance guy hopped onto the plane.
Now, I've been in this exact situation before, where the flight attendants tried to distract the passengers from noticing the maintenance workers getting on the plane. They do this because (1) it can cause panic, and (2) the sight of maintenance workers on a plane means pretty bluntly that something's busted and it's something bigger than the crew itself can handle.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, we got an update: "Well, now we have a demo belt, but we've got some paperwork here that has to get done before we can push back. It'll be just a few more minutes."
Paperwork = "logging that maint had to get on the plane". This usually means "bad maint issue".
About 20 minutes later, we got the initial indication that things were not going well. "Ladies and gentlemen, we know you're anxious to get moving, but we've got a slight maintenance issue that we need to take care of. Give us a few more minutes."
"Slight maintenance issue" = "This plane ain't goin' nowhere and now we need to figure out what to do next."
Finally, the pilot came over the speakers. "Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we're sorry for the delay. This aircraft has a known maintenance issue. It comes up whenever we have to fly into icy conditions. It looks like the storm's over in Wichita, but once we get to Wichita, we'd have to re-evaluate whether it would be safe to continue on. Therefore, we're asking the airline right now whether they want to get us another plane or send this one on or what. Just hang in there."
Direct translation: "Yeah, we knew this plane was broken when we flew it in here. Probably won't make a difference getting into Wichita, but we won't be able to fly back out again, and I don't want to spend the night in Wichita. Sure, you guys are screwed, but, hey, at least you won't be stuck in Wichita."
Now, very few things make me completely and totally lose my cool any more, but incompetent airline personnel are guaranteed to be button-pushers. When moments later they told us to get off the plane, I told the captain bluntly: "The next announcement you guys had better make is 'We've got a replacement airplane', because if it isn't, the next person who'll be hearing from me is the Northwest Airlink manager in Memphis. I've got a job interview tomorrow morning in Wichita. If I don't get this job because of your airline screwing me over, you'd better be polishing up your resumes, because your total incompetence and lack of customer focus is definitely going to be brought up."
Long story short: No replacement airplane. No real effort made to get 50+ passengers booked on other flights to Wichita. (I rebooked myself onto the American Airlines flight from MEM to DFW to ICT.) No effort made to get our luggage on the one NWA available flight to Wichita that night (it was full, so no people, but they promised us they'd put all our luggage onto that flight; yet another empty promise because when we reached ICT, the luggage wasn't there and was, in fact, still in Memphis.) Worse, now it was after midnight, so no hotel shuttle was running, and my reservation had been auto-cancelled.
So, here I am in Wichita, job interview at noon, with no clothes other than the clothes on my back, no hotel room, no extra money, and no rental car. I am a basket case. Literally. I'm sobbing out of control, absolutely certain that God hates me. I finally got the Northwest Airlink luggage clerk to take a lost luggage report (he was actually quite nice--I think he understood how bad the Memphis end had screwed up) and headed back down to the shuttle wait area to call the hotel again and see if they had a room of any kind available and what the best way to get there would be.
Fortunately, God either doesn't hate me or He pities old folks, infants, and cripples, because He sent a guardian angel in the person of Jamie, the night clerk at the Holiday Inn who was just getting off work when I called to inquire about the hotel shuttle. She noticed that I had no reservation--it had been auto-cancelled--so she pulled out the folio for me, put it aside, and said that she would be there in a few minutes to pick me up. Moments later, she arrived at the airport, loaded the van with my luggage and helped me climb into it, then drove me back to the hotel and checked me in personally before heading home for the night. I was still weeping, but finally got enough pain meds in me to relax my body and went to sleep.
Next morning: Still no luggage. Northwest Airlink didn't answer their phones. I know from checking the airline schedule that the next flight from MEM to ICT isn't due in until around noon, which is when I have my interview. Fortunately, the clothes I wore the day before aren't too casual looking and are still presentable, so I get a shower, spend a few extra minutes fixing my hair and makeup to compensate for the lack of appropriate business attire, and then called the front desk for a shuttle ride to CMS.
The interviews at CMS couldn't have gone any better, and I walked out of there sure that I had at least made a good impression, and knowing that if I didn't get the job, it wasn't because I didn't give that interview everything I had. I returned from the interview to find my luggage at the front desk, delivered 2 hours after the interview started. Thanks, NWA Airlink folks. I had dinner in my room--a big beefy burger, cheese sticks, and a hot fudge brownie sundae--and got into bed to get some sleep for the flight out the next morning.
The NWA Airlink folks were just as bad in Wichita as they'd been in Memphis. At one point, I was seated next to a woman with Down's Syndrome, traveling by herself, who also had a hearing problem and didn't understand what was being said by the attendant who was giving instructions about "only 1 carry-on per person--and ladies, if you're carrying a purse, that is your carry-on..."
I was trying to explain, "The plane is small, so they don't have room for extra bags inside the cabin. Take your duffle bag over to him and get a green ticket, and they'll put it under the plane for you..." when the attendant looked over at me and said, "Hush!"
I looked at him oddly, but quieted down and said nothing else.
He continued his announcement, put the microphone down, and smiled at the folks in line to get their bags tagged.
I shrugged, then decided to demonstrate by example what to do. I came over and presented my carry-on for tagging.
He immediately stopped smiling. "Ma'am, you were too loud, and nobody could hear what I was saying."
I tried to explain that the woman I was with was hearing-impaired and I was repeating for her sake, but he cut me off again. "You were too loud, that was why she couldn't hear. Show some respect."
I backed off and said, "O.K., fine."
He ticketed my bag and made me carry it to the gate--this even after the announcement was made to allow "passengers needing assistance should come forward at this time". Now, I can carry my own bag--that wasn't the problem. The problem was the out-and-out rudeness.
And, as I discovered later, he was just as rude to poor Lisa, the woman I'd been trying to help earlier, because she didn't understand that she was supposed to let him tag her extra bag. When she tried explaining that it was because she couldn't hear him, he said that was because I'd been too loud--but she corrected him quickly and said that I wasn't too loud; in fact, the only reason she knew to come up with her bag was because she'd heard me say that much before I got cut off. "He was SO mean!" she told me when she got on the plane.
We arrived at Memphis uneventfully about an hour later. I told the crew on the plane that I needed a wheelchair at the gate--knowing we were going to land in terminal A but my flight was due to leave from terminal B, I knew I couldn't walk that far without help. They said they would notify Memphis before we arrived.
See if you can guess what WASN'T waiting for me when I arrived in Memphis. Go on, take a wild guess.
I got off the plane, checked my watch, knew I had to be down at the other gate within the next 45 minutes, and was none too pleased to see no wheelchair within sight (even though the crew assured me they'd been told by Memphis one would be waiting for me at the top of the jetway). I decided to wait a few minutes, hoping they were just running behind.
Lisa came off the plane behind me. "Where's your wheelchair?" she said, looking annoyed. "I heard them say they were getting you one..."
"It's not here," I sighed. "Oh, well."
"That's not fair!" she said, then found the nearest gate attendant and demanded to know where my chair was. They called for another one, and she came over to me and looked happy.
I thanked her profusely, offered to buy her a soda (she'd been upset that they hadn't let her have the entire can of soda on the plane), and asked where she was going next.
"Gate A-12," she said, "but they won't tell me where that is. They keep pointing all sorts of ways but won't say where it is."
I can understand her confusion, and I've flown out of Memphis a gazillion times. Gates A-4 through A-10 are down below the main gate levels because they serve the smaller NWA Airlink flights; gate A-12 is the first gate up on the main level above, but if you aren't familiar with the layout, all the pointing toward some vague area "up there" doesn't make sense because (1) you can't really see the gates above, and (2) the escalators are also just out of visual range, so if you don't know they're over there, you might not be able to figure out how to get upstairs. "Tell you what," I said, "I have to go right past gate A-12 on the way to my next flight, so I'll walk with you."
"Where's your chair?" she said in frustration. "They said they were sending one..."
"I know," I reassured. "It's O.K. We'll probably run into them along the way. Let's start walking."
Sure enough, we were almost to the escalators when the wheelchair finally arrived. I got in it, then urged her to come with us up the elevators to the main level. (I also instructed my pusher to take us right to A-12 first.) We arrived at A-12, I gave her some money for a soda ("since I won't have time to stop and have one with you"), we exchanged a hug, and went our separate ways. I was reminded of the Bible verse about not forgetting to entertain strangers "for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2). Thanks for the Angel, God.
The remainder of the trip home was uneventful.
So, Wichita or Bust? Well, I got both. I got to Wichita. But the job was a bust.
I did, however, get a surprise a couple of days ago: A callback from Cargill's corporate offices. They're interested in me for a position at their Minneapolis headquarters.
So, Wichita or Bust? Or What?
Who knows?