Since we are in summer vacation mode, I thought the following Life Tip would be appropriate fun:
Even if you are certain that “you got this,” assign a backup person to make sure you really do “got this.”
The following idiot move would be nearly impossible to replicate today, what with smartphone technology and all. But in 1998 smartphones weren’t a thing yet. If you travel at all these days, you know that our phones change the time to the correct local time whenever we cross time zones. We don’t even have to think about it. In 1998 we had no such luck. And that is where this story’s idiocy begins.
Some coworkers and I were traveling from Cincinnati, Ohio to a corporate retreat in Palm Springs, California, with a quick change of flights in Los Angeles. As you may know, the East and West coasts are three time zone hours apart.
Well, my ignorant self failed to turn my watch back three hours after we hit the ground in LA (instead, I think I turned it back four hours). Making matters worse, the three coworkers I was traveling with trusted me to keep track of time. Bad move. I guess I was the only one with a watch. So, with my ill-conceived perception of time, I thought that we had plenty of it to stop and eat in the airport, when in reality we should have been hustling to our next flight.
You can guess what happened next: We missed the flight from LAX to Palm Springs. And while we were worried about our boss freaking out, we still had to find a way to get to Palm Springs. We ultimately rented a car for the 120-mile drive. After the prospect of having to face our boss, our next greatest concern, half-jokingly, was that we needed to “get out of L.A. before sundown.”
The only good part of the story, for this idiot, is that I somehow managed to conceal from my coworkers the fact that the dilemma was all my fault. Until right now, I guess. Oops, the cat’s out of the bag.
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“I know exactly why people do what they do. Because they’re idiots.” ~ Kurt Borne
Kurt Borne 