- Boss is going to airport for flight to Washington.
- Boss gets roped into last minute morning meeting and asks to change flight from a 1:00 p.m. flight to a 3:25 p.m. flight to accommodate this new, important meeting.
- New flight acquired, I call the small, local, no-name car company we are using to pick him up from the airport and distribute him, hopefully limbs intact, at the facility where he is meeting the client, in Baltimore. I inform them that his flight will now not be arriving until 4:52 p.m. Small no-name car company apologizes profusely as they are fully booked later in the afternoon as they only have two cars and cannot therefore do the pick-up.
- I get the name of another local company, call them, they are also fully-booked, “such short notice, blah blah blah”
- I call Carey Limousine who are a global organization who can get you anywhere, anytime in any city, no matter how obscure or invisible on a map. Since Baltimore is quite obvious on most maps, they agree they can do the pick-up, even though it’s only four hours notice. I make a note to kiss the first Carey rep. who has the misfortune to cross my path.
- Boss calls from airport. Apparently, there is “weather” afoot. Weather sufficient enough to delay most flights leaving the NYC metropolitan area and his flight, surprise surprise, is among the delayed. It now will not be leaving until 6:45 p.m. and landing close to 8:30 p.m. Thinking this a touch ridiculous, my boss tries to do something constructive and manages to get himself on another flight, with the same airline, that is scheduled to leave at 5 p.m. and arrive at BWI at 6:35 p.m. – a whole two hours earlier than his original delayed flight would have him there. Sensible huh?
- I call Carey again to inform them that flights are delayed and would get him in way too late at 8:30 so he is now on an earlier flight arriving at 6:35 p.m. and to give them his new flight number.
- Carey birth an elephant. Apparently this is not allowed. Apparently now, we will have to pay them as though his original flight still stood. In other words, we will have to pay them as though he was still landing at 4:52 p.m. and we would have to pay hourly rates from then until his new flight arrived at 6:35 p.m. plus whatever his trip costs and gratuities. Therefore we will have to pay them for two hours we are not actually using the car. Hmmmm.
- I tell Carey to park their sedan up their own back yard, if you get my drift. Actually, no, I didn’t, but it was tempting. I told them to cancel the car altogether because we weren’t paying their huge rates for 2 hours we weren’t going to use the car. They inform me that they certainly will cancel but they’ll also charge us $164 for the privilege because it’s within 2 hours of his original landing time (what???). Fuck me. If it’s costing me almost $200 to not use the goddamn car, I might as well keep the reservation and pay for the 2 extra hours as it works out the same. “You know…” the Carey rep told me scoldingly, “If he’d stayed on that original flight it would only cost the original trip cost as we don’t charge for airline delays!” “But, he caught an earlier flight so you wouldn’t have to be waiting two extra hours!” I pointed out. “New flight, new reservation, new rules.” She said helpfully.
- “Fuck you very much, bitch!”.
- Bang head off desk for ten minutes and call stapler a motherfucker.
Do you think there’s a restaurant in midtown Manhattan that would deliver tequila, preferably in a keg, with a tube I can hook up to a vein?
