Home Sweet Home

No, this is not gonna be a happy blog.
I just came home from the most horrific business trip ever.
When I say horrific, I do mean horrific.

It's a lot worse than the time I arrived in Kobe on my second week of work, right out of college, on my first trip alone ever, only to find out that the administrative assistant "forgot" to confirm my hotel booking. The hotel happened to be fully booked and it took some creative persuasion to manage this slight problem. Or when I literally dragged a mountainful of clothes (to be exact, two weeks worth) to Singapore, because I didn't know that one can charge laundry expenses to the company if the trip is more than a week. Or when I found myself getting propositioned by not one, but two Middle Eastern guys while I was buying books in Dubai - with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, I might add. Or when the cab driver in Mumbai got me lost around the city because he chose not to tell me that he didn't understand English and just nodded when I told him the address of the office to go to. Or when I ran out of deodorant in Guangzhou and I found out surprisingly that not one store sells any form of deodorant. I had to swallow my embarrassment and ask a male colleague to please bring one the week after. Funny as it may sound, these things do happen. Or maybe only to me? :)

The examples above are just unpleasant bumps along the road. This trip however, has been displaying warning signs of impending doom to come right from the start. I just chose to ignore that little voice and continued to be optimistic about it, until it finally got me to admit defeat.

I realized that I got my departure time wrongly, only when I arrived in the airport. Instead of just waiting comfortably in the lounge for an hour tops, I actually spent more than 4 hours waiting in the lounge, since I thought that I was still going by my original schedule, which was 2 hours earlier.

The trip from Manila to Cincinnati in itself was quite uneventful, thank godness. But for some reason, I wasn't able to overcome my jet lag. On my last day of business trip, I still woke up at 2am local time and couldn't get back to bed afterwards. I wonder if it's old age.

On top of this, I literally was fighting off physical ailments that are tolerable individually but if you add them all up, the combination is pretty lethal. I had nosebleeds every night. I had runny nose and colds. I also had sore throat and an upset stomach the whole week.

The nature of the trip itself is alarming. We were the only group among our larger organization that needed this workshop. We were in the spotlight (not in the good way) for the past few months. This emergency workshop was a much needed intervention to get us back on track. I also discovered that the reputation of Asia as a region in that particular project was not good. In fact, they weren't shy about vocalizing their complaints. Since I represented Asia, even if I wasn't working directly on the project, I had to swallow my pride, apologized on my team's behalf and just move on and improve the situation.

By the last day, I was literally singing praises to the heavens above because I was finally going home. I should've kept my mouth shut. I think Somebody-Up-There does not like my voice or something. Let's just say there's a reason why Murphy's Law is a law and not just an educated guess.

The flight from Cincinnati to LA got cancelled and I had to take another route, via a stopover in Atlanta. IF (and that's a big if) the alternative flights all went off on time, I might have had an 75% chance of making it to the connecting flight. But as it turns out, the Delta flight from Atlanta to LA couldn't take off because there was a sudden storm.

The plane landed in LA at around 10pm. The connecting flight from LA to Manila is at 1010pm. You do the math. Obviously I missed the flight. The sad thing is, the next flight is on the next day, same time.

At this point in time, all I wanted was to eat a hot meal and just crawl back into a nice bed and forget about the misfortunes that have happened for the past few days. I finally got our rebooking confirmed and Delta gave me a temporary hotel for the night. I was freezing my butt off, since I didn't exactly expect to be out in the cold, so I dressed more for fashion than comfort. Note to self: Sandals, however feminine or comfortable they may seem to be, are not meant for long walks. I learned this lesson the hard way.

When I checked in the next day, the agent said that my booking was not confirmed at all. And the flight was apparently full and even overbooked in some classes. I know they're just doing their job and they didn't deserve a tongue-lashing like the one I gave, but c'mon, can anyone blame me? It's as if I reached the boiling point and the poor agent had to listen sympathetically while I ranted on and on about the stupidity and incompetence of travelling as a whole.

Fortunately I was able to make it back home I got the last available seat in business class. I shuddered to think what body aches I would've endured if I were to fly home coach. Yes, I know, I'm spoiled.:)

Upon arriving in Manila, I literally waited for an hour and a half for my one piece of luggage to come out - only to find out that it was in the list of bags that didn't make it. The amusing/exasperating part here is that my bags were checked in at the same time and under the same name as my colleague. Her two bags arrived on time while mine didn't. Go figure.

The saddest part about this whole trip is that I missed Mother's Day. I also missed out the rare pleasures of a long and lazy 3-day weekend. Sniff.

But still, I'm back at home. Yes, home sweet home. I'm still fighting the reverse jet lag and the remnants of my colds/sore throat/runny nose but I'm letting Zithromax do its job. I'm hopeful that this trauma is just temporary and I'll be back to my normal cheerful self who will take on any trip (whether personal or business) to anywhere need be.