Thursday, May 27, 2010

Runaway Horses and Flight Cancelations

After wrapping up my blog entry last night, I emailed my mom to vent on a more personal level about the frustrations ailing me with my job. She replied back with understanding words laced with advice of patience and reminding me to be thankful for having a job. She also included a Hindu parable taken from the book she is currently reading, Have a Little Faith:

A farmer wakes up to find that his horse has run off.
The neighbors come by and say, "Too bad. Such awful luck."
The farmer says, "Maybe."
The next day, the horse returns with a few other horses. The neighbors congratulate the farmer on his reversal of fortune.
"Maybe," the farmer says.
When his son tries to ride one of the new horses, he breaks his leg, and the neighbors offer condolences.
"Maybe," says the farmer.
And the next day, when army officials come to draft the son- and don't take him because of his broken leg- everyone is happy.
"Maybe," the farmer says.


Ironically, this parable happened to also translate nicely as plans for my weekend visitors began to unravel due to inclement weather and some bad luck

My work day was going a bit rocky as I was delayed in wrapping up some emails and invoicing inquiries when my laptop negated to cooperate and I was forced to spend the final hours of the afternoon on the phone with tech support. Already disheartened with the unproductive afternoon it was turning out to be, I also received a desperate call from a friend stranded in the LAX airport. Her flight from LAX to SFO was canceled, and there were no open seats on succeeding flights. Flight cancelations are the most paralyzing and thwarting of flying scenarios, and her novice traveler status only heightened her anxiety.

I balanced the next 45 minutes gathering info from her via text, relaying in to the representative at the airline carrier while on and off hold with tech support for my disagreeable laptop. I managed to book her onto a later flight, though it delayed her arrival by about 5 hours. After instructing her on how to get her new boarding pass, I checked in with another friend also en route for the weekend. Turns out, I managed to book friend #1 onto friend #2's flight. Not only would this consolidate my runs to the airport, but they'd be able to keep each other company at the airport.

Though I'm still waiting for a resolution from tech support, I managed to make traveling acommodations less stressful and my pick up routine more relaxing. All seems to have work out.

{maybe}


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

thumbs up.