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Published: October 8th 2010
My original flight plan was Rutland to Boston to Philly to Sacramento. I only had an hour in Boston, but I thought since My bag was checked all the way to Sacramento I would be able to make it.
That was before I knew we would board the Rutland plane half an hour late and sit on the runway for 15 minutes...
My flight to Philly was scheduled to leave at 1:30 and my plane hit the Boston runway at 1:15! As happy as I was that our tiny little shaky plane managed a safe landing (there were a few moments when I wasn't sure that the seven of us flying to Boston were going to make it through the turbulence in that thing...) I was PANICKED.
That feeling was not helped by the extremely rude baggage guy. In tiny airplanes they put carry-on luggage in a different place than the passengers, so I had to wait to get my backpack. I asked him if I could just grab it and run because I had a connecting flight to catch. Instead of just doing his job and handing me my bag he kept saying things like, "you've already missed it, just forget it you're never going to get there. I cant tell them to hold the plane or anything." I was too stressed to deal with his authority complex so I finally just said (much firmer than I probably needed to...) "I JUST NEED MY BACKPACK. I GAVE TO GO!". As I took it and ran, panicked and near tears, he shouted after me, "Go ahead and run but you'll never make it!". Apparently you don't need social skills to be employed by the airport.
When I got to the US airways desk I found that most people are a lot kinder and more helpful than that man. The woman at the desk could not find any open spots on later flights to Philly or directly to Sacramento because it's a holiday weekend. (what better way to celebrate the 618th anniversary of Columbus landing on the wrong continent than to be stuck on the wrong side of it!)
However, she checked and found that my plane had actually not left yet and she sent me to the priority security line. The attendants there let me cut to the very front of that line, and then all the first class business men saw how frantic and nervous I was and they let me put my bag through the check first! So I got through security in record time, sprinted to my gate and found a whole group waiting there. I asked the first person I saw if they were boarding yet, and she said no, there was a problem with the plane so it was delayed! I think she was shocked by my excited reaction to this since she and everyone else at the gate looked annoyed and frustrated. I had enough time to get some coffee and I really hoped no one I cut saw this and thought Id been lying before...
I felt secretly guilty when I saw the line of people at the ticket counter because they were going to miss their connections in Philly since Id spent the past hour praying for this flight to be delayed!
To make things even better, I was one of two people on the entire plane who didn't have a seat partner and I got to switch to a window seat 😊
Given how incompetent and unhelpful the baggage guy was, I was disappointed but not at all surprised to get to Sacramento hours later and not find my suitcase waiting... Luckily it's hear now though, they dropped it off this afternoon.
It ended up almost being a good thing that my bag wasn't there because 3 other people were picked up at the same time I was and we were crowded into a van with everyone's luggage. One girl in the van had just come from Hawaii and another from London! I've definitely been meeting a pretty diverse group of people and it's been really cool to hear where everyone is from and find out everyone's story behind joining. Some people are just out of high school, some college, and I've met a few people taking time off from college too. There's actually a girl from my high school here who I graduated with!
My poor roommate was asleep when I got in but she woke up and was pretty chatty while I was getting set up. She's a 24 year old massage therapist from LA. She only found out shed been accepted one week ago!! I was flipped out two weeks ago when I didn't have my flight info, and she just completely rearranged her life in a week!
Being here has been a lot like freshman orientation. Everyone's really excited to meet everyone else and to figure out more about what we're doing. Today was mostly paperwork and policies but we did get set up with some awesome uniforms.
The campus is pretty cool too. It's very surreal to be surrounded by palm trees in warm weather! Our buildings are exactly like dormitory halls but the rooms aren't too bad.
I'll try to pit up some pictures in a few days. 😊
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anonymous
non-member comment
Crazy that a high school friend is there! Who is it? Airport people can be power-tripping and incompetant but there's no excuse to hold your stuff hostage in order to tell you something that might not even be true. Sure, he can't hold the plane back but he also CAN'T KNOW IT HASN'T BEEN DELAYED. I had one guy tell me I didn't need to check in because I'd checked in online, so I got out of the line and asked him where I put my duffle bag. He said 'oh you'll need to check that' like I'M the idiot, brought me to this other line, half way through came back and told me I was in the wrong line like it was MY mistake, and put me at the end of this other line. I wanted to scream. Glad you made it! Must be so cool to see people from all these different places. Can't wait for pictures!