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Denver Airport, October 2015 Story
Back then, I worked for a luxury travel company called Virtuoso. I’d actually get laid off two weeks after this story, although I do not believe this story had anything to do with the layoff. It was more that my direct boss was not a fan of me over time. I worked there for 18 months, and our relationship was good for about 13 of those, but in hindsight she never should have been managing me — her span of control and what she cared about was drastically different than what I did. Anyway, all water under the bridge now, a decade later.
Well, around Halloween of 2015, I was going to a trade show in Palm Springs, CA to meet some Seattle co-workers. The trade show was over a weekend. On a Friday, I flew from DFW to Denver, but the DFW flight left late. We got into Denver 20 minutes past the connector to Palm Springs. I ran to the gate. Nada, plane gone. I went over to an agent. She told me I could fly Denver to Billings, Montana to Seattle to LA and then find a way to Palm Springs; that would take about 10 more hours. It was Friday late morning-ish. Or, I could wait six hours and fly direct from Denver. I took the second option.
At this point, I think I had stupidly either forgotten my phone charger or put it under the plane (?), so I had to set out across the relatively-large Denver Airport to find a…