Business Travel: It Sucks

Two days back from vacation, I was once again reminded of the "glamour" of business travel.

I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early flight. The car service dropped me at LaGuardia at about 6:20.

Inside the terminal, it was chaos. You ever see one of those movies where there's a civil war in an third world country, and everyone is at the airport trying to get out? It was kind of like that.

It took me over an hour to get through ticketing, baggage drop and security -- I love the whole "take your shoes off" thing, but hey, they gotta do it.

Barely had time to hit the head and grab a cup of coffee before it was time to board.

I turned on what little charm I have with the the flight attendent, and she moved me to an exit row, aisle seat -- sweet, legroom!

Then we sat on the tarmac for a half hour. Apparently they only had one runway open. Finally took off, made up some of the time in the air.

Landed in Atlanta, and we sat on the tarmac for a half hour. Apparently they were slow getting planes off the gates, and there was some construction holding us up.

Hey, no big deal -- it's not like I had anything important to do today. Like, oh I don't know... GO TO WORK!!!!!!!

Got into the terminal, went to baggage claim. I'm standing at the carousel 1, which has a marquee very specifically stating that bags from my flight are coming there. I wait about 15 minutes. I glance over at carousel 2, and think "wow, that sure looks like my bag over there." It was.

Thirty minutes and a smelly cab ride later, I finally made it to the office.

Business travel sucks.