Hope Ya Like Flying

A coworker of mine was sent to a remote site to help with a project. He caught the red-eye flight to the location, the site manager picked him up and drove him to the site, he changed into work clothes and punched his card into the site proper… and the customer called the site manager to say that the job was postponed indefinitely.

Well, it happens. So, the site manager gave him some menial tasks such as supervising another team while he dealt with the repercussions of the cancelled job. He came back a couple of hours later.

Site Manager: “I have you covered for tonight. You can have dinner at my place, sleep in the guest room at [Other Coworker]’s house, and tomorrow, in the morning, you’ll catch the flight back home.”

Then, the site manager’s phone rang, and he had a very angry discussion with someone at the other end.

Site Manager: “They want you back by this evening no matter what. They changed the booking to this afternoon’s flight, which more than doubled the price. I have a meeting with the customer this afternoon that I must attend in person, so I have to take a guy off the team to drive you back to the airport.”

My coworker changed into civvies, and then another coworker drove him to the airport and he took the evening flight, getting home well past midnight. On the following day, he was assigned… to PTO.