I Left My Heart in San Francisco and I Left My Pants????
At this point in my career I am not sure how many business trips I have taken, but I can assure you it is hundreds! During that time I have had everything happen to me that I thought was possible – what I am here to tell you is that is untrue. Earlier this week I flew on a two day business trip that started Sunday night flying to Greensboro, NC. I would be spending about half the day on Monday there before I flew to Pittsburgh with a colleague to meet one of our strategic clients.
Tuesday morning I woke up and the start of the day wasn’t unusual at all. Yes it was snowing out, but being on the East Coast in January, you come to expect that. As I was getting ready to get dressed I went into the closet to pull out my suit and much to my surprise I found only the jacket—no pants! Yes that is right: no pants to a new charcoal gray suit that I only wore once. A few thoughts went through my mind:
- What am I going to do?
- The stores aren’t open this early!
- Is someone playing a joke on me?
And of course…
WHERE ARE MY PANTS!
I quickly thought that perhaps they either fell off the hanger at my house or in the hotel the previous night. I called the Greensboro Airport Marriott hotel and spoke to Denise in housekeeping, who was VERY, VERY sweet and never laughed as I told my story. My request was simple: could you please go up to room 657 and look in the closet and see if my charcoal gray pants are there? Ten minutes later I got a voicemail message that my pants were found and on their way back to Dallas!
Business travel can be lots of fun – thankfully this one had a happy ending.
Time for you to share your funny stories! I look forward to hearing from you.
P.S. – I want to send a personal thank you to Denise and John Rothkopf who is the hotel manager 
who also was kind enough to call me back. Once again the Marriott hotel exceeded my expectations and had terrific customer service.
P.P.S. – If you were wondering if I wore pants that day, the answer is yes, the same suit I wore on Monday.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I can’t wait to read the “where are my pants”? stories.
p.s. I’m keeping mine to myself.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I have to share this story about my brother. He was recently hired by Philip Morris. Apparently they send all their recent hires to their headquarters in Richmond, VA and put them up in a hotel for some kind of orientation for several days.
About 3 a.m. my brother got up to go to the bathroom, but instead of going into the bathroom, he accidentally went out the door of the hotel room and into the hallway. Of course, the door closed and locked behind him. (Merrill, at least you were in your room with no pants!) Luckily, he was wearing his boxers and there was a phone on his floor, so he was able to call the front desk. They sent someone up to let him in his room, but not nearly as quickly as my brother would have liked.
Unfortunately the incident was witnessed by another person in his group and I am sure that the story made its way to his other co-workers. Can you imagine?
January 26th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Funny? Well, I’m not quite sure this constitutes funny, but I had a recent blunder that was quite stressful. I have also taken my share of business trips. Heading a conference in early November, I went through airport security and managed to grab my bags and all personal possessions except for my laptop. I was traveling with my girlfriend who is also in the industry and heading to the same conference. I was fairly weighted down with my bags and helping her with hers. I grabbed my briefcase walked to the Admirals Club and sat there until it was time to board the plane. Only when I arrived at the rental car facility in Phoenix did I realize that my laptop was left in the little gray tray back at DFW airport. After initial panic, I quickly started calling the airport. I quickly discovered that lost and found is often a voicemail system where you have to trust they’ll return your call. After leaving a message, I called my companies IT staff to get the serial number in case I had to identify it. Unfortunately I did not have my name on the machine. I then called information in Dallas and asked for security at DFW. I found there were a few telephone numbers, one of which had a live person on the other end who directed me to the security gate at my terminal. The TSA agent who answered, Stephanie, was the same woman who found my laptop and had attempted to page me. She was even resourceful enough to try and log on to see if there was identifying information. Unfortunately my login name is not my full name and she had no way of paging the right person. I asked if she could ship the machine and she said she had to take it to American Airlines Lost and Found where they could ship it. She personally walked my laptop down for me and not long after I received a call back. After 5 minutes on the phone with the lost and found agent, he had my information and later that day sent my laptop to my hotel by Fed-ex. The voice-mail system and the difficulty in finding a live person were very frustrating. Once I did, the people were great. To say I’m paranoid about my laptop going through security is an understatement these days.
January 26th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Merrill — you are too funny!! This is hysterical. And I have to say, very few people would “share” publicly because there would be concern about what people would think. A lesson to us all — just laugh. But waht would have happened if you did not have another suit with you…….?
January 26th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Good story. Glad to hear you were travelling with two suits that time. I also have a missing pants story - and the wedding pictures to prove it. My father discovered just an hour before the ceremony that he had forgotten to pack his suit pants! He had no chioce but to wear the baggy old khakis he put on that morning for the trip to the wedding site.
February 1st, 2007 at 6:26 am
I’ve never left my pants at home, but I have found myself with mismatched shoes. I consider myself an efficient packer and I often just bring one pair of shoes that will go with everything. I travel in tennis shoes so I can be confortable and they are bulky to pack. In any case, on this trip I was undecided on the shoes I wanted and put 2 in my bag. At the last minute I decided I didn’t need both and took one pair out….or so I thought. I actually had one of each pair. One was navy, one was black and one was just a tiny bit higher than the other one and had a bow. I had no choice but to wear the shoes to my first couple of appointments. No one noticed…thank goodness for long pants. As soon as I could I went shopping and got myself a new pair. Since I am a shoeaholic, that was not a problem. My husband insists I no doubt mixed my shoes up on purpose, knowing how good the shopping is in Chicago.
February 7th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
What, you only lost the pants? On one occasion I forgot the whole suit and had to buy a very snappy doublebreasted number at a thrift shop (only store open on a Sunday in Nashville) to attend my nephew’s bar mitzvah. I still have the suit if you ever want to borrow it!
Then there was the time Alex, my loving yet unforgiving wife, was stunned to find I left her entire suitcase at home! Do you have any idea what it took to outift my wife at Tybee Island, Georgia in September? The stores all had their fall stuff, and Alex was clearly unexcited about wearing a turtleneck sweater to the beach! I’m still paying for that one.
Happy Anniversary Dubes.