A Day Like Any Other, 10 years ago

I wrote this entry last September 11th and Brian Grigory asked if I would post it again. I had been thinking about it, but wasn't sure. Brian's comment had me pull it up again and revisit. Now that I read it again, another year past and tears still falling, I shall post.

Strangely, I will be in New York City on the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I don't know if I'll go to Ground Zero. There is a lot going on that day, including escorting customers to the rescheduled Women's Final of the US Open, the whole reason we're going to New York this weekend. I might get to see Allison, daughter of Kristin White Gould, while we're there. I hope so.

September 11, 2001, changed me. I think it made me a kinder person, a more giving person; I think it made me focus on what's important in life and what is just stuff. No, I don't get it right all the time - I still screw up - but I know that day changed me, through the horror and tragedy, a little bit to the good.

*****************************
It was a Tuesday morning and I was facilitating a class on Applied Behavioral Science - teaching supervisors of flight attendants how to get the best performance from their teams. We had supervisors from Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco with us.

We were covering a section on managing through irregular operations when someone threw open the classroom door and excitedly blurted out, "Two planes have hit the World Trade Center!" The class turned expectantly to me, thinking this was part of the exercise in dealing with the unexpected. I was confused.

"Come!" the person said, "It's on the TV!" My co-facilitator and I agreed that we wouldn't be able to continue until we sorted this out, so we all filed out, hushed and excited voices hubbubbing about what it could be. We gathered around the TV set in the lounge area of the training center. Then a buzz started somewhere..."it's one of ours"...."it could be one of ours..." "what if it's one of ours???"

A manager came around the corner and went straight to the supervisor from Boston. UA175 from Boston was confirmed as one of the planes. These were HER flight attendants on board, her friends, our colleagues. She was led away, arrangements to be made to get her to Boston as soon as possible.

I left the group and went up to the 8th floor of the building, where the managers were. We were all part of the emergency response team and needed to decide who would go where, and when. One facilitator was pacing around, shouting out gibberish about pulling people back into class, using this as a real-life experience in dealing with the unexpected. He was new to the airlines. He didn't understand.

I decided to drive to our Chicago Reservations office, the emergency response team's headquarters in case of... I found a couple other people downstairs who were headed there and off we went. Once there, there was controlled anxiety and we were assigned rooms. "Go into that classroom and sit. We will be with you as soon as possible."

The room I was assigned was where I would spend the next 10 days, in 12 hour shifts once we got through that first day, which was endless. I was in the room assigned to 'handle' Flight 93, which was missing at the time we first went into the room. A director came into the room and confirmed that UA93 had gone down in a field in western Pennsylvania. She had the manifest and they went row by row, assigning us names of passengers. Crew members were being handled by a team from Onboard Service, by those who knew and worked with them.

"Katie, you have Mark Bingham. He was on a companion pass, so we have some information on him. We'll get that to you." Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Haznawi were assigned, as well. Lauren Grandcolas, Todd Beamer, Nicole Miller, Honor Waino, ...We ran out of people in the room and I was also assigned Kristin White Gould.

We only had names, so we waited. We talked in quiet tones, we shared where we were, what we knew, what we had seen. The room was full of United colleagues, most of whom I'd not met before. We were all there for the same reason. We were going to reach out to the families to tell them that their loved ones were on UA93, that they were gone.

I don't talk about this day, nor the 9 that followed it. I know I was a completely different person when I walked out of that room around midnight on September 11th than I was when I got up that morning. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of who I was that morning to see if she resembled the woman I was that night.

The next 9 days consisted of phone calls with the Bingham and Gould families. My contact with the Binghams was Mark's mother and aunt, both UA flight attendants. Mark had been on his aunt's companion passes. Mark was one of the team who rushed the cockpit and brought down the plane. When I called Mark's mother to tell her he was on the plane, she told me she knew - he had called her. Others were hearing similar stories and that's when we found out about the phone calls, the actions, the heroes of flight 93. Those of us who had passengers who made the calls heard heartbreaking tales from their families.

Kristin's daughter Allison and I spoke daily, several times a day. I had to ask her detailed questions to, hopefully, identify her mother's body or, in truth, what we might find. We requested DNA evidence from the families - hair dumped out of a shaver, a toothbrush, a hair brush...

Coming to work every day for those 12 hours was living in an alternate universe. The office is right next to O'Hare and there were no airplanes in the sky. My world was helping Allison, helping Mark's mother, father, step-mother, boyfriend and the man who drove him to the airport that morning. Giving them information, getting information, setting up funeral arrangements and just talking with them through this nightmare.

I keep a folder on that time and I haven't opened it in a few years until now. There is a card written by Allison the day after her mother's memorial service, September 29, 2001. Cameron and I flew out for the service and to meet the family I had come to know over the phone.

"I pray God gives you the strength not to dwell on this horrible accident. You have touched every last member of my family. You've been our guardian angel with a soft feather mattress that cushions us and has softened the blow through these past three weeks."

In the last 9 years Allison and I have stayed in touched, we've visited each other a couple of times, but time goes by. She doesn't know she was my guardian angel and we helped each other. That's the two of us in my FaceBook profile photo, taken on a trip we did to San Francisco. I call her every September 11th, as well.

I didn't think I could cry over this any more. I was wrong.

Life Really is a Buffett Lyric Part 1

"Changes in latitude, changes in attitude..."
I'll start by saying I am lucky. I am blessed. I am fortunate. I've made [mostly] good choices in life. Let me tell you about last weekend...

Friday Janauary 21st we both worked a full day, we fixed a little dinner and then packed our suitcases. We were heading out to Oz that evening. The flight had looked promising two weeks ago, with 1st or Business Class assured. It had fallen apart this week and we packed for coach, if we got on at all - Cam took his pillow and I threw in a Snuggie, eye shades, ear plugs and some Tylenol PM.

Arriving about 90 minutes before flight we relaxed in the International First Class Lounge. I send lots of customers up there and we got to try the product out and give some feedback to the manager (thanks Shelley and Ruby!). Ruby was working the lounge and told us it looked very bad to get on the flight, that we were not likely to get out tonight. In my head I was going through the schedule to Hawaii the next morning, as we'd packed tropical clothes...

"Still six thousand miles away from where I'd really rather be"
At the gate, 30 minutes before departure, we could see there were 4 seats left on the flight, in coach, and we were #2-3 on the list. Ruby came to tell us the 4 seats would be going out empty, as there were weight restrictions (typical this time of year). 22 years of flying stand-by have taught me you *never* leave the gate until the airplane pushes back.


Good things don't always come to those who wait, but tonight they did. "Larson, party of 2" was called and we were given seats 45J and 33J, middle seats but exit rows at aircraft doors, so about 4 feet of leg room in front of us. The flight is scheduled at 14 hours and 35 minutes. We made it to Sydney in 13 hours and 20 minutes and I slept at least 7 of those hours. No photos were taken, but I'm sure I was the envy of all in coach with my UCLA snuggie, my high-end eye shades and my ear plugs. When I awoke the woman next to me started and said "I thought you were dead!" Why, thank you, I did have a nice sleep! Cam fared almost as well in his seat with his pillow from our bed.

"The weather is here"
Coming out of Customs about 10 minutes after we got off the plane, we looked around for our friend Peter who said he might pick us up if we weren't in too early. As we were in more than an hour early, we didn't see him. A quick stop at the ATM and we turned toward the train into the city. I stopped Cam and said let's take one more look around for Peter and there he was!

Peter and wife Elizabeth had just returned from 2 weeks in Tahiti the day before. He drove us to our hotel, where it was to early to get in. We decided to stop for a coffee while we waited for Elizabeth to get up and stopped in the Park Hyatt. Enjoying a beautiful flat white, the first since I was last in Sydney in November 2009, I looked up to see a familiar man walking in the restaurant. It was Jimmy Buffett.

"I heard I was in town"
Spending so much of my job protecting celebrities from fans and paparazzi and looking like we'd just gotten off a 14 hour flight, I wasn't about to go over. But Peter did!

Peter went over to tell Mr. Buffett that Cameron and I had just flown in to see his concert the next night and that we were going back on Tuesday. That we were seeing Jimmy for the 25th (Cameron) and 35th (me) time. Yes, indeed, we had flown to Sydney for the Jimmy Buffett concert at the Sydney Opera House.

Mr. Buffett was gracious, explained that he was doing an interview and would be over to say hello once he was done. Elizabeth joined us a few minutes later and we sat as long as we could, but left before Mr. Buffett finished his interview. Yes, we are fans. Big fans who have seen him in California, Washington, Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado and Hawaii. Big fans who just flew halfway around the planet to see him, but we are not stalkers. No, we are not. Nope. Just one little photo with the BlackBerry camera and the satisfaction of knowing we had made the journey and been rewarded with good friends, a flat white and sharing the restaurant with Jimmy.

What I learned in 2010

Last year I posted a note on Facebook titled "What I learned in 2009". I'm taking a look back today to see what I learned in 2010:

Dancing with a two year old is good for anything that ails you.

It's okay to not give to every charity that asks and not have to explain nor feel guilty about it.

My husband is my best friend, as well as my lover, my partner, my roommate, my co-chef, co-host, confidante, sounding board, reality check and one of the funniest people I know.

Spending more time on your BlackBerry/iPhone/Droid/computer than talking with the ones you're physically with is, actually, quite rude.

Sometimes love isn't enough and we have to know when to stop trying and let go.

Texting only at stop lights and during slow traffic still isn't a good idea.

Clients are clients 100% of the time and only really, truly friends about 1% of the time.

Skype is a great way to keep friends and family close, and I should use it more.

There is a heck of a lot of nothing between Tucson and Austin.

I can learn current music by watching "Glee".

Traveling with other couples and sharing a house can be really fun, especially when cooking and wine pairing are involved.

Giving our elite flyers free domestic upgrades has altered where I sit in the airplane.

I am only 13.5 months away from the senior discount at the Edwards Cinema. (WTH?@$%#%#@!)

Apologizing, no matter whose fault it is, doesn't make me weak; it's not saying it that does.

Wine touring and tasting continue to fascinate me, whether it's in Spain, Paso or a new wine at the Larson Lodge.

There is still room for new friends in my life (Lora, Liz, Greg, Pat, Larry, Holly, Libby...).

A merger is a scary thing, no matter how much you're told it's a good thing. It very well may be a great thing, but it's still scary.

I am really good at organizing a project and making it successful.

A good fitting bra cannot be underestimated nor overrated.

Our parents are aging and they can be fragile; we need to keep them close and let them know how much we love and appreciate them.

Traveling with friends is not always a good idea.

I can watch "Finding Nemo" four times in one day if a two year old asks me to.

Watching a high school water polo team lose a big game can make me cry and my heart ache.

My family, on the whole, is pretty great.

Every day, no matter what happens, I am blessed and so amazingly lucky.

I don't understand...

Today, at the Rose Bowl, I was standing behind a very pretty young woman who was wearing a tank top and carrying a cute baby. Her tank top allowed me to see that her entire back and neck and most of one arm had been tattooed. I didn't understand.

That led my mind to wander to what else I don't understand....

I don't understand:

Ketchup on scrambled eggs.
Saying, let alone believing "9/11 was an inside job".
Pants belted around the bottom of your butt.
55 MPH speed limit on the freeway.
Negative political ads - can't you just tell me why I should vote for you without telling me why I shouldn't vote for the other candidate?
Not returning/acknowledging phone or email messages.
Stiletto heels.
Snooki.
Holding a grudge. Life is too short and you just might end up being really, really sorry.
Wanting to look excessively younger.
Gangsta rap (the kind with mysogynistic and cop-killing lyrics).
Twitter.
When people use "LOL" on everything they write. Everything.
Hate journalism.
Hating anyone/any group, but I understand hating liver.
Random violence.
Targeted violence.
Violence.
Why our friends moved to Texas and Georgia.
That day-glow orange sauce they put on 'nachos' at ballparks and theaters.
How putting logos all over something makes it 'designer' and expensive.
Margarine.
Chinese. Literally, I don't speak or understand it.
Not being able to or not wanting to cook, ever.
Not being the best you can be at least 90% of the time. Okay, 80%.
Celebrating another's failure. (Unless it's a USC loss, but hey...)
Making blanket assumptions based on race, religion or any other differentiating factor.
Gloria Allred.
Sashimi.
Why Cameron snores every night, no matter what position he's in.

There are far more things I don't understand, but that's enough for now. Maybe next I'll tell you what I do understand. I wonder which list would be longer?

A day like any other

It was a Tuesday morning and I was facilitating a class on Applied Behavioral Science - teaching supervisors of flight attendants how to get the best performance from their teams. We had supervisors from Boston, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco with us.

We were covering a section on managing through irregular operations when someone threw open the classroom door and excitedly blurted out, "Two planes have hit the World Trade Center!" The class turned expectantly to me, thinking this was part of the exercise in dealing with the unexpected. I was confused.

"Come!" the person said, "It's on the TV!" My co-facilitator and I agreed that we wouldn't be able to continue until we sorted this out, so we all filed out, hushed and excited voices hubbubbing about what it could be. We gathered around the TV set in the lounge area of the training center. Then a buzz started somewhere..."it's one of ours"...."it could be one of ours..." "what if it's one of ours???"

A manager came around the corner and went straight to the supervisor from Boston. UA175 from Boston was confirmed as one of the planes. These were HER flight attendants on board, her friends, our colleagues. She was led away, arangements to be made to get her to Boston as soon as possible.

I left the group and went up to the 8th floor of the building, where the managers were. We were all part of the emergency response team and needed to decide who would go where, and when. One facilitator was pacing around, shouting out gibberish about pulling people back into class, using this as a real-life experience in dealing with the unexpected. He was new to the airlines. He didn't understand.

I decided to drive to our Chicago Reservations office, the emergency response team's headquarters in case of... I found a couple other people downstairs who were headed there and off we went. Once there, there was controlled anxiety and we were assigned rooms. "Go into that classroom and sit. We will be with you as soon as possible."

The room I was assigned was where I would spend the next 10 days, in 12 hour shifts once we got through that first day, which was endless. I was in the room assigned to 'handle' Flight 93, which was missing at the time we first went into the room. A director came into the room and confirmed that UA93 had gone down in a field in western Pennsylvania. She had the manifest and they went row by row, assigning us names of passengers. Crew members were being handled by a team from Onboard Service, by those who knew and worked with them.

"Katie, you have Mark Bingham. He was on a companion pass, so we have some information on him. We'll get that to you." Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Haznawi were assigned, as well. Lauren Grandcolas, Todd Beamer, Nicole Miller, Honor Waino, ...We ran out of people in the room and I was also assigned Kristin White Gould.

We only had names, so we waited. We talked in quiet tones, we shared where we were, what we knew, what we had seen. The room was full of United colleagues, most of whom I'd not met before. We were all there for the same reason. We were going to reach out to the families to tell them that their loved ones were on UA93, that they were gone.

I don't talk about this day, nor the 9 that followed it. I know I was a completely different person when I walked out of that room around midnight on September 11th than I was when I got up that morning. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of who I was that morning to see if she resembled the woman I was that night.

The next 9 days consisted of phone calls with the Bingham and Gould family. My contact with the Binghams was Mark's mother and aunt, both UA flight attendants. Mark had been on his aunt's companion passes. Mark was one of the team who rushed the cockpit and brought down the plane. When I called Mark's mother to tell her he was on the plane, she told me she knew - he had called her. Other's were hearing similar stories and that's when we found out about the phone calls, the actions, the heroes of flight 93. Those of us who had passengers who made the calls heard heartbreaking tales from their families.

Kristin's daughter Allison and I spoke daily, several times a day. I had to ask her detailed questions to, hopefully, identify her mother's body or, in truth, what we might find. We requested DNA evidence from the families - hair dumped out of a shaver, a toothbrush, a hair brush...

Coming to work every day for those 12 hours was living in an alternate universe. The office is right next to O'Hare and there were no airplanes in the sky. My world was helping Allison, helping Mark's mother, father, step-mother, boyfriend and the man who drove him to the airport that morning. Giving them information, getting information, setting up funeral arrangements and just talking with them through this nightmare.

I keep a folder on that time and I haven't opened it in a few years until now. There is a card written by Allison the day after her mother's memorial service, September 29, 2001. Cameron and I flew out for the service and to meet the family I had come to know over the phone.

"I pray God gives you the strength not to dwell on this horrible acident. You have touched every last member of my family. You've been our guardian angel with a soft feather mattress that cushions us and has softened the blow through these past three weeks."

In the last 9 years Allison and I have stayed in touched, we've visited each other a couple of times, but time goes by. She doesn't know she was my guradian angel and we helped each other. That's the two of us in my Facebook profile photo, taken on a trip we did to San Francisco. I call her every September 11th, as well.

I didn't think I could cry over this any more. I was wrong.

What I really meant was (Part II)

My job isn't rocket science, I don't save lives, I don't contribute toward world peace or solve world hunger. I do delight some customers and travel agents, though, and I do add to the bottom line of my airline. Mostly I keep my management team happy, too.

And United, on the whole, when I get past the trite and annoying stuff that is part of almost any job, has been good to me. Very good to me. It has changed my life.

Because of United, I was in the Denver airport that day in May 1991 when I ran into Cameron Larson after 12 years. Because of United, I was able to fly often to LAX to start and keep the relationship going. We dated long distance Fresno to LA, San Diego to LA, San Diego to Detroit, Detroit to Chicago. UA helped keep us going.

Because of United I reunited with Cam and we married and life is good.

Because of United I have flown First Class to London on BA, to Tokyo on JAL, Business Class to Copenhagen on SAS, Business Class to Brussels on City Bird. I've flown First or Business Class on United to Paris, Buenos Aires, Osaka, Sydney, London, Frankfurt, Milan, Melbourne, Montevideo, Hong Kong, Geneva, Dusseldorf, Bangkok, Jamaica and many domestic destinations.

I could go into what I was able to do at those destinations: scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, sail the Whitsundays, drink wine in Argentina, whitewater rafting in Costa Rica, see family in Denmark, but that would be several more posts...

Because of United I have seen much of the world and will continue to see more and life is good.

Because of United I have flown in the cockpit of a DC-10 freighter out of Anchorage, over glaciers, past Denali and into Chicago. I have sat in the cockpit of the Concorde at the BA hanger in Heathrow.

Because of United I have been the only caucasian female in a room full of Chinese men in Beijing, negotiating a contract on maintenance services for Air China at UA staffed airports. I have toured aircraft maintenance facilities in Mallorca, Taiwan, Uruguay, San Francisco. I have been the United representative to international conferences on Line Maintenance in Bangkok and Vancouver.

I have coached senior leadership in divisions that were new to me and had them value my opinion. They have made changes based on my input. I have presented to the CEO, Chairman of the Board, President, numerous officers and management on how to make the airline better. I have had a hand in saving UA $20 million following the dark times of 9/11.

I worked with two families of passengers who were lost on UA93 on September 11, 2001 in a field in Western Pennsylvania. I shared their grief and for 10 days I was their connection. I don't talk about that much, but it has profoundly impacted me and I am probably better becasue of that experience.

Because of United I have lived in LA, Fresno, San Diego and the Chicago suburbs, and I have been able to see my family every year at Christmas.

Because of United I spent a week on Maui, a long weekend in New York, 5 days in Sydney, and ridden the Eastern Orient Express through Southeast Asia, all expenses paid.

I have survived the elimination of my job twice and landed each time in a great gig. I have made life long friends who enrich my life daily. I have someone on an airplane right now coming to visit, because of United.

I have spent 21 years 3 months and 15 days as a proud UA employee.

What I really meant to say was thank you United for supporting me and giving me incredible opportunities. Life is good.

What I really meant was

I work for United Airlines and I am a Key Account Manager. I have an assigned account base, worth about $90 million in annual revenue to United. I have two corporate accounts and I have seven travel agencies (some with mulitple branches) whom I see every two weeks, once a month or once every six weeks, depending on the size of the account and what works best for them. Oh, travel agencies are now called Travel Management Companies (TMCs), FYI. Now I can use that lingo later on in this post.

You with me?

On my calls (known as customer meetings or sales calls or account visits) to TMCs I either make a presentation to a group of agents about what the latest news is with United (#1 on-time in 2009, new routes, B777 conversion to new lie-flat Business Class seats, etc.) and how their account is performing on their expected sales targets or I walk around the TMC and talk to agents individually about their accounts, help with seat assignments, upgrade space, refund issues, pricing questions, etc. In some accounts I do both. I'm usually in an account anywhere from an hour to 4 hours a visit.

Still with me?

The agents are in their twenties, with just a couple of years experience up to an agent who is 93. Really. Most are wonderfully respectful and knowledgeable and kind and appreciative. Some are not the sharpest pencil in the box. Or they're one card short of a deck. Pick your cliche', I know them, I call on them. For those of you who are professional and polite, this is not about you. For those of you who aren't all that, well you won't read this anyway. = ]

Here are some things I wish I could say, but I never will. Except here.

To those cackling agents who think it's funny to say "Are you going to charge to go to the bathroom on the plane?", it might have been funny when I first heard it 10 years ago, but not so funny the zillionth time. No, that's not an exaggeration, I've made a tick mark for everytime I've heard that.

When I'm trying to answer your dumb questions about charging for blankets (that's the other guy) stop interrupting me and thinking it's hilarious when you yell out "but you don't clean your blankets" and when I assure you that not only do we clean them, but we then seal them in plastic to assure cleanliness, it's not a gigglefest when you say, "but you don't clean them, you just put them in plastic".

Don't ask me what the fare is. You're the travel agent.

Don't ask me how to get help on another airline because that rep won't answer your calls. I don't work for that airline. Don't sell them if they can't help you. You want my help? Sell United. I'll help you.

Please don't threaten me with selling another airline if I don't do what you unrealistically demand ("I'll just sell brand X if you won't give me a free upgrade on this $150 fare to New York") because I will call your bluff. Or dial the phone for you. I don't care if the other guy gives it away, I don't.

I know we outsource, I know your feelings about it, I've been hearing it for years, so why do you act like no one's ever told me? And our sales support agents aren't in India, they're in the Philippines. Yes, they both have accents, no they are not the same. I use the same folks for my support, so don't tell me they can't speak or understand English. They understand me fine. And we record their calls, so if you tell me a story about how terrible they are, I will ask you for the details of the call and advise you we will listen to it so we can instruct the agent how to better handle a call. What? Never mind, you say...??

If I tell you a flight is full in First Class and that I can't clear an upgrade, I'm telling you the truth. Saying "but I never ask for anything" or "but this is a really important client to me" doesn't make someone suddenly disappear off the plane to give your passenger the seat. Really. I tried, I told you the truth.

I was called a "vendor" this week. I wasn't referred to by name but by "vendor". As in "oh, there's a vendor out in the lobby". It kind of took the wind out of my sails that this office I'd been visiting for almost two years, for whom I've done a lot of work and made exceptions and waivers and answered emails at 11:00 p.m. and on weekends... I'm just a vendor and nothing I do makes a difference.

But it does to many. "You rock" and "thank you" and "I appreciate it" and "wow! that's great!" are heard more often than the other and that makes me keeping coming back for more. I have made great friends and have so much respect for many in this industry that I shouldn't let the dim bulbs and poor business people get me down.

What I really meant was "Thanks for your support of United."