San Francisco—”This is pretty crazy, this is actually really, pretty crazy,” one of my colleagues says to describe some situations, and many times, I don’t necessarily agree with her. But forget anything “crazy” I may have disagreed with her on in the past. If she were with my other colleague and me today, that’s the only phrase she would’ve used, well, that and some explicit phrases. I would have agreed with her. That’s the only phrase I was thinking of today.

It’s nearly late December, the holidays are upon us, and the weather isn’t the greatest, so flight delays and airport difficulties are no big shockers. That’s fine, but what happened today is …

6:30 a.m. CST: A friend we made from our conference gives us a ride to the San Antonio airport—ample time for our 8:00 am non-stop San Francisco bound flight.

6:40 am CST: We wait in line to check our bags at the curbside “United Airlines service to San Francisco has been cancelled folks,” the customer service agent announces.

6:45 am CST: We join several disgruntled passengers surrounding the ticketing gate, waiting for answers.

9:45 am CST: Finally, our turn! We are re-routed on a U.S. Airways flight to San Francisco via Phoenix we’re told departing at 1:30 p.m. We schlep to the other side of the airport, check in with the ticketing agents, check our bags to SF, and take our boarding passes. My colleague quickly asks the agent to confirm if the flight departs at 1:30 as we were told earlier, she tells us yes. Phewww!!!

11:57 am CST: “Do you think it’s too early to go to our gate?” I ask my colleague. We both look at our passes, wondering if the 1150 is a typo. We sprint to our gate. The boarding agent censures us for missing our flight despite the fact that our names weren’t called (we were close enough to hear if we were and we asked others if they heard our names) We explain that two previous US Airways employees told us that flight departs at 1:30… she practically calls us liars.

1:57 p.m. CST: After some delightful phone tag with our boss and then our travel agent, we’re again rerouted, now on a San Jose, Calif. bound American Airlines flight via Dallas. Three other flights are cancelled within an hour, more cancellations are expected. Countless people are told they can’t get home until Friday or Saturday. For us that would mean canceling our long planned conference in San Francisco for Friday morning, and that’s not happening.

2:40 p.m. CST: Racing with the clock to the make final boarding call, we schlep to the security check in for the third time. “Are you sure this time?” one agent sneers. We sprint to our gate: the screen reads “one hour delay”

9:30 p.m. PST my colleague and I arrive at our homes.

In retrospect, I wonder what, if anything in particular, made this all “really, pretty crazy,” if not also, profoundly disappointing.

Is it because we had to take a $105 cab ride from San Jose Airport to San Francisco Airport to claim our luggage then figure a way back home? Is it because we missed our annual holiday office dinner earlier that evening? And because I missed seeing a friend I hadn’t seen in almost ten years and I don’t know when we can meet again? Is it because we didn’t check our passes and trusted the two agents? Or because we spent a whole day running from gate to gate, security check point to security check point, like airport agents’ playthings?

In retrospect, it wasn’t any of those reasons…

My colleague agreed that the “really pretty craziest,” factor was the customer service agent. She refused to answer our questions and insisted we’d be stuck until Saturday. While we were prepared for some negative travel experience, we didn’t expect anything from someone whose job it is to serve and assist.

Regardless, I hope she doesn’t find herself in the situation my colleague and I were in today. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Though it would be “really pretty crazy,” if she were, and I think it would be karma, too.—Suzanne Manneh