Can I trust you?

One of the highlights of my day is seeing Seth Godin’s new blog posts each morning. I love love love this one which was delivered earlier this week:

Everyone gets paid on commission

The Washington Post recently laid off a columnist because his blog posts didn’t get enough web traffic.

Of course, in the old days, the newspaper had no real way to tell which columns got read and which ones didn’t. So journalists were lulled into the sense that it didn’t really matter. The Times quotes Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU,  “It’s an unusual public rationale for serious newspaper people, that’s for sure.”

Wrong tense. It’s not going to be unusual for long.

In fact, in a digital world where everything can be measured, we all work on commission. And why not? If you do great work and it works, you should get rewarded. And if you don’t, it’s hard to see why a rational organization would keep you on.

You don’t have to like the coming era of hyper-measurement, but that doesn’t mean it’s not here.

In case you are wondering, I’m not at #Recruitfest09.

I’m supposed to be there.

In case you live under a rock and haven’t heard or seen the footage we’ve had severe and even deadly flooding this week here in Atlanta. Monday night, the night before my flight to Toronto for Recruitfest, there was so much water in my yard and driveway it was literally lapping at my front door…within an inch or so from coming in my house.

I was stressing.

Big time.

And the forecasts were for more rain over the next several days, which at that point seemed to guarantee that I’d have water in my house at some point.

Several friends – and my dad – tried to convince me not to go.

I was NOT going to not go. No matter what anybody said.

(Sorry Dad.)

I’d been looking forward to it for months and was all set to lead the Social Media track with The Fabulous Jenny DeVaughn.

A friend volunteered to watch out for my house while I was gone which made me feel much better about that situation. I had dropped Jake off earlier that day to board at his vet, so I knew he was all set.

I even managed to sleep from about 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. and was then back up to finish packing, etc., and get to the airport extra early for my flight. On Monday the downtown connector (where I-75 and I-85 intersect through downtown and midtown Atlanta) was completely flooded and I’d heard that parts of I-285 and I-20 were also flooded and closed so I wasn’t 100% sure just exactly how I was going to actually get to the airport but I was going.

And I went.

The airport was a ghost town.

The world’s busiest airport was practically empty.

It was eerie.

I was flying through Boston and my flights were on two different airlines. I checked in at Air Tran for the first leg of my trip then went to American Airlines to check in for the flight from Boston to Toronto.

The woman at the counter asked for my passport. All excited, I handed her my newly minted passport card that they’d issued me specifically for this trip.

The woman gave me a strange look and asked for my passport book.

Me:

Me: This is what they gave me.

Her:  I need the book.

Me: I don’t have a book. This is what they sent me. Specifically for this trip.

Me: It’s a passport card.

Her: I know what it is.

Her: I need to see the book.

Me: They didn’t send me a book.

Me: I don’t understand what the problem is.

Her:

Her: This won’t work. I can’t accept it.

Me:

Me:

Me: Can you please check with a supervisor? This is good for travel to Canada and Mexico.

Her:

Her: Wait right here.

She took my passport card and disappeared for what seemed like two days. Really, it was probably about ten minutes.

She reappeared with another woman who had papers in her hand.

I didn’t like the look on her face.

Woman #2: Hi.

Me: Hi.

Her: This isn’t going to work.

Me:

Me: Why?

Her: It’s only good for land and sea travel.

Me:

Me:

Me:

Me: WHAT.

Her: Why did they give you this? You can’t fly with it.

Me:

Me: I have absolutely no idea.

Me: When I went to apply the guy said, “Are you flying or driving?” and I said “flying.”

Me: I even gave him the dates of my flights.

Her:

Her: Do you have a passport book?

Me: No. This is all I have.

Her:

Her: I’m sorry but you can’t fly to Toronto with this.

Me:

Me:

Me, deflated…and pretty much in absolute shock: Ok.

Her:

Me: Thank you.

I walked out. I didn’t even go back to Air Tran to tell them I wasn’t getting on the plane. I couldn’t…I couldn’t  speak.

I barely remember driving home.

I came home to an empty house since Jake was boarding at the vet.

I sat down and stared into thin air. I couldn’t move.

I knew I needed to call Jenny since we were sharing a room in Toronto and the reservation was in my name, and of course I needed to call Geoff Webb to let him know I would not be able to make it.

It took me about an hour to collect myself in order to make those calls.

Both Jenny and Geoff were incredibly sweet and understanding. I felt HORRIBLE.

I can’t even explain this but somehow unpacking turned in to me rearranging every closet in my house.

While standing over piles of clothes on my sofa and feeling completely overwhelmed and yet numb at the same time, I got a call from Toronto.

Jason Davis.

He called to see if I could get a flight to Buffalo and said that if I did he’d have a car there waiting for me to drive to Toronto. (I think it’s 1.5 – 2 hours.)

I was so. incredibly. touched.

I talked to Jenny who was still at the Atlanta airport waiting for her fourth flight of the morning. The first three had been canceled because no one was on the planes. I guess with all of the flooding and just plain scary weather people couldn’t get to the airport.

I researched flight options and there weren’t many, and they were going to charge me a billion dollars in change fees…not to mention we had more bad weather moving in and to be honest I was concerned that if I went back to the airport I’d never actually take off since they were continuing to cancel flights, and with more rain coming in and interstates flooded I was afraid that I’d then be stranded at the airport and not able to get home.

So, I finally resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to Recruitfest.

Based on the live tweets, photos, and blog posts from this week I know I missed an incredible experience. I couldn’t even look at any of it until yesterday afternoon.

I can tell you one thing.

I learned a huge lesson from this experience.

If you blindly trust someone to do their job correctly you run a huge risk of being very disappointed.

I’m sure working at the post office and issuing passports isn’t the world’s most thrilling job but come on. You screw that up and you can really mess up someone’s life.

This makes me wonder.

When someone is not held accountable for doing their job well, why should they?

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