Lately, I've been saving all of my posts for Engineer Blogs because I've been uber busy and don't have the time to post in two places. One of the reasons why I've been busy has been traveling. Which brings me to the topic of this post, Fuck You, LaGuardia Airport!
I was flying home from ORD with a layover through LaGuardia a few days ago. On the flight from ORD to LaGuardia, the plane took off about 45 minutes later due to mechanical problems and airport traffic. Tangentially, I know enough about the manufacture and assembly airplanes to make me uneasy about flying and I would rather them delay the flight to fix the problems than roll the dice. I only had about 1:10 minute layover in LaGuardia before my flight home so I know the timing was going to be close. To make matters worse, my flight to LaGuardia was with one airline but my flight home was another. Here's where the problem arises.
The different airlines operate out of two different terminals in the airport. This obviously doesn't come as a shock, as this is the norm. But I didn't which terminal I needed to be at for my flight home. To make matters worse, there's no fucking sign in LaGuardia telling you what terminal you've landed in! I ended up landing in Terminal B and, oddly enough, Concourse B of Terminal B. So when I see my ticket and it says "D" on it and there's a sign for concourse D, I immediately go "AH HA!" and I start running.
Much to my surprise, the Gate on my ticket doesn't match up with the Gate in Concourse D (Shocking, I know). Once I found that out and finally talked to someone that obviously had seen this problem before, I had to leave security, run outside for about 10 minutes to Terminal D. Then, I had to go through security again, before running to my gate.
I made the flight but I am still fucking pissed about this. I understand that there was a delay in my arriving flight which was out of their control. But it's LaGuardia's responsibility to have SOME FUCKING MAPS! And look, only a FUCKING MORON has Terminals A, B, C, D and Concourses within one Terminal labeled A, B, C, D. Don't you think that might lead to a little fucking confusion? Idiots.
/rant
I've never been to LaGuardia but I've run into similar issues at other airports before; it's definitely not fun. Thankfully (I guess) most of the reason I sprint through airports is because of flight delays rather than bad signage. If you're using a smart phone I recommend downloading Gate Guru. It contains maps of nearly every airport you would ever want to travel to and also includes ratings, tips from travelers, and what's available in each terminal. It's pretty handy to have I have to say.
ReplyDeleteI arrived at LaGuardia once at 3am for a domestic 6am flight and the airport was closed!
ReplyDeleteThere are windows around the side of one of the terminals and I crawled through a crack of one that was left open. December in NY is freezing, plus no heat or lights in the closed airport. So I'm lying on a chair in the dark covered in all the clothes from my suitcase listening to weird closed-airport noises. Totally sucked. I will never fly out of there again if I can help it.
Grads, Engineering, Academia, Research, Students... Life after landing a Tenure Track position in engineering.
ReplyDeleteTenure means you can't be fired no matter how little judgment you display. I've always been subject to being fired or laid off. I can't imagine the arrogance of having a job where I couldn't be let go because of lack of judgement or use of improper language.
Professionals always act in a professional manner.
Academic fraud, criminal convictions (and sometimes charges), and workplace indiscretions are all things that will get you fired even with tenure.
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