Sometimes Employees Might Be Good To Have

I'm what you might call a micro business, well below what one thinks of as a small business. If I get any smaller I'm out of business. Dan Light Consulting without Dan Light closes the company. I'm not complaining mind you, I decided on a one man firm when it all started in 1990. Since then I've had the standard complaints about the peaks and valleys and lack of respect because some people equate capability with size but by and large I never wanted employees. Wednesday was one of those rare occasions where I second guess myself.

I got out of bed Wednesday ready to face my average day and until early afternoon the average was, well, average. Plenty of work to do at a slightly less than hectic pace but nothing unusual. Then the call came. It was a client in Puerto Rico and they needed help starting yesterday. The race had officially begun.

Now at any pace the work load increased drastically. I had to meet all my commitments for this week and set things up so that I could meet the future two weeks commitments without having all of my normal resources at my finger tips. The there was the new work and I had to make travel arrangements. Everything shifted into over drive.

After wrestling with shifting airline schedules, hotel reservation desk that didn't speak English and Hertz having no cars available I finally arranged to be on site the next day. Little did I know that things were going from bad to worse starting with my trip to the airport the next morning. Coming toward the finish line I'm officially operating in hyper drive.

At 4:00am I was up and ready to taxi to the airport. In all fairness let me say that the taxi company and my driver were local so I can't rant about foreign natinals, unless you count Warrenton, Virginia, 50 miles outside of Washington, DC foreign. In any case, the taxi was late, the driver wasted my time and money sitting in the drive way trying to attach his GPS to the windshield. As we approached the airport I thought I was dreaming when I heard someone ask if I was arrival or departure.

After thinking of a wise ass response I found I was too sleepy for all that fun and informed the driver that I was departing. Getting out of the taxi I found that the driver was also unfamiliar with the concept of receipts. What else could go wrong; NTS. I checked and headed for my gate but security stood in the path of progress.

I always set the alarm off with my artificial hip but I don't always get a total moron as a screener. After wanding me he had to pat me down because he couldn't trust his instrumentation. I didn't bother to ask why we didn't go to the pat down in the first place. Once through it was on to the plane and a nice first class seat and treatment.

The flight went well, for me anyway. Unfortunately, it wasn't as uneventful for my luggage. I couldn't find my non-stop flight so I settled for on stop. What could possibly go wrong? As I stood at the baggage carousel until I realized I was alone and my bag wasn't going around in circles. Fortunately the bag was located when I was only half way to my final destination so I went back to get it.

Back on the road I learned that the GPS and I had a different understanding when it came to turn right. I thought it meant turn right now not later. I was lost in the wilds of Puerto Rico for over 7 hours.

When I go to my hotel I thought, "It sure would have been nice to have someone else to send on this trip or to make my travel arrangements. Fortunately, this isn't an every day occurrence. I wonder what will make me want employees the next time. I don't think I can go through this again.