I consider myself very fortunate that for the majority of my career I haven't had to do any airline travel for business. I have thought often about the enormous amount of hassle and stress I have spared. Another thing to mention in setting this story up is that I have never had a laptop computer, never, that is, until a few weeks before the experience I will share occurred.
The company I work for had been purchased by investors about a year and a half ago. And as the momentum of the changes being implemented was building, I was presented an opportunity to do a proposal for a project in Hyderabad, India that was an order of magnitude larger than anything the company had ever been invited to work on. I had long term ties with this client nurtured very carefully and my company was thrilled.
The first few meetings were to take place in New York at the developer's world headquarters. On my second trip back from New York, I was sitting at one of the desks set up for travelers to sit down and catch up on work. There was an avalanche of e-mail from the last half of the day when I was focused on Hyderabad and had no time to check any e-mail. I began trying to get my head above water as it were and looked up at the gate and saw nobody there. I freaked. I went running down the ramp just in the nick of time.
The plane was packed and I was not in the mood for the sardine can routine as I jostled my way to my window seat, but was very relieved that I had caught my flight. Within five or so minutes I nodded off and woke up as we were landing at Washington Reagan Airport. It hit me as I was thinking about what belongings I needed to grab to get off of the flight - I left my laptop at La Guardia ! "Holy ^*#@ !" I said out loud.
A sickening feeling washed over me. I was pretty sure that in that busy airport, I had a far less than even chance that an airline employee or good citizen had found it and turned it in. I scrambled to the baggage claim office and explained what happened and a call was made to New York's baggage claim office. Nothing was turned in so I asked the lady to ask if they would look where I was sitting. Again, nothing. She then called TSA and Lost and Found which also turned up no laptop.
I was beyond panicked at this point. Due to the nature of my work, which is in the security field,
and with no "spyware" loaded onto the machine due to the fact that I never took it out of my office, I knew I was totally screwed.
My thoughts then shifted to my resignation because I knew that I had so badly compromised my firm there was no alternative. I couldn't believe it: After all of the grueling years of hard work it REALLY was about to come crashing down.
I then began exhorting myself "OK, you may have lost, but never cave in to defeat". This was all I had at this point. On the way home from the airport and when I arrived home I couldn't even focus on what I would say when I broke the news to the CEO and tendered my resignation.
I had to keep mustering the vow not to cave in !
I tried to sleep some and probably had dosed off at some point deep into the middle of the night.
I woke up and took a shower but can't remember if I ate anything. On the way to work I kept mustering my resolve and tried my best to put together in my mind what I would say to the
CEO. I had to maintain my dignity - that was key. He also had to see that I was not crushed by my fatal mishap.
When I arrived at my office I wrote down the words I had come up with on my short drive to work. I knew it was far more important HOW I said what I had to say. As I felt my thoughts slipping into the oblivion of what would become of my life, I slammed that door shut. I knew if I didn't cave in I would recover. Eventually.
Readying myself for the walk to the CEO's office, a thought went through my mind, "Tell the airline there's a reward". I contemplated that for a minute and decided I had nothing to lose and determined an appropriate amount. I called the airline's baggage claim office in New York. "Hi, this is Mike Gauer....I lost a laptop computer yesterday evening...did anyone find it?....no, and can you tell me if TSA and Lost and Found turned up anything?....the woman last night said they would check every hour or so......no, OK, I am placing a reward of $______..... here are the two numbers I can be reached at".
Sixty seconds hadn't gone by when my cell phone rang. "Hi, this is David" the young man said in a sheepish tone of voice. "I understand you lost your computer yesterday?.....I found a computer last night". He gave me the description of the machine and it was indeed my laptop. I wasn't in any mood to challenge the fact that an airline employee had waited until there was money involved before calling me.
"OK, David, I am going to give you a FedEx account number and I need you to take the computer to a FedEx office right away and ship it 'Priority Overnight', OK ?....here is the number....as soon as the computer arrives here in the morning and all is in order I will wire the money to your bank account....if you call me back with wire instructions to your bank we will be all set".
As a mixture of every kind of emotion flooded my brain, I could sense great trepidation in the young man who sounded like he was in his early twenties at the oldest. He was really in no position to say anything along the lines of "what assurance do I have if i ship the computer I will
in fact receive the reward" nor did he utter a word about it. The thought went through my mind
that when I received the computer I wasn't obligated to pay the reward, which was quite sizable, but I put the brakes on that line of thinking. My gut told me it was best not to tamper with the
way things were going.
An indescribable sense of relief came over me like a cool rain on a scalding hot day. I couldn't believe my computer had been found and was on its way. And as I tried to focus on work the rest of the day I felt a deep sense of gratitude.
The next morning, the FedEx package arrive at about 9:00 AM. True to his word, David had in fact come through ! Within an hour or two I drove to my bank and wired the reward to his account. About two hours later he called me and was waxing on in a religious tone about how I was an angel from Heaven.
As I look back on this experience, if there is any main theme it is the realization that all the times I had refused to let defeat un-glue me had made it possible for me to withstand this prodigious test of my resolve. In some ways, recovering the computer was just icing on the cake.
