Coworker made me miss our flight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They were going to the client meeting... so .... it sounds like she was coming from HER house and left the laptop in her car etc. How can the OP be responsible for waking her up and getting her to the airport. I can understand if they were mid-travel then he could have reasonably taken some responsibility for her... but.... she should be totally responsible for getting to work on time.

Yes, this was the situation. It's not like I could bang on her hotel room door or anything. And I honestly don't know what people who don't travel know. How would I?!

[Anonymous]

If I were in your shoes I would expect her to already know how to wake up on time and know not to wear hooker heals in the airport. I might have considered giving her a 5-minute schooling on bag size and TSA rules since those are confusing and frequently changing. Leaving a bag in the car is shit that could happen to anybody and is remedied by arriving early like she was supposed to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy, don't travel with her. Tell her you'll see her at the gate or on the plane. Make up some excuse like you have a friend who works at the airport and you're meeting them for dinner or whatever.

What are you talking about??

[Anonymous]

Why did you tell the boss the flight was missed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your boss is banging her.

+1. This is all very suspicious.

[Anonymous]

Tell boss: Coworker is not experienced at travel. You are not experienced at babysitting a grownup. You'll both do better next time

[Anonymous]

OP, do you have HR contact you can talk to about this? It's one thing to help an inexperienced coworker navigate business travel once everyone is at the point of embarking, but it's completely another thing to hold you accountable for ensuring your coworker got up on time, got to the airport on time, wore appropriate clothing, etc. And unless your coworker has been living under a rock, she should know that there are many restrictions regarding flight travel. Heck, I haven't flown in years and I know that!

If your boss has formally reprimanded you, or even verbally reprimanded you, for the situation – then I would involve HR at this point. I agree with others that there is something suspicious about the situation. Someone so completely clueless has been chosen to advance to a position where she must travel for business? I seriously wonder what is going on between this person and your boss.

[Anonymous]

Yes, this was the situation. It's not like I could bang on her hotel room door or anything. And I honestly don't know what people who don't travel know. How would I?!

Your boss made it your job to figure this out when he assigned you to babysit. Seriously, OP, just take some responsibility. You didn't do the work to educate her with regard to what can go through security and how to dress for travel. She alone is responsible for not getting up on time. But, that may not have been a problem had you prepared her in advance for getting through security.

[Anonymous]

I would email her some basic travel rules and cc the boss. That way in the future has no excuse for claiming ignorance. I also agree with involving HR.

The next time she pulls this thought I'd leave her. I had the same thing happen to me and I left my co-worker primarily because it was the last flight of the day and I didn't want risk missing our meeting.

[Anonymous]

I would email her some basic travel rules and cc the boss. That way in the future has no excuse for claiming ignorance. I also agree with involving HR.

The next time she pulls this thought I'd leave her. I had the same thing happen to me and I left my co-worker primarily because it was the last flight of the day and I didn't want risk missing our meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was the situation. It's not like I could bang on her hotel room door or anything. And I honestly don't know what people who don't travel know. How would I?!

Your boss made it your job to figure this out when he assigned you to babysit. Seriously, OP, just take some responsibility. You didn't do the work to educate her with regard to what can go through security and how to dress for travel. She alone is responsible for not getting up on time. But, that may not have been a problem had you prepared her in advance for getting through security.

Hold on a second. The Boss can't make her off-work behavior his responsibility. When they are on travel... sure... she can be responsible for her but it is totally unreasonable to expect that a 40-something year old woman is incapable of getting to work on time. This is exactly what happened. She didn't get to work on time.

1. The boss is incompetent for (a) hiring her and (b) assigning you this task for babysitting her in hers and your non-working time.
2. Where are the feminists voicing complaints that a woman needs a man to babysit her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would email her some basic travel rules and cc the boss. That way in the future has no excuse for claiming ignorance. I also agree with involving HR.

The next time she pulls this thought I'd leave her. I had the same thing happen to me and I left my co-worker primarily because it was the last flight of the day and I didn't want risk missing our meeting.

I like this one!

Start the email my indicating that you are sending the email because of her mistakes during the last business trip and because your boss assigned you to monitor and correct her behavior you are providing these instructions and that next time you expect better performance. Make it very clear she screwed up.

[Anonymous]

You say that no meetings were impacted and that there was no additional cost incurred. Why did you even tell your boss about the missed flight then? Were you hoping to score points off how inexperienced/clueless she is? If so, your boss is right to see through that sort of behavior and let you have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You keep blaming her for your failure. How could you not know what was entailed when you were told to babysit her?

I assume because she reasonably didn't think a woman in her 40's could be that stupid.

Yes, this. I walked her through how to get a credit card, walked her through our booking system, made sure we were on the same flights together, made sure she knew what attire was expected at a supplier visit, and made sure we had a place to meet at the airport so I could walk her through everything else. I really didn't know that anyone, even someone who doesn't travel, didn't know you can't bring big bottles of liquids on a plane. It's been all over the news for 10 years! When she walked toward the checkpoint with her giant bag, I almost had a panic attack because I realized what I was dealing with.

In her defense, if she never travels, she wouldn't have been paying attention to the liquids thing.

The waking up late part is totally her fault, as is forgetting the laptop.

But when someone tells you to help someone else who is a total newbie at something, you can't assume they know anything about that topic. No, a lot of people don't realize you can't take a bottle of shampoo on a plane. That doesn't make them stupid; it just makes them unfamiliar with air travel.

Knowing she was a newbie, you should also have assumed she doesn't have a clue how long it takes to get checked in, how early you have to be there. Explicit instructions to meet her in front of the airport at a specific time would have been the way to go.

If you had planned to be there 3 hours early, why didn't you tell her to be there 3 hours early, too? And if she was 5 minutes late, you'd call her.

The boss is frustrated because he very specifically told you that she was new and inexperienced and needed handholding. And you didn't hand hold.

If you don't want to do that kind of thing, then you need to tell your boss beforehand "I don't feel comfortable with that." Otherwise, I agree with him that you kind of dropped the ball.

Saying your coworker is stupid or ridiculous for not knowing something just sounds petty. And saying she was an hour and a half late actually makes you look worse, because the question is, well, when she was 5 minutes late, why didn't you call her? And then it becomes clear that you really didn't plan to meet her way in advance of the flight, leave extra time for mishaps, et cetera.

Both you and your coworker deserve some blame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, this was the situation. It's not like I could bang on her hotel room door or anything. And I honestly don't know what people who don't travel know. How would I?!

Your boss made it your job to figure this out when he assigned you to babysit. Seriously, OP, just take some responsibility. You didn't do the work to educate her with regard to what can go through security and how to dress for travel. She alone is responsible for not getting up on time. But, that may not have been a problem had you prepared her in advance for getting through security.

Hold on a second. The Boss can't make her off-work behavior his responsibility. When they are on travel... sure... she can be responsible for her but it is totally unreasonable to expect that a 40-something year old woman is incapable of getting to work on time. This is exactly what happened. She didn't get to work on time.

1. The boss is incompetent for (a) hiring her and (b) assigning you this task for babysitting her in hers and your non-working time.
2. Where are the feminists voicing complaints that a woman needs a man to babysit her?

Unless the woman didn't know what time she really had to be there and assumed x amount of time was enough. It's not clear that OP gave her coworker a clear indication of what time to be at the airport.