Pic snagged from Cindy. But it's got my Tom.
On the plane, flying in. That's Cindy next to him. Thanks Cindy!
Got a call from Tom/Coffeedoc last night! Skype is an awesome thing. We couldn't see each other and the connection dropped a bunch of times, was spotty but heck, we talked with each other...caught up on the week. Fantastic!
I wanted to mention a surprising bit of corporate goodness.
It doesn't happen that often, maybe, nowadays and when it does I think it deserves a mention. Southwest. Yup, Southwest airlines.
They did the right thing.
Tom and the team scrambled to get flights down to Ft. Lauderdale in order to meet the private plane down to Haiti. (See earlier post on that fiasco. Thanks again Mike!) They had less than 24 hour notice to get the flights, gather the food, gear, meds, supplies, change their schedules and get to the airport. Needless to say, any advance negotiation with the airline didn't even occur to us. Doh.
As we pulled up to the airport, my very large suburban loaded to the rafters, to meet the team that had already offloaded another big load of supplies....we realized, uh-oh, this is gonna cost us. Will they even be able to get the gear on the plane? Bag limits and all. But there we were and so we were gonna give it a go and see how it played out.
Well, it played out brilliantly.
By which I mean, a Southwest guy came right over to the car, heard that this was all to take to Haiti, and pulled over a huge luggage cart and started helping us unload the car. No questions asked. Helping tape up the tubs, fast. (And, in typical style, we were very late on arrival, WELL inside that two hour, um, one and half hour window...what can I say, it was a scramble).
Ernest, the CRNA on the team, came out to meet us (He arrived on time, ahem) and said that Southwest had already taken his big huge load of supplies, happily. So Ernest, started helping too and we had that car unloaded in record time and they whisked tom inside to check him and all this extra stuff in. I kissed him hard and said goodbye, holding my breath and beginning to tally a guess at the overcharge.
Tom called me later to tell me the news:
Not only did Southwest help us out of the car in record time, they took every single box and tub. They didn't blink. And they didn't charge us a dime.
NO CHARGE.
They took twenty-three extra tubs and boxes, adding up to a weight of 3/4 ton, and no charge, no trouble, no fuss. They did it with a smile.
Now. That's corporate goodness worth smiling about and worth a shout.
Good for them.
So, go fly Southwest Airlines.
They are doing their part to help too. Maybe in other ways as well, donating and so on.
But this week, this was a real help, in real time, for real people.
I've mentioned that its a logistical nightmare to get down to Haiti to help, much less with almost a ton of supplies and gear.
But Southwest stepped up and helped.
And it made a huge difference.
So, thank you Southwest Airlines!!!
We think you are terrific!
And on another note: Cindy has a terrific update today and some fantastic pics!! (My personal fav, I shamelessly snagged, above). Go see her, it's a great read to start the morning.
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