First and foremost, thank you to everyone at Autotask who welcomed me to your offices and shared your world with me. You have a great company and I look forward to continuing and expanding my relationship with you. In response to my presentation I have received both rave reviews with requests for follow up conversations as well as concerns about the direct almost abrasive method of communication I used during the presentation. I assure you no offence was meant. I apologize to those who may have been offended by my direct communication style as I relayed some of the difficulties I have with the product. I am intense about Autotask because it is so important to me and my business.
I also may have been operating more on autopilot than normal as my trip to Autotask HQ was riddled with complication. As requested here is that story:
I scheduled my trip to Autotask HQ to start early morning on Wednesday to enjoy the tourist attractions in New York City (NYC). At the end of the day I’d take the train from NYC to Albany to be well rested and prepared for the intense day to follow with Autotask.
I was up late on Tuesday night, (4 AM late) to make sure a project I’d promised I’d complete was complete. I figured this wouldn’t be an issue as I’d sleep on the direct flight to NYC J. I slept an hour and then at 5:00 AM I left to make sure I got through airport security and on my 8:00 AM flight on time. When I scanned my receipt to get the boarding pass the machine printed a boarding pass for a noon flight. WHAT!!! I’m going to miss all my fun in NYC! So I stood in the long line to talk with someone about their crazy machine that printed me the wrong ticket. The glassy eyed, half asleep employee let me know that the flight was cancelled and I’d have to come back for the next one.
OK, if I must I must. I headed home had breakfast with the kids and then relaxed a little before heading back to the airport at 11. At 11 all looked good, I got through security and my plane was ontime… until about 5 min before boading, The flight was delayed…. oh dear I’m going to miss my train…. Then canceled…. WHAT!
I called Travis who was also coming out to Autotask and he was on his way to the Airport in Chicago. We kept in touch through the next 4 hours brainstorming ways around what happened to be some of the worst wind storms New York has ever had. Travis was lucky, his 4 PM flight departed, my rescheduled 3:30 flight did not. So now the next flight option I had was Thursday morning. I knew Bob wanted me there for the presentation to the entire company so I felt it was important to do everything I could to make it happen.
I looked for alternate flights to the area from which I could then get ground transit into Albany. I found one! Washington DC had a flight going out at 7:30! OK, that gave me 3 hours to figure out how to get from Washington DC to Albany. I took a break for some food and then got tethered up to my laptop to put together some plans. Between my laptop and the airport people we figured out that we could do a rental car which would put me at my hotel room at around 1 AM. Taking busses or trains moved that time to around 4 or 5 AM… OUCH. Once again I figured I’ll be asleep on the flight.
Waiting in line at 7:15 for the “on time” plane to start boarding to Washington DC we found out they were merging another flight into our flight so there would be a stop in Ohio on the way. Arrrgg landing and taking off are the worst parts of flying for me and then this will delay my flight an hour. When we are still standing in line at 7:45 PM and the flight board says my 7:30 flight is still on time I knew I was in for trouble.
We departed at around 8:30 and I got into DC around midnight (time zone change). There is normally some kind of curfew for the DC airport but somehow we got around that? While in flight there was a man behind me that spoke as though he had a 10 gallon hat on which barely fit his enormous head / ego. He was the loudest / drunkest man on the planet (above the planet?). The lady next to me was very kind, as we chatted she learned of my situation and informed me that there was a train that would take me to NYC from which I could take the original train back to Albany. I wanted to get in the car and be there early but we were pushing 1 AM at that point so with not having sleep the night before the danger factor was getting pretty extreme.
I took the cab to the train station past the Washington monument, the Lincoln memorial, Jefferson memorial and congress. I got to the train station and it was dead. No employees anywhere. OK, the train doesn’t leave until 3. I’ll start with checking my email. Great news, another client opportunity…. Here comes a security officer. She’s checking the sleeping folks on the bench for tickets and throwing them out (boy it’s cold outside?). Fortunately for me she helped me get my ticket.
I finished responding to my new client email when I heard last call for boarding a train…. WHAT? I have an hour…. OOOps time zone change! Run to the train and get on board, MADE IT!
The train is great, settle in and set my alarm to wake me when we’re about 30 minutes out from NYC. All works well. Get to NYC and am able to use my ticket from the night before to travel. Travel from NYC to Albany was fantastic. I got a little rest and when I woke it was always nice looking out the windows. About an hour form Albany while on the train I called the hotel for a shuttle to pick me up, grabbed a bite to eat and had a nice hot cup of coffee.
I arrived at Autotask HQ at around 10 and all was well.
If you’re interested you can see a copy of the power point presentation I made to the company (feature requests in the notes section):
AT Lunch and Learn 2010 – The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.zip - Posted here on my profile.
The trip back to Milwaukee only included the excitement of my first Philly Cheese Steak sandwich.
I hope my next trip to AT doesn’t include planes trains and automobiles.
BK
