I’d been traveling for work for ten years. Going to airports was second nature. But I should have been more diligent about checking email for my flight. After all, I hadn’t taken this airline before. I wasn’t familiar with their check-in procedures. So when I went to get a taxi and there weren’t any, and the relaxed culture of the country I was in meant that I might, or might not, get a taxi in the next thirty minutes, I felt a little panicked. Having just learned about the airline’s strict check-in deadline, I could see I wasn’t going to make it. And I was in charge of an event later that afternoon in the destination country.
Standing at the counter listening to the supervisor refusing for the third time to let me on the flight, I felt a surge of regret. It had been my fault. I should have planned ahead better.
But this was not a useful line of thinking.
