Some days you wake up and feel like Superman (part 2)

(continued from yesterday - Read that post first)

I set my both of my alarms for 5:00 am (yea, I carry an alarm clock and the hotel always has one) and try to get some sleep. That part of the plan doesn’t go very well. First off I don’t sleep worth a damn with my mind reeling through everything that can go wrong getting to and from the office. Then I miss the alarm when 5 am does arrive. I casually roll over at about 5:20 to the first OhShit moment of the day. I haven’t even started and I’m already 20 minutes behind.

I breeze through the shower and out the door. I get the car rolling in 18 munutes. Now I’m only 8 minutes down and I am rolling. It is hard to believe how well the Buick LaSabre accelerates and corners when pushed. To say I was driving that car like I had stolen it would be an understatement.

The traffic was light and I was able to make up the 8 minutes with little problem. I found the roads I needed from memory once I got close and the building appeared just as I had hoped at 7 am; right on plan. Things are looking good now. I just need to get into the office, plug in, log on and hit the road back.

I flash my ID badge to the guards at the desk like a cop in a Duke dorm (I’m coming in whether you like it or not), but I do stop long enough to ask what floor our office is on. He looks at me quizacly and says, “Oh they moved.” OhShit. I couldn’t believe it. The office that I had visited just 2 short years ago (or was it three) had picked up and moved, according to the guard, to Edison.

“Where is Edison?, I asked. He replied, “Oh, it’s quite a ways.” Well I have no freaking idea how far quite a ways is so I whip out the laptop and fire up Streets and Trips. The good news is that Edison is on the way back, so since I have to go that way anyway, I might as well fix what I came to fix. I check and as expected, the guard has no clue where in Edison the office is located. No matter. I ‘m back in the road in less than 60 seconds heading back south, this time for Edison, NJ.

Now my mind is working on the problem of finding an office that I have never been to, where I know no one and have no number to call. I could probably find it with a computer and an internet connection, but not while I’m driving.

The best plan I could think of was to call the account manager, Al, for the customer I'm visiting. He is back in the hotel and has contacts and an internet connection. However, right now it is 7:10 in the morning. I decided to wait until I get to Edison to call, but I didn’t have to wait that long. Al calls before I get that far. He wanted to meet me in the hotel lobby for breakfast. “Well, there’s a problem with that” I explain. “I’m not in Princeton. I’m between Berkley Heights and Edison.” I don’t think he was amused. So I explained the situation and asked for his help.

It took a couple more calls and about 15 minutes. By this time, I had arrived in Edison, found a public wi-fi connection (that’s my story anyway) and started my own search. Al called with the bad news.

“The office WAS in Edison, but they moved.” I am so dead.

“Where did they move to?”

“Iselin.”, he says.

“Where the $%#@ is Iselin?”

(to be continued)