A Trip Fraught With Peril and Adventure

It's a long story, and I won't bore you with the details of the corporate politics, but I found myself needing to be hired back to Amedisys in order to start my new assignment in Georgia. My last day in Joplin was Dec. 6, and as of 4:30 that day, I still had not been able to get a hold of anyone to help me with my questions and paperwork and employment details. It was stressful, to say the least.

Fortunately for me, the CEO came to visit our office that day, along with one of the Executive Vice Presidents and one of the Senior Vice Presidents. Also, it just so happened that I was able to ride along with the CEO and the marketing person for my office, on a tour of the Joplin tornado damage. At the end of the ride, I had the assurance of Mr. CEO that my problem (of political crap hindering my employment) would be taken care of immediately; by the end of the night, I had the same assurance from the EVP and SVP.

That night, I finished packing my car and went to bed happy that I wouldn't have anything else to worry about.

The next day, I left the house of the coworker who had put me up for a few nights, and started heading to the Greyhound station to pick up my mom. I got a call from a lady in HR, who was super confused as to why I would be moving to Georgia that day and pretty much told me I was crazy for thinking I had a job to go to.

So I picked up my mom and took her to lunch and toured Joplin and figured we might as well drive to Nashville for the night, because my uncle was expecting us. The HR lady called again, and when I told her I'd spoken to the CEO and EVP and SVP, her demeanor changed, and she assured me she'd take care of the situation with all due speed.

We spent the night in Nashville, and even though my job wasn't secure yet, I started driving to Georgia because, well, what else was I gonna do? On the way, I got a call from the HR lady and the director of the agency in Georgia, and they told me I could be re-hired the next day (Friday) and start on Monday. Not only did I have a job, but also was I going to get to live in a hotel and get a food allowance. Score!

With that settled, we continued our drive to Summerville, Georgia, only to have Jasper (my '02 Intrepid) pick up the nasty habit of smoking. We pulled over in a random parking lot on the side of the highway, opened the hood, and stared with dismay at the smoke pouring out from under the hood.

Fortunately, a couple of houses down, there was a family outside putting up Christmas lights. They just happened to have a card for a mechanic not far down the road. When I called the mechanic, he gave me the number of a tow truck driver who came and picked up Jasper. The mechanic shop was named "Jasper Engines," which I thought was rather serendipitous.

Jasper was diagnosed with a faulty radiator, and the mechanic stayed over an hour past his normal closing time to perform corrective surgery. Fortunately, I'd cancelled my appointment to sign on an apartment, so I had the money to pay for it.

By this time, it was almost 8 p.m., and I still didn't have a place to stay for the night. So we drove to Summerville and checked into the first cheap motel we saw. It's a good thing we didn't pay much, because there were two bulb-less lamps, stained towels, and a bathroom door that didn't open all the way.

The next morning, I went to my new office to fill out the necessary e-forms to be re-hired to Amedisys, only to find out that my profile hadn't been loaded correctly. That took a couple of hours to fix. In the meantime, my mom took my car and headed off to find a place in the town of 4500 people that had free wi-fi so she could do some work online. There was no such place. Neither was there a coffee shop. I began to wonder what I was getting myself into.

A few hours later, I found out the name of the hotel where I'll be living for the next 4-6 weeks, in Rome, Georgia (fortunately, bigger than 4500 people - and they even have a mall). So my mom and I drove out there, only to find that the hotel didn't have the authorization they needed to charge the credit card that was going to pay for the room.

By this time, I was so done with driving around with all (well, most) of my earthly possessions in my car. But there was nothing I could do, so we left the hotel and went to dinner. Somewhere around 5 p.m., I could finally check in. So we packed a cart full of stuff from my trunk and back seat, and unloaded it in my room. But since I'm living in a hotel now, I don't need any of my linens or kitchen appliances or anything, so my truck is still full of stuff.

Around 9:30, right about the time they were "moving that bus" on Extreme Makeover; Home Edition on TV, I got a call from the front desk. They still hadn't had a visit from the lady with the credit card, so they could swipe it. Basically, I was staying in the hotel without having paid. Grrr...but what can I do?

This morning, I'm exhausted. Since Tuesday, I've met and gotten something I wanted from the CEO, driven to a new city without the certainty of a job or living situation, put a few hundred dollars into my car, and been thwarted every. single. step. of the way.

On the plus side, fixing Jasper was less expensive than leasing an apartment, I've marked three more states off my list (KY, TN, and GA) to make it an even 30, arranged to start my new assignment on Monday, and even bought plane tickets to go back to MN for Christmas. I even have a clearer direction of what my career with Amedisys could look like, especially now that the CEO is sold on my idea of being a traveling Business Office Manager.

But I still don't know if my hotel room is paid for.