God how I hated these annual meetings in Chicago. An entire week of seminars and workshops just to tell us that if we increased production we could increase profits. What a waste of resources, to drag me halfway across the country with Jen back in Connecticut, God I missed her.
I looked at my watch, 2 o'clock, I was never going to make my flight I thought, and my attitude worsened as I thought about how much I missed Jen. I hadn't seen her since Sunday night, and barely had time to talk to her or email her with the damn schedule they had us on out here. The speaker droned on about profits, losses, sales and some other bullshit, and the clock seemed to just hang in limbo, I thought to myself that I wished someone would just kill me.
He was winding down and the group offered a smattering of applause, more for just finishing than anything else. CEO Parks closed the meeting, and we all stood around lying to each other that we would call, fax, or have lunch or some other bullshit about some project that we all knew we would never even start. Christ I hate these things I thought to myself, as I shook everyone's hand about 10 times and grabbing my black leather briefcase I headed out of the meeting room and across the lobby to the hotel desk.
I had checked out earlier in the day, and asked the concierge to send up my bag, and get me a cab to the airport. In a few moments a bellboy appeared with my bag, and followed me to the curb, where the doorman had the back door of a cab opened for me. The cabby took the bag to the trunk and I handed the bellboy and doorman a couple of bucks each and climbed in to the back seat of the cab. The cabby got in and in some mideastern accent so thick I could hardly understand him said "O'Hare?" "What airline?"