What a Trip

nother day, another business trip, right? Sometimes, even the most routine and tedious of travel assignments can suddenly turn interesting. Listen to a few federal workers as they tell of trips that didn't turn out as planned:

Betty Taylor, a Defense Department civilian, is a traffic manager at the Military Traffic Management Command in Falls Church, Va.

"In 1997 I was monitoring the transport of some humanitarian aid cargo to Africa. Here's how I had to get on board the vessel that held the cargo: I was on a tugboat, and I had to climb up a rope ladder as the vessel was transiting the Suez Canal. We were moving at about 30 knots.

"I can't swim, so that's what made it scary. The guys in the boat just said 'Hold on and don't look down.' I was thinking: 'Oh, my God, what have I gotten myself into?' I had a death grip on the rope. Thank God I made it."

John McCann is a Social Security claims representative in Alaska. From his Anchorage office, he travels the state to nine contact stations, helping the public with Social Security matters, such as benefit applications, direct deposit and lost checks.

"These days, I can get almost everywhere I need to go on a commercial jet. But it wasn't that long ago that I had to go regularly by dog sled, snow machine (snowmobile to those in the lower 48), boat and small plane to reach bush villages--those off the road grid.

"One time about 12 years ago, I went to Hooper Bay in a four- or six-seat Cessna. While I was there, the worst snowstorm in 20 or 30 years blew up. I had gone in that morning and was planning to leave that night, but the storm was so bad I had to spend nearly a week there.

"Finally someone went down to plow the runway, and the snowplow immediately broke. They said the part would have to be flown into the next village and [delivering the part] would take another week. I said, 'How far is the next village?' and when the answer came back '45 miles,' I said, 'Take me with you.'

"It was about a four-hour ride [on a snow machine] in 20-degree-below-zero temperatures. But I got out."

Douglas Goetz is a contract management professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. About four years ago, he and another professor, John Paciorek, were teaching a group in New York City.

"Most of our students were from out of town, and since we were in the downtown area, they wanted to go someplace different for lunch. We agreed to take the class to the World Trade Center for lunch via the New York City subway system.

"We rode down there, had lunch in the shops and restaurants in the bottom of the World Trade Center and prepared to return to our training site taking the subway. We descended in what we thought was the subway entrance, only to discover our way blocked by steel gates. We turned around to go back upstairs to find an open subway entrance only to be approached by what we thought was a NYC subway employee waving keys. He opened the gate, and rather than depositing our tokens and going through the turnstile, he personally collected our tokens and ushered us through the exit doors.

"Dr. Paciorek, not wanting to lose any of the class, went back upstairs to round up any stragglers. There he encountered a security guard who asked him what he was doing. Dr. Paciorek explained about getting his class back to the training site and about the young man who helped him get the students through the closed gate.

"The security guard was aghast. He told Dr. Paciorek, 'We've been trying to catch that guy for the past year. He has keys to all these gates and has been robbing people.' Dr. Paciorek immediately ran back downstairs only to find the gate locked and the students gone.

"When we met back at the training site, we found all of the students safe and sound. We questioned them, 'What happened to the guy who let you through the gate?' They responded that he had locked the gate, led them to the train and then disappeared down into the subway tunnels.

"Bottom line: Fortunately, everyone returned safely from an adventure on the New York City subway system without being robbed--or worse--and lived to tell about it."

Bill Church , a Navy civilian, was on assignment for the commander in chief of the Atlantic Command in the late 1970s, attending joint NATO training in the United Kingdom.

"Having been ordered to the National Defence College's Joint Warfare Wing at Latimer, U.K., I'd decided to take my handy-dandy 220-volt converter along so I could operate my good old U.S. of A. 120-volt appliances. Being the vain guy I was (you know, it was a '70s thing), the coif had to be just right, so the hair dryer was the test case.

"Well, upon plugging the device in (on a Sunday night when no maintenance crew personnel were on duty) it promptly shorted out, taking out not just my room, but the entire wing of the Visiting Officer's Quarters--about 20 other rooms. At that instant, as I plunged the wing's current population back into the dark ages, a symphony of collective sighs, curses and other unsavory comments were duly noted--many very loudly voiced.

"Of course, the ugly American had to come forward and atone for his sins--a most embarrassing situation, since it took their having to call a maintenance employee back in to work to replace a huge cartridge fuse. The process took more than two hours.

"During the same trip, I had the somewhat sobering experience of being awakened to morning tea delivered by a young chambermaid, who had let herself in unannounced, as is the custom. Quite unashamedly, she went on about her business (as I lay there in the altogether) inquiring of me, 'One lump or two?'"

Diane Kelly was a paralegal specialist with a Justice Department team that went in 1991 to depose witnesses to Nazi atrocities in Estonia.

"I was traveling from Moscow to Tallinn, Estonia. Aeroflot (or the government of the USSR) didn't want us to travel on the tarmac to the plane with the local people, so they put us on a bus--but then couldn't find our plane. We drove up to two planes; at each one the bus driver motioned us to get off. Both times we asked the flight attendant 'Tallinn?' and were told 'nyet.'

"Third plane was a charm. We boarded the plane and we were motioned to go to the back. Aeroflot often used military planes for commercial transport, and this was one of those planes, so the seats were just attached to some sort of rack. I turned within my seat row to say something to a co-worker behind me, and my fanny bumped the back of the seat in front of me. From that row forward all the seats folded in half forward like dominos. Kind of made us wonder about the need for safety belts.

"A few hours into the flight, I smelled something burning and started to get concerned. At about the time I started to speak up about it, the DOJ attorney in the seat next to me let out a painful yelp and jumped from his seat. His shoe leather was smoldering. He had been resting his foot on this little hump on the plane's floor, and obviously there was no insulation.

"We also discovered that the one bathroom on the plane was normally used as a gun turret. Apparently, hundreds of soldiers in combat boots had stood on the toilet seat in order to stick their heads in the glass turret and have a bathroom with a skylight."

Tom May is a civilian personnel specialist for the Air Force.

"The plan was simple: Leave on Sunday on military air [transport] from Randolph AFB, Texas, to Tyndall AFB, Florida, arriving around noon. Return Friday, commercial, arriving in San Antonio at 4 p.m.

"The reality required a 7 a.m. check-in for a 10 a.m. flight on a C-130 (web seats along the side, earplugs required, etc.). Due to thunderstorms, the plane landed in Montgomery, Ala. After a three-hour delay, we loaded on Air Force buses (similar to your kid's school bus, except they're blue) for the four-hour ride to Tyndall. After 15 minutes I found my right side wet due to a leaking air conditioner. I wound up moving to the only available seat, three-quarters of which was already occupied by the largest guy on the bus.

"Arrived at Tyndall at 7 p.m., rear end hurting. By 10 p.m., I had received one of two suitcases (missing one contained pants, shirts, etc.). Went to work Monday in traveling clothes. Bought contingency clothes Monday night. Request for reimbursement currently at GSA for adjudication. [Editor's note: GSA's Board of Contract Appeals decided in July that May was not entitled to reimbursement.]

"Left Friday on time. Got to Memphis. Plane (Northwest) broken. Finally landed in Austin at 11 p.m. Wife really appreciated 70-mile drive to the airport on Friday night.

"Other than the traveling, the trip went fine."

Hannah Rosenthal is a regional director for the Department of Health and Human Services in Madison, Wis.

"About three years ago, all the [HHS] regional directors were in D.C. for a meeting, and we stayed at the Mayflower Hotel. At 3 a.m., a loudspeaker announced that the alarm we were hearing was not a fake fire alarm but a real one, and we all needed to immediately go down to the lobby, via the stairs and not the elevator.

"I grabbed my appointment book (I'd be dead without it) and--realizing I sleep with very little clothing on--my coat and ran down nine flights of stairs and walked into the lobby. Here we were in one of Washington D.C.'s most beautiful hotels with people in pajamas, or coats covering ourselves, and some people in formal attire (because they were at a wedding reception). Quite a sight.

"Suddenly I saw a professor I knew from the University of Wisconsin standing there in his flannel pajamas. They may have had teddy bears on them. We chatted. Since then, every time I see him in Madison and we are surrounded by other people, I loudly state that I can't recognize him without his pajamas on.

"P.S. It was a small fire and no one was injured."