Yeah, I've been there with gate agents. Sometimes you have to go over their head and they use whatever little power they have. Write a letter to United with her name and the name of her manager who helped you. Quite often you'll get a flight voucher out of it.

Oh, Sean, that sucks ass! Neither you nor S needs to start out a long holiday weekend with that kind of hellish airport waiting-game stress. Ugh.

And OMG Stephanie, they lost Ellie's car seat? I would've gone feral on them at that point.

And oh, Suzi, and oh, K-Bug. Much too much drama, especially for a trip that didn't really give her what she needed anyway. And a plague of boils on the check-in witch.

Because I'm completely self-obsessed right now, for which I apologize: I did miscalculate, but in the wrong direction; the offer said nothing about a yearly salary, just an hourly rate, so I calculated that rate x 40 x 52 for a rough yearly salary. However, counting up the actual hours recorded on my pay stubs for the past 12 months and calculating from that precise number, the new rate works out to about $3,700 more than my current salary -- I was wrong on the yearly total, but close to exactly right about the $200 more a month.

I'm going to send the counter-offer before noon today, but, upon reflection, I think I'm also going to call the on-campus folks I'm still waiting on -- I do have one more small question about the job, but mostly I want to see if they say anything about how close they are to deciding or what my status is WRT the first company (both places know I have another prospect). Good idea? Bad idea? Spectacularly bad?

One thing the institute director said during the interview struck me, especially in light of the 12/3 start date Offer #1 is asking for: He asked when I'd be available to start. I said I'd have to give my present boss two full weeks because I wouldn't feel right unless I knew he was settled with a replacement, pending stuff was cleared away and taken care of, and everyone was comfortable. And he said, "I'm glad you said that. If you'd said you could start tomorrow I'd have worried, because if you'd do that to your present boss you could do it to me."

I really rather liked that -- both his appreciation of my sense of loyalty, and his being savvy enough to recognize that it'd ultimately benefit him as well.

When travelling with a baby, I have found that the TSA people are almost always extremely nice. More than once, I've had one of them fold up my stroller or lift a bag on the X-ray thing or something similar.

My one recent bad experience - Ellie left her show on the flight. (well, i guess I did.) Of course, I couldn't just go back and get it and it was late at night and no one was at the American counter. I actually caught one woman as she was leaving and she (somewhat understandably) did not care at all. Finally, when I was almost in tears with the TSA person, she took me to the American baggage office who called someone who got Ellie's show.

(Joe's solution was to buy new shoes, which sounds so reasonable now but at the time I just *needed* that shoe.)

eta:

And OMG Stephanie, they lost Ellie's car seat?

They gave us an infant seat (Ellie was 23 months at the time) and we squished her into it and dorve home very slowly and then didn't leave our friends' house until they brought it the next day.

JZ, call the other place. Tell them you have received an offer and you want to know how close they are to making a decision, before you decide whether or not you are going to take the other companies offer.

It's okay to drink the pickle juice out of the jar when you finish the last pickle, right?

Go you with the counteroffer, JZ. You are doing the right thing. And calling the other possibility is good too.

I'd suck at all that, but I'll probably need to face it within the next year, so I appreciate you sharing your experience.

Juliana - looks like I'll be back in your nabe this evening. After all the other stuff, my uncle is in town today, so we are having dinner around the corner from you. Without K-Bug, she is working. Should be interesting.

Gosh, SF three days in a row....

JZ, call the other place. Tell them you have received an offer and you want to know how close they are to making a decision, before you decide whether or not you are going to take the other companies offer.

Yes, this. If you're their top candidate, it could spur them to a quicker offer.

JZ, I think calling the other place sounds good. I myself would totally squirm doing it, but I think it can only help you. And definitely go with the counteroffer as well. I'd hate that too, but I think it can't hurt.

We really just could not get our asses up and out the door this morning. This 6:20am flight seemed like a good idea when I booked the tickets, but it came back to bite me in the nads. Really, I never should have tried to get that hour nap.

And yes, we're still on standby, looking at our third possible flight of the day. Fourth, if you count our original flight.

And I checked, Continental only flies into IAH from LAX. They won't put us on another airline, either. They don't even want to talk to us, they've got so many stanby fliers. If you even approach the counter and say, "sta...," they glare at you, pick up the mic, and make yet another announcement that standby passengers need to sit down, shut up, and wait for them to call your name. If they decide to call your name. And that bothering people will make them not call your name.

It's okay to drink the pickle juice out of the jar when you finish the last pickle, right?

I have a co-worker who drinks pickle juice. Seriously.