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.

Yeah, standby today is not going to be pretty. The airlines are averaging 90% capacity through the holiday season. I hope things work out. I've got my fingers crossed for you.

ION, I'm waiting for files to copy. It takes far too long to move 26.26 GB of data around.

Once these are done I need to go out to Santa Monica to pick up my passport, then over to Beverly Hills to get a buy off on the speakers there, then it's down to Costa Mesa to make it through quiet time and a rehearsal for A Christmas Carol.

I'm staying in Costa Mesa tonight. I still need to toss some clothing in a bag as well.

Good luck Sean

JZ make the call - esp since the 2nd place seems to be a better fit. and make the counter offer - so far the place with the offer might be better than where you are now,but maybe not enough

Today is my only day of work this week. You think I wouldn't complain...