Alert Networking

The past week the wind blew in Mexico City, and the alarms went on among different public places; one of them was the university where I work. When we were at the lunch break some canvas flew away and the sports field had some troubles, the security personnel ask us to keep inside the buildings and away from windows or possible flying objects.

Once the people and students were safe, the next request was that everybody has to leave the campus and stop activities for the day. The physical evaluation of the university lead to this activity. So I gather my team and ask them to take their laptops and go directly home. Taking the laptops with them will allow to continue their activities at home and preventing that the alert continues the next day so they could make home office.

Once the strategy was made, we say farewell and also requested the information on each team member arrival to home, so everyone could be sure that we were fine.

Almost everything was going quite well, but at the time I wanted to contact my son Mauricio, I couldn't reach him, the lines were saturated, there was no Whats app service, Internet drop down, I couldn't reach him by messenger, I couldn't communicate with him and give some instructions.

Once I arrive to my car, I found out that he wasn't there and I didn't have a clue if he decided to take a bus to go home, or if he was still at a classroom waiting for me to pick up him. I try for 15 more minutes until I have luck and reach him by phone, he still was at his high school waiting for a parent to pick him up or to a bus arrival. So I asked him to move to our car and he gave his teachers this information.

The next activity was to make contact with Arturo, the second of my sons. It's important to let you know that he has school transport and he has to be delivered to our house. So it wasn't that difficult to find him and ask him that he should not leave the house until we were all together.

This alert made me think about the little training my family has to react to this type of alerts. Where do we have to meet? What to expect the other will do? What to do if communications fail? How long wait to look for each other?

With this learning, I can give you some recommendations to allow the networking in alert states:

1.- Make a plan with your family taking in account your familiar places, the communications you have, time you have to wait for communicate, act in consequence. Of course you have to consider your son's ages and give them responsibilities according to them.

2.- Show some empathy with your team, ask them if they have trouble to move, or if their homes could be in warning zones.

3.- Be sure to prepare a communication line that allow you to know how everybody is doing.

4.- Remember to keep calm, you will achieve nothing by preoccupation.

5.- Make yourself useful by doing some actions that keep you safe and your love ones.

Cancelation Networking

Sure this has happened to you or you heard a story about it, you are at the airport and suddenly by events beyond your control,  the airline cancel your flight ... 

Last Thursday I had to take a flight at 8:00 am, I arrived at the airport with my regalement 2 hours in advance. To this point I have spent so much on the airports I've learned to take my precautions.

The airport seemed as a market day with your paycheck with you. You'd think they were giving away tickets or stays, since it was a lot of people there, the most interesting is that although the time was more regularly for working travelers, plenty of tourists were delivering their luggage. I think I was waiting for an hour to deliver my suitcase. Eventually as I walked in the control line, and went to the waiting room.

Oh surprise! the speakers began to notice that due to bad weather conditions, the airport was closed for operations, that means no flights arriving or leaving. A dense fog was observed through the windows of the waiting room, but I kept thinking that soon somebody would announce that my flight would depart from gate number 43.

Minutes passed and nothing, the speakers were announcing that passengers should wait for some more indications. And suddenly my flight that had the status of "on time" appeared a horrible "cancelled" in red letters and the whole thing. If you are going to cancel a flight, at least they should not make it so dramatic, but anyway, I went to the service station of the airline, and of course the lady who attended was not aware of the cancellation. I asked her politely what should a mere mortal like me do? And I thought she would answer me to buy something like Credit Card "X" and with that we give VIP status, but no, she spread a paper with a phone number and told me that my situation should be solved by telephone only.


The speakers suddenly told that people from my flight were directed to another station, in a separate room, with more trained staff or the understanding that they would be more informed than the girl in the other room. Finally the time came and I had been front half of the plane and the other half from the airport, because while I was thinking, more flights were canceled and that things there really started to get complicated.

I stayed on line for another half hour, but the lady with a very nice attitude, told me that I was going to lose my flight and would get on it the next day, until then I had not reacted, but at that time I pointed out that: 

1. I was not missing a flight, which was missing two flights (all because of the airport connections)

2. That I was going to do any major scandal, because I was sure that they should send me to my final destination. I just wanted to go straight to the beach.

Sure my non reactionary techniques, the girl should already have a signal (because there were several cases that morning) that from the flight from Madrid, they had to send landing Queretaro, or arriving from Bogota, had been unable to land and had gone to Toluca. And she will have noticed that there were some passengers who would be losing the connection. So I was assigned a place in the next direct flight to the beach :).

The nice lady gave me the following indications: Miss you are going to have to leave these waiting rooms, collect your luggage in the bands, go again to make baggage drop out, go back through the security line and ready. I was not going to lose bad mood, until then, all we lost was a flight, but according to the itinerary of my new flight, I will arrive at my destination about 15 minutes after the scheduled time, not bad for a cancellation .

What happened next is the result of Networking and commented to the note of what one can do in these cases and not spend so badly. To get out, no special ramps, one has to regularly go out in the designated areas, but I had not reached these areas, so I went to the security filters to exit. At that time there was shift change, so they were all serving security guards receiving their day assignments. But they not allow me to get out, so I have to say "please I'm going to lose another flight" and of course someone take care of me and told me the password to get out of there: "Jimenez"

OK, I was out, but I had to get to the delivery area of luggage, to go back, I passed through the filter of the airport staff, not to mention, I was wandering around all interior corridors until I got to where I would found easily my suitcase, but like everything went well on the day, of course it was not my case over there. Neither the passengers flying to Matamoros and San Luis Potosi. 

We all got talking and waiting, spent about 20 minutes waiting for the luggage and then Matamoros came in. 20 minutes after the San Luis Potosi flight luggage arrived. But nothing at all about my flight, and worse, no passengers, it was kind of strange.

Again no offense to affect the wonderful work of the staff of the airline, I had to tell them that or they I gave my suitcase, or we would have a pretty severe transportation problem, and asked for my suitcase, which arrived in about 20 minutes, the apparently estimated response time at this airline.

In the process, the man at the gate got a large group of passengers, supposedly would get to Sonora, but even if they were already on the plane, they take them down, I think that will make me get angry. 

With my suitcase I returned to the baggage drop off, and before it had taken me an hour to deliver, now 2 hours. There were many people making changes, asking them to give tickets for another time, etc. In a situation like this people can get very violent.

So my recommendation, when you pass something like that, take it easy, learn something in life, in my case two hours later arrived at my destination, but ultimately I arrived and had the best time.