I lost my passport in Bahrain
In one of my not so finer, but as my husband says "Typical Theresa" moments, I lost my passport coming out here to Bahrain.
For those of you not familiar with the Middle East, it's pretty much the opposite side of the world from the United States, making it a very far (and blistering hot) location away from my home in San Diego.
A few days ago, I was heading to airport security after landing in Frankfort, Germany. The trip from San Diego was so far a grueling 11 and half hour overnight flight. As I am walking with my co-workers who have trudged through this long plane ride with me, and now taking a 20-minute walk to our connecting flight, one which entailed one bus ride and two trains, I pause to describe my resourcefulness after a bit of small talk over the airline breakfast. I am so happy to tell one of them how I saved my soggy eggs, fruit, and crackers in a doggy bag, grossing out our no-nonsense trip planner, but ever so proud of my decision to stay as frugal as possible.
As I am waiting to go through the long security line for our leg that will eventually get us to the Middle East, I search for my passport. I cannot find it in my purse or computer bag, despite emptying everything all over the security belt (yes I was that person). I'm seriously panicking and wondering if it fell out of my laptop bag, or is on the last plane ride somewhere. Our trip planner was so annoyed with me. He squishes his face and says in a condescending tone, "omg, are you serious PAO?" (For my non-military readers, PAO stands for Public Affairs Officer - in the military, we are referred to by our job titles). After getting reassured by one of my colleagues that "it will be ok, you'll find it," we both leave the rest of the group and start making our way back towards our San Diego flight. My very annoyed-with-me colleague is now using his phone to figure out what gate we just left, and I'm fumbling around trying to find my boarding passes. Maybe I can ask someone.
Frankly, I was not even sure my passport would still be at the airplane that I was hoping was still parked at the gate. What if it dropped out of my laptop bag? I have a habit of forgetting to zip the side pickets sometimes. And, I could not imagine why I would leave it in the airplane seat pocket, but my brain has a tendency to goes a mile a minute on autopilot, and I am very forgetful, so nothing really surprises me when it comes to losing my stuff.
After taking the first train towards where we departed the plane, I'm sitting on the seat and feeling like I had to be doing something to help my dire situation, as I could see from my co-worker's perplexed and irritated face how much trouble I am causing him at the moment, so I then decide to rummage through my stuff yet again. I need something to feel busy and useful.
And as I was digging through my laptop bag this one last time, there it was, buried deep down in my bag. It was tucked into the corner of a side pocket, seemingly hidden. I could barely even tell it was there, and I had somehow missed it while frantically looking there before. I look at the lead trip planner, and he half-smiles, half looks disgusted with me, but shows a tiny bit of empathy in his own weird way and responds to my sincere apology with, "it's ok PAO. It could happen to anyone."
I know this is "typical Theresa," but he and our entire group were so patient and nice about the situation. That's what was really the best part for me. I got to hear some crap about it the rest of the trip, but all in good fun.
When people talk about command culture, they usually mean a place where their ideas are championed, or where they feel respected among teammates, and people trust one another. While I feel all of those things, it's the little moments like this where people share an understanding of my idiosyncrasies that I'll remember most about this workplace. And while they now will tease me mercilessly for the rest of this trip, I know deep down they value my contributions, and yes, I gave them a funny story, a bit of annoyance, and a bit of comic relief after an arduous plane ride.
This is the kind of strange circumstance that brings people together, taking joy in my near-miss disaster that actually turned out ok. It was their willingness to emphasize and even go back with me to look for the passport which made me feel like I belonged.
Guess next time, I'll remember to put as much care into where I store my passport, as I do where to save my stale airport food. Ha!