If everything had gone according to plan, I’d be on a walking tour of Dublin right now, seeing historic castles and churches and taking in the emerald landscape. Instead, I am sitting in a Starbucks in Charlotte, NC, drinking coffee and reflecting on the hot mess that’s been the past two days.
A bit of background: what was supposed to be a three hour layover turned into a seven hour one, and eventually our flight to Ireland was cancelled all together, leaving our group stuck in North Carolina for three days.
Even though this trip is starting off differently than expected, we’re making the most of it. We took yesterday, Sunday, to regroup by eating tacos and ice cream and going to TopGolf. And today, we’re planning on taking a tour of Charlotte to learn about the city that’s been so hospitable to us.
This little delay has been far from a waste of time. In just two days, we’ve come into contact with a variety of companies that are perfect examples of how to handle (or how not to handle) different situations across business functions.
Take the Charlotte Douglas airport. While we were there, parts of the airport were under construction. The signs and posters they had to explain the mess were very clever. They all boasted the slogan, “We’re building an airport fit for a queen”, which is fitting for the Queen City and its namesake. The campaign is a good example of how to use marketing to change the negative perceptions of construction to neutrals ones, all while strengthening the brand.
Another business function we saw in action was with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams here in Charlotte. The cute ice cream store, famous for unique flavors such as Brambleberry Crisp (my personal fave) and Coffee with Cream and Sugar, has an incredible operations system that allows customers to send pints of ice cream wherever they choose. After placing an order online, a bright orange box of Jeni’s shows up on the doorstep of the destination, with a variety of frozen pints inside. If the pints taste as good as the ice cream in-store, I might be placing an order soon.
We also were able to see different business skills in action. American Airlines did a great job of demonstrating horrible communication. Where do I even start? To use just ONE example from our experience with them, our flight changes and delays were hardly announced. If they were, it was from a muffled microphone that you could hardly hear from our gate let alone even just one gate over. And that’s if they were announced. Most of us had to rely on our app and text updates, which were so inaccurate that at one point it said our flight had departed when it most certainly had not.
After such a negative experience with American Airlines, it was nice to see wonderful examples of customer service at our hotel, Hyatt Place. The staff worked hard to find room for the 17 of us in at 1am, and since then has continued to show us great hospitality with complimentary breakfasts, a conference room to eat in and congregate every day, and extending our stay day by day as our stop in Charlotte is longer than initially expected.
In a pre-departure assignment, one of the questions asked was, how do you hope to improve your skills as a job seeker? I wrote, “One of the skills I hope to improve on during this trip abroad is my ability to adapt when the plan changes.” And man, have I already gotten so many opportunities to grow in this area. From accepting that I won’t have as much time in Ireland as I thought I would to scrambling to make the most of our time in Charlotte, I’ve already learned a lot about handling the unexpected and enjoying the ride.