jtr’s Passport Caper Retrospective

How my lack of planning wasted other people's time

Originally written: 2014-09-14

Key Takeaways

Some things can’t be automated, but a checklist is the next best thing. Developing the habit of following a checklist can prevent costly mistakes that spike your adrenaline, waste your money, and inconvenience your sister, a friend, and a neighbor.

The author’s initially empty brain, the gap that allowed the mistake having been filled by a checklist.

What Happened?

(Some names in the story below have been anonymized.)

Key story locations: Anacortes, WA; San Francisco, CA; London, UK. Image derived from https://freevectormaps.com/world-maps/WRLD-EPS-02-8001?ref=atr in compliance with license.

jtr left home for a multi-leg trip without his passport. The first leg of this trip was domestic (to WA, USA); the next leg was international (to London, UK). jtr discovered the absence of the passport only 21 hours before the first international leg.

A plan was devised whereby jtr would rearrange several flights, fly out that night and sleep at his sister’s house in Portland for no more than four hours, fly from PDX to SFO airport early in the day, be handed his passport by his friend Pat in the airport (who would have been given the passport by his neighbor Casey, who has unit access credentials for purposes of cat-sitting), and who would then turn around and fly back to PDX to begin the international leg of the trip.

My cat of the time, Oliver Cromwell, who needed to be sat.

This plan went off without a hitch, but due to the high human cost, this postmortem is being written to analyze the causes of the mishap and prevent future recurrence.

Lessons Learned

What Worked?

• Many plans were quickly evaluated.

• An executable plan was found.

What Didn’t Work?

• The initial packing mistake should not have occurred.

• jtr has not yet come up with a good way to thank the people inconvenienced by the caper.

Where did I get lucky?

• Lucky: Friends with keys and time were available back home.

• Lucky: Many people were willing to be inconvenienced to allow the plan to succeed.

• Lucky: Missing passport was discovered before getting to the airport.

• Unlucky: If discovery of the initial packing mistake had occurred earlier, less painful options (e.g. FedEx) would have been open.

What will I change next time?

• Due to regrettable limitations in household robotics, packing of bags cannot yet be automated. We must therefore fall back to a MOP (method of procedures), also known as a checklist.

  • jtr will devise a travel packing checklist. [DONE]

  • As his life centers around email, he will arrange to have this checklist mailed to him by the calendar entries which remind him of impending travel.

  • This checklist will mention frequently forgotten items, such as:

    • Passport.

    • Contact lens case.

    • Glasses.

    • Checking whether contact lens need to be changed before trip.

    • Giving cat food and water.

• If the packing checklist fails, we need defense in depth. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned gaps in household robotics, our only obvious fallback is another checklist.

  • jtr will devise a “so you just landed in one leg of a long journey” checklist.

  • This checklist will include a list of obvious things to look at for upcoming legs of the journey, such as passports for international journeys.

Timeline

At some points in this timeline, it may be helpful to refer to the Background section below to cross-check with the itinerary.

• 2014-09-10, late: jtr brings friends home for social drinking to procrastinate on packing

• 2014-09-11 01:00-02:00: jtr packs bag

• 2014-09-11 07:30: jtr awakes, showers, packs remaining toiletries, drags bag to shuttle, goes to Google Mountain View office

  • Problem begins here, but is not discovered for two days.

• 2014-09-11 16:40: jtr flies to SEA, rents car, drives north, does planned family things

• 2014-09-13 10:00: jtr has only positive Chuck E. Cheese experience in his life; niece turns 9

• 2014-09-13 13:00: jtr takes nap

• 2014-09-13 16:00: jtr begins check-in process for the following day’s international flight, gets to an empty box prompting for his passport number, and has a horrific epiphany

  • Emergency response begins here.

• 2014-09-13 16:30: jtr’s advisory council (AKA father) returns home, aids in strategizing

  • Options considered and evaluated:

    1. use Alaska Airlines’s GoldStreak, by which packages can be sent on flights

       • but shipping is only permitted by known shippers (which is good, if you think about it), the qualification process for which appears to be slow

    2. find an unemployed friend in San Francisco, buy them a round-trip ticket to PDX, piggyback passport on first leg

       • but no obvious candidates presented themselves

    3. fly jtr to SFO that night, have him stay at home, and fly to PDX in the morning with a passport

       • but there were no SEA-SFO flights with departure times four hours or more in the future (time to drive to SEA + reasonable buffer) that arrived earlier than 9:30 the subsequent day

    4. use a rush mail service (but FedEx and UPS do not deliver on Sunday; USPS does, for an extra fee, but the post office had already closed)

  • In the end, a variant of (iii) was selected, in which jtr would be met in the airport by a friend (Pat) and would then immediately get back on a plane and fly back to PDX for the next leg of the itinerary

• 2014-09-13 17:25: Pat has agreed to the plan; new plane tickets purchased; jtr begins packing

• 2014-09-13 17:36: details of plan emailed to Pat, Casey

• 2014-09-13 17:45: Pat retrieves passport with aid of Casey’s keys; Pat emails update to thread

• 2014-09-13 17:45: jtr’s father, mother, and brother leave in a caravan to dinner restaurant, failing to notice jtr is still wiring up his phone in his car

• 2014-09-13 17:49-17:53: jtr repeatedly attempts to call lead car, hindered by poor cell reception in boonies; eventually makes contact, halts caravan and rejoins it

• 2014-09-13 19:00: jtr consumes lemonade and bacon-wrapped scallops, throws money on table, orders family to stand up and be hugged, and drives to airport

• 2014-09-13 23:00: jtr flies to PDX, taxis to sister’s forthcoming-baby’s room, sleeps there

• 2014-09-14 04:30: extremely tired jtr cleans up, repacks, taxis to airport, flies to SFO

• 2014-09-14 09:45: jtr lands, Pat and jtr coordinate handoff via SMS

  • Problem mitigated here.

• 2014-09-14 10:55: jtr flies back to PDX

  • Emergency response ends here.

Root Causes

At root, packing is a human process and impossible to fully automate. Nonetheless, it is clear that the proximate cause was a failure to pack correctly.

In the Actions section, we examine some approaches that might reduce likelihood of mistakes of this sort.

Pattern Matching

• Packing mistakes have been a recurring problem, though usually the missing objects would not have precluded travel entirely, as a passport would.

Background Information

Itineraries

Original

1. 2014-09-11: fly SFO to SEA

   1. drive north to San Juan Islands

   2. visit family

   3. celebrate 9th birthday of niece

2. 2014-09-14: fly SEA to PDX, transfer

3. 2014-09-14: fly PDX to SEA to LHR

4. Subsequent legs unchanged by caper.

As Altered for Caper

1. 2014-09-11: fly SFO to SEA

   1. drive north to San Juan Islands

   2. visit family

   3. celebrate 9th birthday of niece

   4. panic

   5. sweat profusely

   6. craft plan, buy new tickets, cancel a flight, coordinate with Pat, Casey, sister

   7. eat dinner super-early and haul ass to SEA airport

2. 2014-09-13: fly SEA to PDX

   1. catch taxi to sister’s house

   2. sleep in baby’s room for four hours

   3. call taxi early in morning to get to PDX

3. 2014-09-14: fly PDX to SFO

   1. meet Pat in airport

   2. bonk head on railing to relieve tension

   3. take passport

   4. thank Pat

   5. get asked for postmortem

4. 2014-09-14: fly SFO to PDX

5. 2014-09-14: fly PDX to SEA to LHR

6. Subsequent legs unchanged by caper.

The passport, the missing object that triggered this entire story, back in the author’s hands.