A hiccup

The original plan, on Friday morning, was to leave for Venice on Sunday. That died due to a mixup with the US Government. When the Italian Embassy called the US Gov't, the guy in the US gov't called me and told me the Visa my company was sending me on was the wrong one. Um what? I had no idea what to do so I frantically emailed my new bosses and didn't get a reply. I went to the Italian Embassy and they said there was nothing they could do - I needed the correct paperwork from my company which could take another week. Er, no! So, pretty much in tears because I am supposed to fly out in 48 hours and I don't have the proper paperwork done, I manage to bombard every person that I know is even slightly associated with the new job on email. While at my parents house (they are 15 minutes from the Italian Embassy), I talk to one of my new bosses on the phone and I give him the phone number of the US gov't guy that called me. My new boss explained that it was that guy's fault and the paperwork was fine. I am the 89th person they've brought over with this same paperwork and I'm the first to have this issue. He also told me he left the guy a screaming voicemail and he hoped the guy wasn't a pansy and would shrink away from that. I think I'll do fine at the new job. :-) Saturday, I called up to change my flight - which should be easy and was anything but. I also called up my bank when I finally remembered to get my new credit card that should have come a month ago. Actually, I had to call up Visa because my bank couldn't print out the credit card at the branch and I need it before Tuesday now. However, it was a constant back and forth between the bank and Visa most of the morning. It finally got sorted around 1 pm or so and the card should be here Monday, I hope. United was a different story. At least Skybooker, the travel agency I was working with, was honest. They really couldn't, on their system, change me. There was an issue when they tried to book a seat for me. However, I didn't find that out until 3 pm. I had been calling since 10 am. I kept calling United and United told me to call Skybooker. Skybooker would tell me they couldn't do anything because of the type of ticket and it being less than 7 days out so to call up United. I must have repeated myself ten times, I swear. United did try to do a three way call with Skybooker but they didn't answer. I tried to get Skybooker to call up United with myself on the line but they said they couldn't - it was against their company policy. Fun! Eventually, I started just calling up and telling whoever got me to just send me to a supervisor because I had already called 4 or 5 times. The second time I did that with United I got a lady who, God bless her, told me "Well, if the travel agency can't, I can!". After 6 hours of back and forth, she managed to switch me over to the Tuesday flight for $300. I am perfectly fine with that! At one point, I was told I'd have to cancel the Sunday flight, which would be over $300 charge, and I'd only get $17 back on my ticket of $750. Not only would I lose the $125 I paid for Abby and the $129 I paid for Economy plus, but I'd have to pay to cancel my ticket. Yeah, I know. Just skip the flight rather than lose out on another $300! At least that didn't happen. Abby's ticket transferred. I only paid $300 to get the flight switched to Tuesday from Sunday but I'm rather disgusted that it took SIX hours of my time to get that done. I have grad school and packing to do! Gah!