How do you pronounce Eyjafjallajokull?

Apparently you just say “volcanic ash.”

So as I’ve mentioned, I work in an environment that brings business executives from around the world together to learn how to do better business. This week I was scheduled to work on a custom program, which means all of the individuals would be from the same company. My organization would teach 29 executives from this company all the things they need to improve their company. The company is a large, recognizable shipping company based in Denmark. In recent news, they’ve been the target of pirates in the South seas. What I didn’t know is that apparently pirates and volcanoes are friends.

On Friday, my team and I started thinking, “Hmm. We have 29 people trying to get from Denmark to Boston. And a volcano is preventing any flights from leaving Europe. So, how’s that gonna work?” The program was to start on Sunday, with some people arriving to Boston on Saturday night and most of the group arriving on Sunday morning and mid-day. By Friday afternoon, the company had canceled each employee’s booking with the commercial airlines and chartered a private plane. They were scheduled to depart Europe on Saturday morning, and arrive in Boston Saturday night.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

Of course they didn’t get out on Saturday. Their fancy chartered plane doesn’t change the fact that a VOLCANO erupted and was making it reckless and unrealistic to fly. So there was a 15-20% chance (where the hell they pulled that number from, I have no idea) they would get out on Sunday, so we could push the program start to Monday, and go through Friday (we were supposed to be Sunday to Thursday). On the bright side, I didn’t have to work on Sunday. So I stayed home and baked cookies. (D is now very happy with the volcanic ash).

So of course it was no big surprise when I got an email on Sunday telling me the program was canceled. The good news was that I didn’t have to work any long hours this week. Yeah, it’s a little crappy that I won’t get the overtime hours and I did put a lot of work into the prep, but I’m OK with that.

But what’s funny is that through the process of updating us on the timeline and changes, the program manager kept saying, “I’m so sorry for all these changes,” which I just found hilarious. I finally had to say, “Stop apologizing. You didn’t piss off the volcano.” But then I started to wonder.

Maybe she’s a pirate.