November, 21, 2016. On that fateful day, I was flying home from college for the first time, and it was my first time ever flying alone and having to navigate a layover. I was pretty worried about not making the connection and getting stranded, but all the worries in the world couldn’t prepare me for the actual experience of missing my connecting flight. Don’t worry, the past couple weeks have provided enough of a cooling off period that this isn’t just a thinly veiled rant, although when I first missed my flight one of my first thoughts was that I’d write an angry Odyssey article, because that’d sure show United. Obviously, in the moment, I was pretty rattled, but upon looking back, there are actually a number of life lessons I learned from the beginning to the end of dealing with my missed flight. That number is 11.

1. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch

As soon as my first plane landed on the runway, I texted my mom, and a few friends, to let them know that I landed on time and had plenty of time to successfully make my connection. Five minutes later I found out the plane ahead of us at the gate had mechanical issues and we were stuck on the plane indefinitely. Having to re-accept the possibility of missing my flight was much more difficult than had I not been so sure of myself as soon as we landed on time.

2. Control the controllables

AKA, don’t worry about what you can’t control. I couldn’t control that the plane blocking our gate had mechanical issues, and subsequently had no control as to when I could get off my plane and trek to my connecting flight’s gate. So I suppose I would have saved myself a lot of stress by not bothering to worry about it either in advance or as I was stuck on the plane.

3. Don’t get somebody else’s hopes up just to let them down

This one goes out to the flight staff on my first flight who told us if we ran we would catch our connecting flight. I don’t know the extent of communication between them and my next gate, but it was not true that if we ran we’d catch it, because I’m a collegiate runner and apparently I did not make it in time, so as far as I can tell nobody would have. It was all the more crushing when I reached the connecting gate not to be allowed on the plane since I had been told that I would.

4. Don’t handle conflict if you’re tired or hungry

Some people may be better at this than others, but since I was running on very few hours of sleep and very little food, I was not nearly as stable as I could have been in responding to having to sit at O’Hare and wait for the next outgoing flight.

5. Never be on the bad side of a mom with a crying kid

I wasn’t the only one who missed the flight, and the other two who missed the flight were a mom and her four year old daughter who burst into tears after running through the airport. Before my eyes that mother transformed from the nice lady I chatted with on the first plane to the embodiment of anger on behalf of her daughter and I think I would have rather been anyone in the airport other than the United employee who was the subject of her wrath.

6. When you find people to vent to never let them go

I’m a complainer, and those people (you know who you are) who I complain to are an absolutely essential part of that process. I’m truly unsure how I would have processed what went down at O’Hare without having a cadre of friends and family to continually update and vent to.

7. Be assertive

I’m a cynic of companies’ commitment to customer service, firmly believing that companies are more concerned with their general profits than with my contentment with their services. As a result, I’m inclined not to make the effort to complain, and inevitably have my complaint get lost in the automated system through which one can “contact us.” However, my parents encouraged me to be assertive and stand up for myself and since I had time to spare waiting for my next plane, I decided it could be at least cathartic to send in a complaint through the United website.

8. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

Sure enough, I got an automated response along the lines of “Sorry about your experience. Take our survey.” All my cynical assumptions had been confirmed, and once again I recoiled from wasting any more of my time to give United feedback. However, once again my parents encouraged me to follow through with the process, and once again boredom struck, so I filled out the survey, and recorded another rant in their “Any additional comments” section at the end of the survey. This time, I did manage to get the attention of a real life human United employee who sent me a personalized apology along with an electronic travel certificate to help pay for my next flight.

9. Free things make everything better

The electronic travel certificate really made the apology that much more satisfying than if had I merely gotten a personalized apology. Yes, free things are great, but I think the significance of the travel certificate is that, at least to me, actions speak louder than words, and this gift proved that beyond being sorry, that they wanted to make it up to me some way.

10. We need to remember that we’re dealing with human beings

When I got the personalized apology, that was the first time throughout the whole process that I felt as if I were being treated like a human being. When the guy at the gate for my missed flight rebooked me, he was unsympathetic, as if my missing the flight was just business as usual. For him, it probably was, because tons of people miss flights, but had he been able to view me as a unique individual with my own unique situation that was causing me to fly that day, and had be put himself in my shoes, he could have taken steps to lessen the blow that my delay in getting home from the holidays was. We should be careful not to let human emotion slip through the cracks of standard operating procedure.

11. Don’t hold a grudge

After I missed my flight and was treated unsympathetically, I swore off United forever. Now that I have money towards another flight with them, I guarantee I’ll fly United at least one more time and probably more than that. I may seem weak and unable to make a statement, but I also don’t really have a reason to boycott United over what was ultimately a series of lapses in judgment. There’s no sense limiting my future flight opportunities and holding the anger I felt towards United in my heart forever.

I hope that none of you have to have a similarly traumatic experience missing an important flight (although you very well might), but I hope that living vicariously through me you could internalize a few of these life lessons relevant to handling any sort of conflict you may find yourself in.