I consider myself to be a world traveler. Heck, in the last 12 months I’ve been to 18 states, 6 provinces, 8 countries or maybe more and even my daughter has been to more countries in the last year than many will visit in their lives and she just turned one.
I resigned from my position at my last company in Charlotte NC a few weeks ago and I’ve moved my entire family back to New Hampshire and started a new role. This last role, like some before it had spawned a culture of coworkers calling me “the most interesting man” and after I rode my motorcycle to the arctic circle and then went on a 6 country Euro-Trip with my daughter, a coworker said “you did more in one summer than some people do in decades”.
It’s fair to say that I had to uphold this reputation as long as possible. So, the annual holiday party at my last job which was set to take place January 10th (today) was a party that I couldn’t miss. Not only is it a great party with all you can eat and drink and awesome tunes as well as dancing and just overall a fancy affair but since I resigned a week before the party I certainly couldn’t miss the chance to hang out socially with my coworkers one last time.
So I secretly booked a flight and hotel a month ago and told just one coworker who put me as her Plus One for the event just in case the events team got word I had left the company and revoked my RSVP from December.
At 3AM on January 10th, I drove 2 hours south to the airport in a snow storm, hopped on a flight, arrived in Charlotte at 8AM, arrived at my hotel and checked into a room by 8:40AM just in time to start a remote work day at my now current job as approved by my new manager.
At 9:20AM I received a text from my coworker, “the holiday party has been cancelled”
There was a risk of this happening. See, 4 days ago, Charlotte began to have winter storm warnings which everyone ignored. The joke is that for the 2 years I lived here and 2 years before that, Charlotte had not received any snow so when warnings of a snow storm began, everyone ignored it. American Airlines and Marriot gave me the opportunity to get a full refund but I refused and the holiday party was still on as of the day before. In fact, our CEO and many west coast leaders flew in for the event or so I hear.
For the first time in 4 years, by 3PM I looked out of my hotel room and it was snowing in Charlotte.
I finally revealed to my team via text message that I had intended to surprise all of them for one last party for which we’d say our official goodbyes since I really left during Winter break and it just didn’t feel like a proper farewell. A few people messaged me about trying to rally coworkers for a party tonight in downtown but slowly people fell off as they realized just how much ice had fallen and how dangerous a drive downtown would have been.
By 5PM it was clear that I would be spending the evening alone.
The truth is, I love nights alone and I guess you could say this was a really great night had I not gotten over the moon excited about seeing my coworkers one last time and said goodbyes at a really great (seriously, it’s a nice time) party.
I wrapped up my current job at 5:15 and walked to Optimist Hall. As I walked up, they put a sign up saying they had closed early so dinner options were now slim. I went to my favorite brewery and they had already closed but said I could drink while they cleaned up and they didn’t charge me. That was really kind as I had been a patron regularly for 2 years and they heard my sob story and really took care of me. I walked a few more blocks to a pizza shop and that was closed so I hung out at an empty wine bar trying to find a place to eat and decided I’d ride a scooter over to a neighborhood that was always hopping on Fridays (Plaza Midwood) and when I arrived, 5 of the 6 restaurants had closed. Uber also shut down the Lime scooter network so I had to walk the 2 miles to get there in the ice rain.
After I had 3 slices of Luke-warm pizza from the only place open in Plaza Midwood, i was able to hail a cab back to my hotel where I walked up to the party district and went to 6 places that were all dead and finally just had a Guinness and talked to a guy from New York who also flew in for a corporate event and was stranded as well as 2 women who were out celebrating one of their birthdays and drowning their sorrows.
It’s almost midnight and I’m back at my hotel having killed 6 hours of time walking / riding / taxiing around town solo eating cold pizza and drinking beer in the very cold ice-storm of 2025 in Charlotte North Carolina.
I don’t live here anymore but here I am.
It’s really a shame that things didn’t go differently. A couple of coworkers want to attempt breakfast or coffee tomorrow but I board my flight at noon and the snow storm is supposed to continue until 8AM and then cleanup will start by city crews. I don’t expect I’ll get to see any of my coworkers on this trip and I’m just really disappointed.
Obviously what was going to be a fun “most interesting man” wrap up by crashing the holiday party would just look really lame if I crashed the one a year from now so I won’t be doing that but this year, it would have been really hilarious.
I’ve done a lot of quick solo trips for really basic reasons and this was going to be a lot of fun but it wasn’t. Oh well, it’s just time and money. Sigh.