I got back last night from a work-related conference in Toronto. I'll talk about that later, but first I want to talk about an astonishing experience I had today with Massport.

I parked at Logan Airport for my Air Canada flight to the Great White North. When I returned, I paid my parking fee at the automated machine and went to my car. As I was leaving the parking lot, I realized that I didn't have a receipt. I needed it to submit with my expense report.

I stopped at one of the lanes out of the lot that had an attendant and asked him what I could do to get a receipt. He gave me a Massport Parking phone number to call and said that they could help me get a duplicate. Based on my experience with other departments of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I was expecting it would be an ordeal to cut the red tape separating me from my receipt.

This morning I called the Massport number. The first person I talked to was very polite, but couldn't help me. She transferred me to Betty. I got Betty's voice mail. I figured it would take at least three attempts to finally speak to a live person.

Surprise! Betty called back within 1/2 hour. I was on another call, so she left a voice mail saying that there was a form I needed to fill out and she would fax it to me if I left a phone number. I called back, left another voice mail and the form appeared on the fax machine a bit later. I filled it out and faxed it back. The form said it would take 3-5 days to get the reciept, which seemed very acceptable to me.

So, thanks to Betty from Massport. She exceeded my (admittedly very low) expectations. I could hardly believe I was dealing with a government agency.