Come through

Come through

We have a good phrasal verb today—to come through. This is not extremely common, but it’s a good one to know. To come through.

When someone comes through, that person does something or completes something that you were hoping or expecting that they’d do; something you really wanted or needed them to do, and they did it. They came through for you. I can think of plenty of examples related to this topic, so let’s get going on some examples.

We all put ourselves in the shoes of the travelers in the Thomas Cook case, and we don’t like to hear stories of travelers being charged twice or barricaded in their hotels. But spare a thought for the hotel operator for a second. Thomas Cook promised hotels payment. Hotels opened their doors, served guests. And now? Now they might not get paid. They did their part, and now they might not get compensated. Luckily, the UK government has a mandatory travel insurance plan that every traveler pays into. So the insurance plan will pay for the hotels of stranded travelers. That’s a relief, right? But not every hotel operator thinks the insurance plan will come through. Yes, the government has this mandatory program. They promise to pay. But getting paid from an insurance plan is no sure thing, especially if it’s from some foreign country. Will the British insurance agency come through for the hotels who served British travelers? Will the insurance agency do their part—do what’s expected of them in these circumstances? Not all the hotels are convinced.

The Civil Aviation Authority in Britain is responsible for bringing everyone home. They’re coming through for their citizens abroad. They’re doing what’s expected of them, what travelers need from them. They’re coming through for British citizens abroad. The UK government did not come through when Thomas Cook asked for a bailout. Just days before its collapse, the travel agent asked the British government for a bailout. They asked the government to save them from their debts, but the government said no. They were not about to just give money to a failing company. The government did not come through for Thomas Cook, and the company collapsed.

I’ll give you a personal example, related to travel emergencies. I was in India for work during something called “demonetization.” I won’t go into details, but there was a cash shortage throughout the country. You could not get cash. ATMs were empty. To get money from a bank, you had to wait in hours-long lines, and this went on for weeks. Well, I landed in India right when this was going on, and I had literally no access to Indian rupees for over a week. I’m not even joking: I went to the US consulate, I went to every bank I have a relationship with—the Delhi branches of American Express, everywhere. No luck. I was working, so day-to-day, I was in a nice hotel, I took an office taxi to work; I was fine day-to-day. But I wasn’t really comfortable going out on my own, exploring Delhi, much less other cities, if I didn’t have cash. India is different from America; you need cash. Anyway, one of my coworkers really came through for me because he lent me some cash. He felt bad that I was visiting his country during this calamity and I couldn’t go out and enjoy it. He really came through by lending me some cash at the beginning of my trip. He certainly didn’t have to do that; and I didn’t ask. I even felt bad accepting it, at first. I didn’t need it, but I kind of did, if I wanted to go out and explore, as I like to do in Delhi.

Here’s another example. When I moved to Chicago, most recently, I drove—this is crazy—I drove a moving truck from New York City, where I had been living, to Chicago. And I hired local movers here just to unpack the truck and move all my furniture out of the truck and into my new apartment, like an hour or two of labor. So far, so good. But I realized when we were done that I couldn’t get the truck out of the alley. This was a 26-foot truck, about eight meters. It was totally overkill, way bigger than what I needed. I was fine driving it on the highway, even in Manhattan I could drive it. But I got it into this tiny alley behind my house—and I couldn’t get it out. I couldn’t drive that thing in reverse.

You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know you’re in a bad situation, and it’s all your fault? Yeah, that was me. Now, luckily, the movers who had unpacked the truck for me also knew how to drive those big trucks. At first, they tried to guide me out of the alley—until they realized that it was futile. So they offered to get into my rental truck and back it out of the alley and onto the street. They really came through for me. They didn’t have to do that; in fact, it was probably against multiple rules for them to do so. But they came through for me when I needed it. They did something for me that I needed someone to do, and they did it. They came through for me.

JR’s song of the week

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will be performing at the halftime show of the Super Bowl in February, and to celebrate, JR picked a song from Jennifer Lopez. He says that Shakira’s English lyrics aren’t all that great—her Spanish lyrics are better. So it’s a Jennifer Lopez song today, and that is “Waiting for tonight.” And we will be waiting for the duo to perform at the halftime show at the Super Bowl in February.

That’s all for today’s episode. Remember, we’ll pick this theme back up on Monday. I was writing all about the travel industry and travel packages and such, and then I discovered I was already way over the usual length, so I said, let’s split this up into two episodes. On Monday, we’ll talk about the history and future of travel agencies. I’ll give you a hint: there is a future, in case you’re one of the doubters. That’s coming up on Monday.

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