Originally Posted by notquiteaff

I believe it was you who insisted in previous threads that you'd never even tell people whether they'd have enough time to go to the bath room before departure, reasoning that you don't know how long they'll need and what they'll do once they are in there. Fine, I agree.

In this case, according to the OP the GA "insisted there was no way my bag would miss my connection". Would you agree with that kind of statement? I'd say there was a darn good chance (with a 20 min connection and two gates as far apart as possible at UA's SFO T3) that the bag would not make it. It seems clear the GA was promising/guaranteeing something that was completely out of their control. And the OP was lucky and fortunate that the bag made it. And hopefully the hard disk is still functional.

Regarding the 8am flight from SEA to YVR, this might simply be a misunderstanding. His original statement was "An plus I leave Seattle at 8 am heading to Vancouver, then onward to about 10 other cities over next few days" -- that doesn't necessarily mean a flight to YVR. Later the OP said he was going to be with family in Seattle til Saturday. Could be a road trip with family. If the OP is still following this thread, a clarification might help here.