I have been on the total opposite end of this type of situation, and it also really sucked...

Last Thanksgiving-Sunday, I was going on DL from IAH-SLC-DEN - last flights of the evening for both segments (yes, I knew that was risky, but I am willing to accept the risk when it means more time with the family). They hold the doors for just 10 extra minutes for connecting pax (yes, some DL pax connect at IAH; they are often brought in on CO flights). Weather at IAH and en-route is not great but passable. Tower punishes us for that missed push-back time. They send us all the way to the farthest runway and the very back of the queue. They even put planes who pushed back LATER than us in front of us. We finally get to SLC an hour late. That hour was the exact length of my connection. SLC-DEN departs on-time, sans nd_eric_77. Since it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, DL had no availability at all until 14:30 Monday. The one saving grace was that DL did put me up in a hotel room, and the airline-partnered hotels at SLC are significantly nicer than the dumps at ATL.