Yesterday, I did one of the more bone-headed things of my career. After working for awhile in the Wing, prior to the departure of CX880 to Los Angeles, I somehow managed to pack up all my stuff except my IBM laptop computer, which was sitting on the desk right in front of me.

Not only that, I didn't even notice until after our flight took off. About 30 minutes into the flight, the purser approached me and informed me that they had received a Telex from Hong Kong indicating that they had found my lap top. I was instructed upon landing to contact ground staff and they would tell me what to do to retrieve it.

Upon landing, the person who opened the door said they had received a Telex, but that their version of the Telex said they weren't sure it was mine. (My name wasn't on the laptop, the only way they could have figured out is that the welcome screen says "HKG_Flyer1" on it; that's presumably how they tracked me down inflight.

I was instructed to proceed to baggage services desk... but there no one had a clue as to what to do. Moreover, the service is outsourced to some company (not sure who) and he didn't seem to have much of an idea as to how to proceed. After waiting for someone from CX to arrive, I finally happened upon a fairly junior CX staffer, who similarly didn't know what to do other then file a missing baggage report (even though it wasn't baggage).

This didn't leave me feeling very warm and cozy, so I decided to go upstairs, where actual CX employees were busy checking pax in for the return flight. After much back and forth and scratching of heads, one fairly senior person (a "Service Leader") took down my information and suggested I follow up with the CX Secretary in L.A. I suggested that we contact the Wing, since they were the ones who found it... she said that was a great idea and looked at me expectantly, thinking I had the phone number (I did not). Unfortunately, she didn't either, so that was that.

Well, anyway I'm now wondering what to do. I'm happy to pay to have the think boxed up and shipped to the U.S., but don't know how to get in touch with the folks in Hong Kong who have my computer.

I also suspect that with each passing moment, the chances of ever seeing the computer again are less and less.

Any ideas?