Waiting Game

This week has been a test of patience in the normally-efficiently run Indianapolis Fedex operation. After grabbing a quick hubturn nap, I hurry out to the crew room to get on a computer and look at our flight plan and the weather. After signing the release, certifying compliance with all sorts of FAA rules, we hurry out to wait in the sub-artic cold for a crew bus. We get off the bus at our airplane and hurry through the preflight (in the First Officer's case, he hurries to get inside the relatively warm airplane after his walkaround). Then we wait for all the myriad of things that must occur before we can finally get airborne and free of all the paperwork! This list includes (but is not limited to):
-Latest weather, updated hourly at 54 minutes past
-Pre Departure Clearance arrives from ATC no sooner than 30 minutes before scheduled push
-Dangerous Goods paperwork arrives (supposedly) at least 10 minutes before push
-Fuel Service Form arrives after taking on fuel
-Preliminary and then Final Weight and Balance form after fuel upload and when calc is complete
-Completion of all required cockpit checklists
Then we take all this stuff and try to make sense of it at 4:00 in the morning, combining it into an overall picture of our flight's readiness to go to our destination. The fueling process, normally complete before we even get to the airplane, has been the big problem this week, often more than 45 minutes late. Nothing tires you out quicker than sitting in the cockpit cocked and ready to go, but having to wait for the next piece of paper to arrive. When it does arrive, you launch into a flurry of activity, and then wait for the next thing. Hurry up and wait. Then, the blessed moment arrives when it's just the pilots in the cockpit, the doors are closed the stairs are pulled away, and you ask the ramp tower for permission to turn on your beacon, which signals a pushback crew to hookup their tug to your airplane. But nooooo, you have to wait for that as well, b/c the ramp has to sequence airplanes out of its choke points. You finally get a beacon, wait for a tug to arrive, then you ask for pushback clearance...another wait b/c another airplane is blocking your push. You eventually push and get the engines started, then wait in line for de-ice. Then wait at the ramp throat for taxi clearance, and then you're informed that you get to bypass the runway that's right there and taxi across the airport to the other runway instead. At last, the tower clears you for takeoff...ahh, all is right with the world. Oh, wait, you land and taxi in to your destination, do all the postflight stuff, walk through the icy ramp through the hangar to your van waiting to take you to the hotel as the sun comes up...but THE VAN'S NOT HERE MAN!!!! And, when you finally get to your hotel room, THE KEY DOESN'T WORK!!! Now, try to sleep and get up and do it again tomorrow night.