Sometimes, things don't go too smoothly. Getty Images

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

Everyone can laugh about these things afterward.

Or can they?

Let's focus for now on the reactions of both the van driver and the pilot at Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri, on this fair day, June 27.

The pilot works for Envoy Air -- American Airlines' regional carrier.

The van driver was behind the wheel of an airport operations vehicle.

The pilot was in an Embraer 145, with 57 passengers on board.

The van driver was in a hurry to get to the Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting Barbecue.

And so they headed for each other at a 90-degree angle, as a video shows.

"I decided that due to the time limitations we would cross the runway in order to make it in time," said the unnamed driver in a subsequent report.

He received clearance from the Ground Controller to cross the runways. The first one, Runway 20, seemed to go fine.

But then, on Runway 14, oh look.

"I looked out the right passenger window to see the landing lights on an E145 coming down the runway," the van driver wrote in a subsequent report.

He then took evasive action -- of a sort.

"I accelerated across the runway and heard the aircraft overhead just as we were leaving the runway surface," he said.

Yes, it looks to the amateur eye that it was close.

The van driver seems to have told the ground controller that he agreed.

He added some sort of explanation in his report: "It is generally my practice to look at both ends of any runway I cross, but I honestly cannot say for sure that I looked both ways or how far down the runway I might have looked."

That's what heading to a company party can do to you.

You stop thinking. You want food and friends. And you don't necessarily look where you're going.

Please, at all times, look where you're going. Especially if you happen to work at an airport.