The Glamour of Travel

When I used to travel a fair bit for work, I inevitably encountered friends and colleagues who were somewhat envious. Flying off to here and there with a cute little roll-aboard suitcase and a laptop bag must be so glamorous, right? Here’s a snapshot of last Monday.

4:00am—Alarm goes off. No time to hit snooze today. I need to be on the road by 5:05.

4:40am—Receive a call from Delta informing me that there’s been a change in the schedule for my flight. They do not use the term delay, but my scheduled departure has been moved from 7:40 to 9:23. Unfortunately, I still need to head for the airport since my niece, who had come to spend her fall break with me, is flying out at 7:05.

5:08am—Leave the house and call Delta, asking them to change me to the 9:00 flight that my colleague is on. Find out that all the morning flights are oversold, but they offer to confirm me on the 1:30. I don’t accept this offer, since my meetings start at noon.

6:40am—After uneventful parking, check-in, and security experiences, I watch my niece board her flight, then make my way to my gate. I login to my work laptop and begin cleaning out e-mail (since I’d been out of the office since the previous Wednesday).

9:16am—The aircraft that I’m scheduled to take to Ohio arrives and a new arrival time of 9:40 is posted. A few minutes later, an announcement is made that there may be a maintenance problem with the aircraft, and the departure time is pushed to 10:00.

9:59am—Gate agent announces that maintenance has found a slow leak in the fuselage, and that it will take about an hour to fix it. The flight is now delayed until 11:00. At this point, I pick up the phone and call Delta. All the other flights to Dayton are oversold. Out of curiosity, I ask about the 10:53 flight to Cincinnati, and am told there are seats available. I decide against this option since I have a ride in Dayton and no transportation in Cincinnati. I call my manager to let her know I’ll be late. I go to the newsstand to grab breakfast and foolishly purchase a South Beach bar, assuming it would be similar to a Luna bar. It is not.

11:40am—Departure time pushed to 12:05. Five minutes later it is pushed to 12:35. About a minute after that, the man sitting next to me receives an e-mail saying the flight has been cancelled. At least I have a slight lead on the other poor souls at the gate, since there’s still a departure time listed. I get on the phone again, and find that the first flight to Dayton they can confirm me on is at 9:40pm. The agent puts me on standby for all the flights before then. At this point I start feeling very foolish for passing up the 1:30 option earlier in the day. I ask about Cincinnati flights, and am told that the next two have seats available. I run to the gate to standby for the next Dayton flight. It’s 12:25 when they close that flight and kill all hope. Based on the size of the planes and the number of people standing by, I decide to fly to Cincinnati.

12:35pm—The gate for the Cincinnati flight is not the absolute farthest gate in the Atlanta airport, but it’s next to it. The flight is now oversold and has a standby list. I recognize several of my fellow Dayton passengers milling about the gate. Apparently when they announced the cancellation of the Dayton flight, they recommended this flight and told passengers that they would be bussed to Dayton. When the agent puts my information in, she gets a surprised look on her face and tells me that the system bumped me to number one on the list.

12:45pm—They begin to call standby names. Three of them. None of them are mine. I begin to wonder if number one on the list means what I thought it meant.

12:58pm—My name is called and I board the plane. A few minutes later, what appear to be small spitballs start dropping on me from the air vent, forcing me to close it. When beverage service starts, I ask for Fresca (one of my favorite things about flying Delta). The flight attendant goes to pour it, then turns to inform me that Fresca has been replaced with Coke Zero. On what planet is that a replacement for Fresca?

2:21pm—Land in Cincinnati. Wait for my fellow Dayton passengers to go to baggage claim, then to the baggage service office to confirm what I had already told them: their bags are in Dayton. Climb into a seven-passenger van to begin what has got to be the slowest possible drive across Ohio. Get slightly carsick.

4:34pm—Arrive at the Dayton airport. Not too bad, considering I was supposed to land there at 9:06am! Catch a taxi to the hotel, since there is now no point in going to the office. Give the cab driver my destination, at which points he asks me for directions. I wind up texting a colleague for information on how to get there.

4:59pm—Arrive at the hotel just in time to check in, remove my 3-½ inch-heeled boots, change clothes, and meet my colleagues for dinner. Arrive back at the hotel around 11:00.

Glamorous indeed.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Blackberries

Earlier this week I went to a concert. It was supposed to start at 8, but, knowing that there would be an opening band, my friend and I opted for dinner and a late arrival. Strolling to the ticket booth of the Fabulous Fox Theatre around 8:30 we saw the sign that the first opener would start at 8, the second opener would begin at 9, and the band we were actually there to see, Kings of Leon, would be starting at 10:30. Did I mention that this was a school night? I tried not to calculate the maximum number of hours I could possibly devote to sleep that night.

So, after a quick walking tour of downtown Atlanta, we made our way back to the concert, where I noticed a few signs for a consulting company event. Interesting team building choice, but who am I to criticize? We stood at the back of the auditorium for most of the second opener, and I couldn't help looking around and noticing all the typical elements of a concert: the energy of the teenagers away from adult supervision for a night, the glimpse of the flask being put back in its discreet hiding place, that sweet distinct smell that lets you know you're listening to rock n' roll inside. Then I spotted the consultants.

They didn't have a banner, and they weren't wearing matching shirts, but the six men sitting two rows in front of us had to be part of the group. Even if I hadn't noticed the polo shirts and hearty handshakes, the blackberries would have given them away. If they just happened to carry their crackberries with them it wouldn't have been noticeable. But when I spotted three of them actively checking their email while I was dancing to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, I knew who they were. And (I probably shouldn't admit this) it made me feel somewhat cooler. I realized that I know the difference between work and play, and there's no doubt about which one I was engaged in at 9:30 at night.

My life as a Time Life Operator

There was a time not so long ago when the only people you ever saw sporting a telephone headset were those friendly operators who were standing by to take your order. Many of them were named Judy. But alas and alack, Judy no longer has a corner on the headset market.

I fought it as long as I could. I used speakerphone. I booked conference rooms. I held the receiver between my ear and shoulder. I’ve officially ceded the point: I use a headset. The office I work out of makes the typical town library seem like a Metallica concert. There are mime conventions that are louder. That pretty much rules out putting any call on speaker. I occasionally still go the conference room route, but it really hampers my productivity to be away from the computer for that long. (Don’t hate me because I multi-task.) And, as the calls become longer and more frequent, holding the phone with my shoulder just stopped being practical and started being painful.

So now I spend a large part of my day looking like I’m about to offer you a set of Ginsu knives for ordering now. I didn’t realize how much pent-up aggression I had toward the headset until it came up in casual conversation last week. It surprised me a little; but, now that I think about it, a headset is just another way to be chained to my desk. Literally. And that’s never a good thing.