At Least There’s No SAT Requirement

Strange to think that next week this time I’ll be working on plans to move. Yup, that’s right: if all goes according to plan, next Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll receive my January assignment. Of course that means that sometime this weekend I need to narrow down the list of options to a prioritized list of five assignments. The whole experience brings me back to my senior year of high school, and makes me realize that I haven’t changed all that much.

If you knew me then, you would have seen that I was the underachiever in all the honors classes. So, while my classmates were sweating early admission to Yale, I was eyeing colleges with the shortest application and the least number of essays. No Kaplan courses for me, no last minute scramble to find extra extra-curricular activities. I was much more of a Que Sera Sera kind of girl.

It’s been a few years, and I thought I’d done quite a bit of growing up. Then I realized how much effort my colleagues are putting into deciding their next rotations. There are interviews and feedback sessions and endless games of “what do you know about this rotation/assignment leader/location?” And then there’s me. We received the preliminary list of options on October 23, and the final list on November 6. Since our preferences are due by end of business Monday, I fully intend to sit down Saturday, or Monday at the latest, and read through them. I’ll think about it a little and narrow it down to my top five.

These days I like to think of it as a Zen thing.

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.

Am I Where Yet?

I spent last weekend in Longboat Key, Florida. Since I thought the keys referred only to the chain of islands south of Miami, this trip was a geography lesson as well as a vacation (or, as my dad would say, not a total waste). There was plenty of downtime, lots of laughter, abundant time at the beach (even if some of that time was rain-soaked) . . . basically everything you’d want out of a weekend. For my money, the one thing that distinguished Longboat from other beaches I’ve been to is the softest sand on the planet. Really. It’s just one of those things that you have to feel for yourself. In a place I’d never heard of, they have beach sand like powdered sugar. A super-fine layer of which now resides on the floor of my laundry room.

I was home for just about 36 hours before I flew out of town again. Not quite up to my old travel schedule yet, but there’s a sense of excitement about airports, hotels, and rental cars that I still thrive on. After working in Connecticut for a couple days, I did something I’ve always wanted to: took the train into the city to meet with a client. I know it’s a little goofy, but I found an incredible energy in walking out of Grand Central, getting a cab, then walking down the sidewalk in Manhattan with my briefcase. For a brief moment I thought I might actually be an adult.

Then came the reverse trip. Both the train ride back to Connecticut and the drive to the airport were non-eventful. I checked in, then found a monitor to double-check how much time I had. I had a lot. In general I like smaller airports: simple to navigate, easy to get in and out of. I’ve now discovered the downside: there’s generally not a lot of entertainment available. After four hours there, I can assure you that in the Westchester County airport, there is none. But somewhere in that time a miracle occurred: I found myself longing to be home . . . as in Alpharetta. I hadn’t really felt like this was home, but sometime between leaving Manhattan and walking through my front door, my brain finally made the switch. Now I wonder where I’ll be moving next.

What Was I Afraid Of?

I’d never really thought of myself as a technophobe until my friends started trying to suck me into their digital world.

Here, borrow this movie.
I don’t have a DVD player.

Text me your address.
I don’t text.

Be my friend on MySpace and Facebook. Join my network on LinkedIn.
I don’t use those sites.

I’ve had enough of these conversations in the last two months to make me wonder. I’d never consciously avoided technology. (With the exception of the DVD player. I can’t get one of those because my brother told me I had to. Don’t ask.) I just never prioritized it. And with the advent of the new frugal Kelly a few years back, a lot of these things just seemed like expenses I could live without. Then I met Maggie.

Back in July Maggie bet me $10 that I’d be “texting like a fiend” before we left Georgia. I cracked eleven days later. Not long after that she invited me to join her professional network on LinkedIn. It didn’t seem intelligent to turn down an opportunity to make more business connections. Then she sent me an invitation to be her friend on Facebook. How can you say no to being someone’s friend?

And that’s how they get you. I spent a large portion of yesterday waiting for a guy to come set up high-speed internet in my apartment . . . a first for me. Of course, since the internet people are connected to the cable people, he didn’t show up when he was supposed to. For one brief moment I thought maybe I should just cancel the whole thing. Then I realized that my Facebook profile really needs some work and I found myself demanding that they come as soon as possible.

I’m not quite positive how this all happened, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to blame Maggie. If you have any other ideas, feel free to text me.

Bunker Life

Someone has it in for me. Actually, not someone, but rather something, an entity, a group larger than mere people. It’s the network. And no one can hear me now.

Now that I’m back in Georgia and exploring the local peoples and customs, I’ve discovered one thing I hate: my apartment. Now, normally this would send me into all sorts of emotional upheaval, but the greatest joy of my current life is my newfound mantra: it’s only for six months. (Make that less than five now, but who’s counting?) The apartment itself isn’t all bad. Not necessarily what I would design, and there’s no window over the kitchen sink, but I’ve lived in worse. There is, however, one major problem with it: location.

Here’s the deal. In my mind, a first-floor apartment means the apartment is on the same level as the parking lot. a.k.a. no stairs. Apparently, this definition is not universal. I discovered on moving day that to reach my first-floor apartment, I must go down a flight of stairs. Where I come from they call that a basement, but the clever marketers that leased me this place probably know that no one ever opts for a basement apartment. The building is on a hillside, so for anyone entering from the woods, my floor is the first. But, if all goes according to plan, no one is coming in from the woods.

The location isn’t necessarily a problem in and of itself; I really don’t care if I have to climb stairs to leave. What I do mind are the sorts of things that live in basements. Mainly things they eat on Fear Factor. I thought I was pretty much over my bug-o-phobia, but alas I had not been truly tested in quite some time. At least they haven’t carried me off in my sleep.

And, as if the bugs weren’t bad enough, I have no cell service. I take that back. I have found one spot that I can sit in, and, as long as I don’t move my head at all, I can get a call out. A call that will have horrible reception. A call that will be lost within no more than 30 minutes. I’d never realized how much I walk around, or even move my head, while I’m on the phone. I dare you to try to sit perfectly still the next time you’re on the phone. Go ahead: try it. Makes you cranky, doesn’t it?

So, for everyone who thinks I’m ignoring their calls: I am. I make as many calls as I can while I’m not at home. I’ve had quite a few conversations in my parked car. But the joy of talking on the phone is (temporarily) gone. I’m going to call my cell provider today. I don’t have much hope that they can help, but I’ve got to try. I just have to make sure to get the call out before I go home.