Here is a
typical reaction that you get when someone finds out that you travel
regularly for business. Wow, that must be exciting! Oh yes, the glamour
of it all. I mean, that is, if losing 4-5 hours of your week not
including the airtime is appealing to you!
Business travel is
such a pain now. There are some modern “conveniences”, like to be able
print your boarding pass in advance off the Web. It’s kind of like
getting a ticket in advance to your own surgical procedure.
You stressfully drive
through traffic so that you can get into the first of multiple lines at
the airport. The lines at airports make college registration from years
gone by seem like a breeze! Line number one is to check your bags.
Those of us experienced business travelers avoid checking bags at all
costs! The work around is to pack less, over-pack a roller carry-on and
to elevate mix and matching outfits to an evolving art form.
You are in your first
line…. checking bags under the presumption that you are either bringing
golf clubs, skis or traveling for more three days. First, we pros go to
curbside check-in. (only rookies stand in the ridiculous circuitous
lines inside) You have to park and put your emergency flasher on. The
flasher is universally recognized by the airport police as a signal
that says though it looks like my car is parked, in fact it is not! By
invoking the flasher you are officially designating your vehicle to be waiting, not parked. The
flasher evokes the message to the parking police that I understand and
appreciate your security responsibility, and I am a well-intentioned
law-abiding U.S. citizen just trying to check my bags…so I can get in
my next required line sooner. Ok, now your bags are checked with the
cautious optimism that you will be reunited with them at your
destination.
Your next line is
into the parking garage or even more fun - the remote parking. By the
way, just for clarification the parking garage is for company
paid/business travel and all remoteless expensive parking is reserved
for personal travel. You find a parking space and write down your
location in the garage the size of the Mall of America. We have all
forgotten where we parked at least once…. no issue with the Pros…simply
walk around pressing your panic button on your remote and follow the
alarm like some kind of audible bloodhound.
A travel tale would
not be complete without addressing the to the joy of the security line.
In the post-911 era that we live…. this is the biggest change. I find
it somewhat ironic that more often than not I have a security person
who can barely speak English checking MY ID and PAPERS.. I mean
boarding pass. Sorry I had a Hogan Heroes moment. This is the one place
other than the plane that we 'travel pros' have no choice but to mix
with the rookies. Patience is a premium…they don’t know what they don’t
know…Oh, do I need my shoes off? My belt? My keys? I find it is best to
take a little mental vacation at this point. If I paid attention to all
the stupid stuff that the rookies do in the security line…I may be
tempted to just lay them down on the x-ray conveyor belt and tell them
their doctor will see them on the other side!
Security behind
us….we proceed to the gate. I now have to endure another instance to
lose more faith, if possible, in the human race, that being the moving
sidewalk. Race? If you saw the people on this thing…. they are clearly
not in a race! Elderly folks and handicapped people aside, when exactly
did we get so fatigued and lacking of purpose that we transformed into
a grocery item? Rookies walking briskly along until they get to the
moving sidewalk and then as if they go into a George Jensen trance they
stop, stand and set their bag down! A few poor souls have to be
additionally nudged to stand to the right. For the Clueholders among
us, I recommend a daydreaming stroll down the middle of the hallway
between the vegetable aisles!
The security to gate
journey these days requires a reasonable amount of agility. In days
gone by, walking through a crowded terminal required some good lateral
evasive maneuvering to avoid bumping into oncoming travelers. I have
found that navigating through a crowd is lot like driving; initiative
and commitment is paramount. This is where the newest airport obstacle
comes in…the carry-on bag. Lets face it; they should be called a
roll-on bag. Now that these bags have wheels and an extendable handle,
they are never carried and always pulled. Now just avoiding bumping
into an approaching traveler is only the half of it, you now have to
also have the nimbleness of a hurdler to miss the traveler’s tailfin,
the roll-on!
[BB]
The end is
near…figure of speech….you are at your gate. By the way that sinking
feeling, bad choice of words, that you are feeling is your autonomy and
independence leaving you. Once you get on their plane, they own you!
The rookies think that this is their gate, but the pros know all too
well that this is undisputedly the airline’s gate. They can change to
another plane on a whim. They have no issue to load you on a plane with
no departure expectation to open up “their” gate for another one of
their planes.
At the gate, the pros
check the departure time above the gate agent and then habitually check
to see if there is a plane at the gate. No plane indicates an obvious
delay. You know - no plane, no loading, …get my drift? Yet there are
the rookies sitting contently in the gate area and not all curious as
to why there are so many available seats. It apparently doesn’t occur
to them that since there is NO PLANE…there is no reason to sit there!
I digress, lets
assume that there is a plane at their gate. Lets also assume that you
have a seat assignment. The airlines have devised a couple different
methods of passenger loading, but you would have to LISTEN to the gate
agent announcement to know what that method is!
You have loading back rows first and front later or by numerical group.
If your clue
worthiness was evident to a rookie, you will be undoubtedly asked by a
rookie who was supposed to be getting on the plane now. I think that
the airlines need to re-define the definition of those passengers that
require special assistance. How about something like if you are really
old, really young, really slow, or not listening please join us now!
I often think, ok,
loading passengers from the back of the plane to front makes sense.
Then when I assess they should also load from the windows, middles and
aisles in succession, I look around and start laughing…. only to be
interrupted by some rookie who wants to know if they should get on now!
If you want to pay a little less for airfare like Southwest, they let
you stand in line by group before you get on the plane. This additional
line trade-off is that you can pick your own seat. What a bonus!
Finally, we are told
that the flight attendants are there for our safety first. That’s
interesting since they are going to help us if we have an emergency yet
they are not strong enough to help a grandmother hoist their roll-on
into the overhead compartment. Safety is one thing, but observing the
privileges afforded them their union is another. So just so I am clear,
they are present primarily for our safety as long as it does not take
any more physical prowess than is required to lift a bag above their
heads!! Oh, give me an extra bag of six pretzels and I’ll be comforted.
The plane leaves and
lands and now its time for more lines. We land…the symphony of
clueholder’s cell phones all turn on…don’t get me started on cell
phones…. and we taxi to the gate. The plane stops, the all-clear bell
rings and people jump out of their seats like a boxer ready for the
next round. They wanted a head start so that they could stand longer in
their exit line.
We are almost there
now. On to baggage claim ….a few head fakes and hurdles that Edwin
Moses would be proud of and I am standing by the bag carousel. This
baggage carousel, like the moving sidewalk, is not the place to feel
better about the collective intelligence of the masses. The
anxiety of whether their bag will mystically rejoin them is only
diminished by their mind-numbing lack of understanding of how the
carousel works. I have seen rookies stand on the wrong side of where
the bag gets on the carousel and they just stand there, an apparent
trained behavior perhaps from the moving sidewalk, and wait for their
bag to come around to meet them!
Is traveling
glamorous? Clearly it is not. The rookies, through not fault of their
own (as far as they know), are annoying to those of us self-proclaimed
Pros. Yet, how smart can we be when in return for our many frustrating
trips, we accept airline incentives like a bunch of sheep to do what
…travel free. Free? Yeah, free of sanity, free of relaxation, and
mostly free of clues.
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