Travel

I remember when I was offered the first job that would involve travel.  It was a magical moment, reminiscent of getting something back from Battle Creek, Michigan. You know, the place where all the stuff from the back of the cereal  boxes came from. Anyway, I remember having this wonderful idea of what a job with travel would be like: seeing new cities, experiencing food, culture, different people.

Then came the reality. I was responsible for conducting on-campus interviews for Payless Cashways on college campuses in the western half of the United States. At the one year mark, or there about, I remember being in a motel in Provo, Utah. I woke up that morning, opened the drapes, and had absolutely no idea what town I was in. In order to figure it out, I actually had to go to my briefcase and look at my plane ticket to see where I was. That was the morning when it struck me that what I had really seen in the past year were airports, motels, and college campuses. And guess what? They all look very much alike. That was also the day I asked the person I worked for to get me off the road. Thankfully he did.

Time passed and again, I found myself in a job with travel. At that time, I was in Store Operations, and we were trying to make sure that we saw each of 154 stores at least once every six months.  So, we were traveling a lot. It was different that time in that I was spending time with operators and walking stores. Never did a day go by that I did not learn something or have the opportunity to teach something. It was exciting, but the travel took its toll.

So, once again, I asked to get off the road and again, my boss said okay. This time the thing that pushed it over the edge was that I had been on a flight that had an aborted takeoff. And I was on a flight that had been required to "punch back out" from a landing attempt because there was sosmeone else on the runway. And... these two things happened on the same week.  Just too much.

If you have someone in your life that has traveled a lot, and you talk to them over dinner or drinks, you will find out that they have a lot of interesting stories about the way travel goes.  And if you are lucky enough to get two people like this in the same room at the same time, they will be like two old fighter pilots, trying to tell the biggest, best story.

But today, flying home from Maine, I think I may win. In LaGuardia, on a Delta flight, after we had pushed back from the jetway and were just starting to get ready to taxi, the announcement came overhead that we had too many people on the flight. We had more people on the plane than we had seats. Really?? How exactly does that happen? Anyway, back to the gate we went and two people left the plane. After all of the paperwork, and I am sure some finger pointing, we were back on our way, about an hour late. You may think that is the amazing part, but no. The next thing that happened was the part blew me away. On a three-hour flight that was now an hour late, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that he would make up the time in the air. An hour? All I can think is that warp speed is now deployed.

So, if airlines can get us there in half the time, why don't they?

Have great travels out there. Okay, I am off my soapbox now. I might have spent too much time in airline terminals this week, way too much time. Oh, by the way, he made up all of the time except for three minutes.