Ah Trini Travelogue Trinidad & Tobago's most travelled blogger through 99 countries. Create and Re-Engineer your life for travel.
Over the last couple years, I’ve managed to waste enough hours in every type of airline lounge one can think of. I spent the first couple years rocking back my rum and cokes more than the (multiple time divorced or never married 50+ yr) Sr. Executives/Managing Partners, waiting for a delayed flights and hoping that my segment from Quincy,IL to St Louis MO doesn’t get canceled or delayed.
After all the time I’ve spent in the air, it doesn’t matter that you have super Platinum/Unobtanium airline status, 325,213 “ass-crack in a cramped seat” miles or the particular airline (USFear, Ununited, Air Crapada, Inc0ntinental), Shit happens when you’re on the road in consulting. If one doesn’t have patience to accept the delays and the crappy seats, then one has to wonder why bother with being in consulting. Sure, there is also the regular, slowly decreasing utility of a 5-minute wacking off sessions in a shit hotel after a death march as part of some 8-week-long intense PeopleSoft/SAP/Custom application module deployment located in a shit-town like Little Rock, Quincy or Baltimore for a rubbish client I couldn’t give 4.67 shits about.
Speaking of patience, nothing still makes me homicidal than actually missing a flight home or being delayed for 12 hours due to Low flight ceilings aka “we can’t use our sophisticated equipment for anything else but watching porn” or “Rush Hour”, aka 4-8 PM every blasted Thursday evening” or worse, GATE/HOLD aka “our high school educated or over qualified Guju/Sikh/Chinese doctors/engineers who couldn’t get a job in Canada/US unionized employees who are too big/fat/slow to get their shit together taxi the plane in”).
One could argue that it is better to be safe than sorry … that not blowing up over the ocean or having to emergency land in Detroit should be of the utmost importance. I sometimes fantasize that my plane my have to make a GENTLE emergency landing and that I will get to actually use the super slide from the emergency door … doesn’t the pictures and animations you see as part of the in-flight warning make you wonder about the slide?? Not even a little??
I don’t even have a wife or kids to go home (although I don’t mind getting back earlier to “D” <insert SUPER brownie points>) to so what do I care about arriving any sooner than I need to be? All that usually happens is I’ll get home about 10 PM or so and probably crash into bed or get back online to work. Flying home is one thing but what about when I’m putting the client’s money to good use by heading to Tampa or Trinidad for the weekend “simply because I can”? I personally think it is an excellent trade off for shitty work-life balance …
The problem with a delay is that at that point that I allow myself to start striking up small talk with other lonely, depressing consultants in the lounge. Yes, the same fucking travelers who seem to have Super duper Unobtanium airline status which trumps my “dogshit in comparison” status and are vying for the exact same coveted business class seats I am trying to scam. Why do these Bastards have to travel today??
Maybe I should think about getting out of consulting and finding a real job where I have to actually buy my own lunches and dinners, have no per diems and have to work with really dumb people in Fortune 500 companies. I could do that … right? Right???
