Travel Day Thursday
Travel Day Thursday is sort of like the huge final that you have on the last day of school or an exit interview for a job that you are excited about leaving. It’s the final step. By the time Thursday rolls around, you can’t wait to get home. However, you have to get through the following: work day, trip to airport, drop off Avis car, security, flight, Vital car search, trip from airport to apartment. You start off the day thinking that these steps will go smoothly, meaning on-time and without unexpected delays, but then it must be the excitement of Travel Day Thursday that is deluding your memory from the previous weeks, months and years of experience of Travel Day Thursdays. Travel Day Thursday is stressful and tests your patience in each and every one of those steps It’s like you are taking that final and the Professor accuses you of cheating or at the exit interview the HR girl asks if you could stay on another two weeks.
Travel Day Thursday starts with the final touches of packing and making sure that you have everything from your hotel room. You always go back to the shower and make sure you have your travel size B&B shampoo and conditioner and double check that you have your toiletry bag. You find that you can usually keep track of your own belongings, the ones that you packed up on Impending Doom Sunday, but if you borrowed a book or DVD from a Road Friend or Team Member, you will inevitably lose it between checking-in on Monday and checking-out on Thursday. Thursday morning is slightly hectic and things that you are not usually accustomed to having with you will get lost in the shuffle of packing your two carry-ons, skimming your hotel bill that is left under the door, shoving the USA Today into your smaller carry-on, lugging your two carry-ons down the hall, onto the elevator and into the trunk of the mid-size Avis Team Car. You think that you have everything, but if not, you’ll be back on Monday and can get it then--that is if Housekeeping won’t “accidentally throw-out” the DVD that you left behind. You wave goodbye to the Valet Parking Man as he says “See you back on Monday, Ms. Jammahs.” You think Monday feels like a year away.
Work day on Travel Day Thursday begins early because it ends earlier than any other day. You’re usually in with the Team about 7am because you will be leaving to catch your flight at around 2pm to 3pm. Thursday work day is somewhat busy because you are presenting, explaining and meeting about the work that you completed the day before and you only have about five hours left in the week to do this. You skip Team Lunch because you’d rather finish your work and have less to do on Work From Home Friday. You think that maybe you can even get on an earlier flight or at least leave on-time to the airport. You forget that on Thursday morning there’s always a crisis at the client and that your Manager is also trying to finish his or her work so they pass it off to you, so you never have actually gotten on an earlier flight or have left for the airport in a timely, relaxed manner.
Just as Travel Day Monday talk among the team is all about the outbound flight, Travel Day Thursday talk is all about what returning flight you are taking home that week—including airline, airport, and destination. You wonder why this conversation even takes place because you are generally on the same flight each week. You know your Team Members’ flights, don’t they know yours? After all, you are all addicted to points and stick with the same airline, so you are generally on the same flight each week. You start to coordinate rides to the airport in the Avis car. You play the Airplane Seat Game and compare seats with Team Member. You ask, which do you think is better, Exit Row Window or Bulk Head Aisle? Team Member without status has a middle in row 32 of 33—you laugh and think to yourself, poor sucker. You think back to your non-status days when you were flying connecting flights in middles to Boise, Idaho, but quickly change your thoughts--you don’t want the post-traumatic stress disorder attacks to kick-in.
After taking the Thursday trip from the client to the airport all those weeks, you can calculate the exact time that is needed to go from your Team Room to the garage to the Avis drop-off site, to the airport--through security, buy a magazine and stop at the ladies—and to the gate. You already have your boarding pass printed and you aren’t checking luggage, so it’s just a matter of making it to the gate. When on a project for a long time, you generally know where the gates are in the airport and can factor that into the travel equation. You check on-line and know that you’re leaving out of Gate 54—you will need another seven minutes to make it down all of Terminal D. This should be an accurate calculation. However, on Travel Day Thursday, this equation will fail you:
Team Member will forget that he gave the parking pass to another Team Member and you’ll be stuck at the gate at the garage; another Team Member forgot her wallet and you have to go back to the front of the building and wait for her to go back to the Team Room and find it; all drawbridges in Miami-Dade County will be up for a sailboat to pass; the Avis rental car buses are bunched up and you have to wait 10 minutes for the next one; Road Friend had you hold his lighter in your bag and you are stopped and questioned by TSA security—you make the mistake of saying that it’s not your lighter which sets off some sort of alarm that someone else has packed your bags; you’re wearing underwire; you have SSSS on your boarding pass and have been selected for additional screening; there’s a group of middle schoolers on a field trip counting out dimes to pay for a pack of gum while you wait to buy US Weekly and twizzlers; and, as always, the line for the Ladies is out the door and wrapped all the way down the corridor to the Cinnabon. You check your watch for the 1,000th time and really start to freak out. There’s absolutely no way that you can make it to the gate on time. You start to run and the wheels on your carry-on squeak due to the fast pace. You get to the gate and see that there are hundreds of people, including five crying babies, sitting, standing, and huddling around the gate agent desk. Everyone looks pissed. It hits you like a ton of bricks—flight delay.
Flight delays on Travel Day Thursday are a way of life. Just as Travel Day Monday flights always leave on-time, Travel Day Thursday will never leave on-time. You start to think of the countless reasons for flight delays. Weather—that’s the usual culprit, but your Mom emailed you in the morning to let you know that there were high winds over Missouri and thunderstorms in California. You think about how thorough your Mom is with her Travel Day Thursday weather reports because you are flying on the East Coast. You think of other reasons—equipment issues. There was that time that you were on the runway in Miami for 2 hours due to equipment issues or when the Delta Shuttle flight was cancelled due to the luggage truck running into the plane. Flight Attendant issues—yup, that happened to you in Minnesota after a long delay on the runway, you had to go back to the gate to swap crew members. You look outside—you realize what it is—lack of plane—the worst yet. You have to wait for the plane to actually arrive, get cleaned, catered and loaded up. You try to get on a flight to JFK or EWR, but those are also delayed so you decide to stick on LGA—at least that way you can keep your prime seat. You go back to the magazine stand and buy In Touch and a pack of Sour Patch Kids.
If packing is your number one hobby, sitting on the runway on Thursday afternoon is a close second. You find yourself just sitting and sitting in a closed, confined space for hours on end. You call a Team Member and ask if her flight has taken off. You giggle because she’s also delayed. You look out the tiny window and wonder if you can see her plane. You are happy that your iPod is fully charged and listen to your “Airplane” playlist. It calms you a little bit. You think that you should be reading novels (especially the ones that you read the Cliff Notes of in high school) instead of celebrity gossip magazines. You wonder why people travel with screaming babies, where these babies are going, why it is so important for them to fly and why they are always sitting in the row behind you. You wonder if babies can be in a frequent flyer program and who gets their points. You remind yourself over and over again to ‘Be Zen’, if only you knew what this lovely mantra means. You’re so tired from Team Dinner last night, the work week, the stress of making it to the flight on time, that you just give in to the exhaustion, get into plane position, close your eyes and fall asleep in your Exit Row Window seat. As you fall asleep you think of the following: you wish that you upgraded to First, you hope that when you wake up the flight is close to take-off and that you should have called Vital for a car reservation. You hope that there isn’t too much turbulence. You remember how Thursday night was the most fun night in college and try to recall the last time that you went out on a Thursday. You think probably in the year 2003--before My Life With Two Carry-Ons. You think about your friends who have jobs in NYC and that they are probably at happy hour while you have ahead of you another 2 hours on the runway, 3 hours and 15 minutes of a flight, 15 minutes of searching and waiting for Vital outside of LGA and 25 minutes in Vital from LGA to your apartment. You get home in the 10s. You drop your carry-ons in the open space in your apartment. You have been traveling for the last 7 hours and all you want to do is go to bed. You make the decision that you are not going to the office tomorrow and will take full advantage of Work From Home Friday.
Safe travels,
Jammahs
Travel Day Thursday starts with the final touches of packing and making sure that you have everything from your hotel room. You always go back to the shower and make sure you have your travel size B&B shampoo and conditioner and double check that you have your toiletry bag. You find that you can usually keep track of your own belongings, the ones that you packed up on Impending Doom Sunday, but if you borrowed a book or DVD from a Road Friend or Team Member, you will inevitably lose it between checking-in on Monday and checking-out on Thursday. Thursday morning is slightly hectic and things that you are not usually accustomed to having with you will get lost in the shuffle of packing your two carry-ons, skimming your hotel bill that is left under the door, shoving the USA Today into your smaller carry-on, lugging your two carry-ons down the hall, onto the elevator and into the trunk of the mid-size Avis Team Car. You think that you have everything, but if not, you’ll be back on Monday and can get it then--that is if Housekeeping won’t “accidentally throw-out” the DVD that you left behind. You wave goodbye to the Valet Parking Man as he says “See you back on Monday, Ms. Jammahs.” You think Monday feels like a year away.
Work day on Travel Day Thursday begins early because it ends earlier than any other day. You’re usually in with the Team about 7am because you will be leaving to catch your flight at around 2pm to 3pm. Thursday work day is somewhat busy because you are presenting, explaining and meeting about the work that you completed the day before and you only have about five hours left in the week to do this. You skip Team Lunch because you’d rather finish your work and have less to do on Work From Home Friday. You think that maybe you can even get on an earlier flight or at least leave on-time to the airport. You forget that on Thursday morning there’s always a crisis at the client and that your Manager is also trying to finish his or her work so they pass it off to you, so you never have actually gotten on an earlier flight or have left for the airport in a timely, relaxed manner.
Just as Travel Day Monday talk among the team is all about the outbound flight, Travel Day Thursday talk is all about what returning flight you are taking home that week—including airline, airport, and destination. You wonder why this conversation even takes place because you are generally on the same flight each week. You know your Team Members’ flights, don’t they know yours? After all, you are all addicted to points and stick with the same airline, so you are generally on the same flight each week. You start to coordinate rides to the airport in the Avis car. You play the Airplane Seat Game and compare seats with Team Member. You ask, which do you think is better, Exit Row Window or Bulk Head Aisle? Team Member without status has a middle in row 32 of 33—you laugh and think to yourself, poor sucker. You think back to your non-status days when you were flying connecting flights in middles to Boise, Idaho, but quickly change your thoughts--you don’t want the post-traumatic stress disorder attacks to kick-in.
After taking the Thursday trip from the client to the airport all those weeks, you can calculate the exact time that is needed to go from your Team Room to the garage to the Avis drop-off site, to the airport--through security, buy a magazine and stop at the ladies—and to the gate. You already have your boarding pass printed and you aren’t checking luggage, so it’s just a matter of making it to the gate. When on a project for a long time, you generally know where the gates are in the airport and can factor that into the travel equation. You check on-line and know that you’re leaving out of Gate 54—you will need another seven minutes to make it down all of Terminal D. This should be an accurate calculation. However, on Travel Day Thursday, this equation will fail you:
Team Member will forget that he gave the parking pass to another Team Member and you’ll be stuck at the gate at the garage; another Team Member forgot her wallet and you have to go back to the front of the building and wait for her to go back to the Team Room and find it; all drawbridges in Miami-Dade County will be up for a sailboat to pass; the Avis rental car buses are bunched up and you have to wait 10 minutes for the next one; Road Friend had you hold his lighter in your bag and you are stopped and questioned by TSA security—you make the mistake of saying that it’s not your lighter which sets off some sort of alarm that someone else has packed your bags; you’re wearing underwire; you have SSSS on your boarding pass and have been selected for additional screening; there’s a group of middle schoolers on a field trip counting out dimes to pay for a pack of gum while you wait to buy US Weekly and twizzlers; and, as always, the line for the Ladies is out the door and wrapped all the way down the corridor to the Cinnabon. You check your watch for the 1,000th time and really start to freak out. There’s absolutely no way that you can make it to the gate on time. You start to run and the wheels on your carry-on squeak due to the fast pace. You get to the gate and see that there are hundreds of people, including five crying babies, sitting, standing, and huddling around the gate agent desk. Everyone looks pissed. It hits you like a ton of bricks—flight delay.
Flight delays on Travel Day Thursday are a way of life. Just as Travel Day Monday flights always leave on-time, Travel Day Thursday will never leave on-time. You start to think of the countless reasons for flight delays. Weather—that’s the usual culprit, but your Mom emailed you in the morning to let you know that there were high winds over Missouri and thunderstorms in California. You think about how thorough your Mom is with her Travel Day Thursday weather reports because you are flying on the East Coast. You think of other reasons—equipment issues. There was that time that you were on the runway in Miami for 2 hours due to equipment issues or when the Delta Shuttle flight was cancelled due to the luggage truck running into the plane. Flight Attendant issues—yup, that happened to you in Minnesota after a long delay on the runway, you had to go back to the gate to swap crew members. You look outside—you realize what it is—lack of plane—the worst yet. You have to wait for the plane to actually arrive, get cleaned, catered and loaded up. You try to get on a flight to JFK or EWR, but those are also delayed so you decide to stick on LGA—at least that way you can keep your prime seat. You go back to the magazine stand and buy In Touch and a pack of Sour Patch Kids.
If packing is your number one hobby, sitting on the runway on Thursday afternoon is a close second. You find yourself just sitting and sitting in a closed, confined space for hours on end. You call a Team Member and ask if her flight has taken off. You giggle because she’s also delayed. You look out the tiny window and wonder if you can see her plane. You are happy that your iPod is fully charged and listen to your “Airplane” playlist. It calms you a little bit. You think that you should be reading novels (especially the ones that you read the Cliff Notes of in high school) instead of celebrity gossip magazines. You wonder why people travel with screaming babies, where these babies are going, why it is so important for them to fly and why they are always sitting in the row behind you. You wonder if babies can be in a frequent flyer program and who gets their points. You remind yourself over and over again to ‘Be Zen’, if only you knew what this lovely mantra means. You’re so tired from Team Dinner last night, the work week, the stress of making it to the flight on time, that you just give in to the exhaustion, get into plane position, close your eyes and fall asleep in your Exit Row Window seat. As you fall asleep you think of the following: you wish that you upgraded to First, you hope that when you wake up the flight is close to take-off and that you should have called Vital for a car reservation. You hope that there isn’t too much turbulence. You remember how Thursday night was the most fun night in college and try to recall the last time that you went out on a Thursday. You think probably in the year 2003--before My Life With Two Carry-Ons. You think about your friends who have jobs in NYC and that they are probably at happy hour while you have ahead of you another 2 hours on the runway, 3 hours and 15 minutes of a flight, 15 minutes of searching and waiting for Vital outside of LGA and 25 minutes in Vital from LGA to your apartment. You get home in the 10s. You drop your carry-ons in the open space in your apartment. You have been traveling for the last 7 hours and all you want to do is go to bed. You make the decision that you are not going to the office tomorrow and will take full advantage of Work From Home Friday.
Safe travels,
Jammahs
posted by Jammahs at 6:24 AM
3 Comments:
Jammahs, travel day Thursday is my favorite. Not just b/c it means that Jammahs is returning home, but b/c it leads to such wonderful stories!! I think exit row window beats bulk head asile every time. And next time you are in that huge line, why not buy a Cinnabon? They always look real good to Wu.
Thanks for the mention...
Your faithful weather reporter,
SQ
Keep up the good work. thnx!
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