I went to Dallas to accept an award for my office’s performance last year. Two awards, actually. It was a whirlwind trip. There and back in twenty-four hours.
The suite was wasted on me. All I need is a bed when I’m traveling alone.
The awards banquet was four hours long. Picture the Daytime Emmy Awards with fewer sequins. That was it.
I sat with a bunch of the people from our corporate offices and at one point a couple of them turned to me and suggested I relocate to work with them as a regional supervisor.
“Tempting, but no. I like it where I’m at.”
“You mean in Tampa? They’re talking about having the supervisors manage from the region. You might actually be able to stay where you are and do the job.”
“Well, show me that in writing, and I’ll think about it.”
I’d LOVE to do it, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. With my crowd, you can’t seem to want it too much. Makes them think you’re easy. Or, worse, desperate.
I flew home this morning early. Bought a book at the airport gift store and got well into the second chapter before I realized I’d already read it.
The man-child sitting next to me was chatting away on his Blackberry all the way up until take off. Then he shot out a few texts and promptly fell asleep.
By the time we were getting ready to land, I was halfway through the book – again – and my seatmate woke up. He was impatiently drumming his Blackberry with his fingers.
“We have the same phone,” I told him and rifled through my bag to show him mine.
“Oh, yours is newer,” he told me when he saw mine.
“Oops!” I said as I accidentally turned it on and pressed the button again trying to get it to shut off.
“No,” he told me. “Just leave it on.”
“But the pilot hasn’t said we could…” I’m such a good girl.
“I asked a pilot once if it screwed with the navigation or anything, and he told me it didn’t but that they could sometimes hear the conversations passengers were having. So they just tell everyone to keep them off.”
I took a closer look at him and noticed deep laugh lines around his eyes. Not quite the man-child I thought.
“Oh,” I said and left my phone on. I was quiet for a minute, and then I half turned in my seat and whispered to him, “I feel like such a rebel.”
“Good,” he said and laughed.
Then, I gave him a wink and unfastened my seat belt without waiting for the Captain to turn off the fasten seat belts sign, and he laughed some more.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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3 comments:
Same with ICU units. When my Dad was in an ICU in St. Pete, I was told not to turn my cell phones on. Hours later I saw three doctors in the ICU talking on their cells. I said I thought we weren't supposed to have cell phones on since it just messed with the machines. And the doctors said, "Yeah, no, they just tell visitors that or else the ICU would be a loud mess."
you know what? I loved that....
Good post. And, could you imagine an airplane full of people yelling into their cell phones for 4 hours straight? Aggghhh....it's bad enough when you land and 90% of the people pull them out and start their loud conversations....
By the way, as an "old" ICU nurse, there used to be issues with monitors and electronic transmitters but by about 1990 they had fixed that interference problem in all of the new monitoring equipment.
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