Fitness for the traveling executive

Introduction to Business Travel The alarm fires off at 5:30 AM on Monday morning and literally shocks you awake. You lie there staring at the ceiling for five minutes trying to figure out where you are, what day it is, and what you are going to do that day. Why did you stay up so late watching mindless TV reruns? You try to go back to sleep. Your mind starts thinking about work, and you know you need to get up and write down some critical thoughts and tasks. Your partner rolls over and goes back to sleep, the lucky one. You stagger out of bed and head for the bathroom, tripping over your dog who is sound asleep—it’s even too early for him. While squinting into the mirror at the face looking back, you make a solemn promise you know you will not keep, I’ll never drink again. It’s too early to eat anything, so you settle for coffee and ponder what kind of aggravation this travel day has in store. You shower, dress, and kiss your partner goodbye and head off to the airport barely awake. Your normal early drive is usually not so congested, but an accident causes some delay and your anxiety spikes. You feel the stress ignite your body early, and your nerves, not in the best shape already, begin to quiver. You know you can’t miss this meeting in NYC. You park the car and bolt for departures with forty-five minutes until takeoff, and you know security lines are usually not crowded at this time in the morning. Having said that to yourself, you arrive and find the line is out the door. Sweat begins to form on your forehead. Naturally, you pick the slowest moving of the two lines. Why is one line always much slower than the other? Arching your head, you notice that your idiot TSA agent has decided he needs to profile everyone in line, asking inane questions about them and their destinations. Meanwhile, you look over at his counterpart who is literally pushing people through the checkpoint at a conservatively calculated 3 to 1 ratio. The bile begins to rise in your throat to the height of the Sears Tower. You’re finally passed through the ticket check and are now waiting to pass through the metal detector station, and now your fellow flyers’ real incompetence is demonstrated. Admit it, people are basically stupid and can’t take direction, let alone get through a security screening smoothly. You watch helplessly as moron after moron just can’t figure out how to take their shoes off or pull a laptop out of a bag, and generally act as if they are the only person on the planet. This agonizing process continues until you are about to snap, totally losing it only to be led away in handcuffs. But you know you have to make that NYC meeting, and you bite down on a bullet. You pass the detector fine after what seems an eternity, and then you are randomly pulled out of line for a bomb dusting of your computer and a full wave down because you bought a one-way ticket. Meanwhile, you hear your flight beginning to board, you’re in zone 2, but you know you’ll never get there before zone 5. Guess who will now probably get their bags gate checked? Arriving at the gate, you find a long and stagnant line. You’ve been flying so much you actually recognize the gate agent, which is probably not a good sign. Eventually you board, but you are still at the mercy of the same morons who couldn’t figure out how to go through security and are now trying to figure out how to get on a plane while carrying on bags the size of steamer trunks. You get to your seat and somehow cram your bag in the overhead; however, you will need to stow your other bag under the seat in front of you. There is no leg room at all. Then the realization kicks in that even though you got an aisle seat, the incredibly overweight person next to you needs to let you “feel the fat” oozing into your seat both over and under the armrest. You have a two-hour flight, and you want to feed this person diet pills the whole way, hoping somehow the fat will recede. Your legs do not fit in the allocated area, and you know anyone over four–feet-tall would be cramped. The person in front of you will probably not hear your kneecaps crack as they let their seat back. Now it’s time for the “hurry up and wait” announcement as you still sit at the gate well after the scheduled takeoff time. Let’s see, let me count the reasons and corresponding actual truths that the airlines use for the usual delays: • Too many flights—greed • Oversold flights—greed • Mechanical problem—greed, but okay to fix it now instead of at 30,000 feet • Weather—blame it on God, it’s not our problem • Airport runway congestion—greed So you sit there in your cramped little seat with steaming rolls of fat layered up against you and obnoxious, non-caring flight attendants, who just got 50 percent in pay cuts on a bankrupt airline, are taking it out on you. But you need to be at that meeting in NYC.