Since time began, man has wanted to fly. In the old days, he looked at birds and made them Gods. He wondered what the view would be like from way up there. Man was envious. Centuries after his lust for flying began, he flew thanks to the Wright Brothers, Santos Dumont and many others. Now man can fly as far and as high as he wants. Yet, today flying is miserable.
The first thing I would ask a flight attendant, if given the opportunity, is: did you want enjoy the glory of what a flight attendant used to represent or did they not accept you as a guard at Riker’s Island? Flight attendants are like Nazi Prison Camp guardians. They do not talk, they do not smile. They grunt and glare and say three things: chicken or pasta, pull your seat up now, that needs to be turned off immediately. You are not allowed to talk back to a flight attendant, crack jokes or complain about anything. You will be arrested upon landing.
Flight attendants play their own little games, too. Their favorite one seems to be smash elbow. This is where they will drive the cart up and down the aisle as fast as possible, eyes closed, and count how many elbows they can smash into.
On International flights, in economy, there are two carts: one with drinks, one with food. The one with food has two flight attendants and goes first. Right behind it is the drink cart but with only one attendant. The food cart goes three times as fast: they have two people (basic math) and it is easier to throw a tray of food than a cup of liquid. Therefore, if you fly economy, you will always finish your chicken or pasta before you get your drink or $6.00 MD 20/20 tasting “International Flagship” wine.
Now, the next source of misery are stupid fliers. If you don’t have an elementary school education, you should not fly. There is a simple order to where seats are located on a plane. There are numbers and letters, 23A, 28G. When you get on a plane, there is a flight attendant to help guide you. She will ask everybody to show a boarding pass, which has a seat assignment. Then, you will be pointed in the right direction. This flight attendant located at the boarding door is a backup for cases of stupidity. At this point, even a monkey could find its seat. But, incredibly, some people still cannot. Extreme stupidity has no solution. If you have trouble finding your seat, you should not fly. If you sit down in the wrong seat, you should be escorted off the plane, no questions asked. Why? Because when you get asked whether you want chicken or pasta, your brain will explode. By then, we’ll be in mid flight and have to land due to the mess.
An elementary school education also comes in handy when asking for a drink. They have some sodas, juices, coffee, warm beer and two 7 Eleven wines (but no brown paper bags). You have the option to ask what they have. If, after the flight attendant tells you everything available, you ask for tea, you should never fly again.
The TSA does a decent job of screening for weapons, liquids and patting down old ladies. But, they need to search and seize Cuban and homemade food. This is a weapon of torture. In a plane, you are no better than sardines in a can. There is no air nor space and having to smell this vomit is on the level of waterboarding.
If you are male between the ages of 14 and 60, you need to man up. For the love of testosterone, don't bring a pillow on the plane. Yes, airlines have done away with this luxury. Of course, the seats are as comfortable as those at Fenway. But, what has happened to toughing it out? These men should have their pillows removed to help get them back on the path to being a man. It is fine for kids, women and senior citizens. Back in the day when we dreamed of flying, a man would sleep on rocks and under a tree but never brought his own hay to make a pillow.
We all know people who fly first class are rich. They made their millions by inheriting it, screwing someone or a few of them through hard work and luck. Yes, they will enjoy a certain luxury in the air for a few hours while having paid ten times the price of economy. Yet, when we economy fliers get off the plane, the first class cabin always looks as if a tornado came through there, with blankets, food, water bottles, newspapers strewn about as if it had been Armageddon. When the firsters board the plane, they will plow through us serfs while looking down on us. Then, we are made to walk through their waste when we get off. It says a lot about rich people.
Bait and switch is illegal. This is when you advertise one product, expound in its glory and amazingness, yet after purchasing it, the buyer realizes it is no better than a two day old turd. The government allows the airlines to bait and switch. Television commercials demonstrate happy fliers. They smile, they wave goodbye, hug hello, they sleep happily on the plane, the flight attendants smile, the person eats well and can’t seem to wait to fly again. It is as if the life got touched by the magic wand of nirvana.
The product is not like that. Open the American Airlines magazine and you will find a page with dry snot, tons of ripped pages, the crossword puzzle filled out and sticky substances on the cover. Your knees are stuck against the seat in front of you. It is then that the guy will decide to push his seat back right on top of your knees. Now, your eyes and his balding, dandruff filled head are two inches apart. You can’t eat, you can’t read, you can’t work and you can’t put your own seat back because the guy behind you is 6’7”. His knee is your armrest. The guy next to you is burping and taking ear wax out of his ear with his pointer finger and making little balls of wax. What an interesting dinner it will make: dandruff falling from above the tray and little yellow curry balls from the left. To your right and across the aisle is a little kid hate because he is oblivious to the hell and torture that surrounds you. Looking up, you notice one of the panels on the wall is held on to another panel with duct tape. There are still eight hours to go. Chicken or fucking pasta.
Car executives were smart. They flew in their own planes and got skewered by Congress when they went to DC. The second time around, they drove. It says a lot when someone would rather spend 12 hours in a car made by GM or Chrysler, instead of two hours in a plane. Over a hundred years ago we should have been careful what we had wished for.
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authority. Show all posts
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sunday, October 19, 2008
No one ever got fired for being five minutes late
I am a blue collar philosopher and believe that one does not get fired for being five minutes late.
My philosophies don’t hail from the school of Rousseau, Socrates or Emerson. I do not come up with things while sitting around in a darkened room, with lots of cushions, a few lit candles, mood music, Abisnthe and herbs. Coffee houses do not attract me either. I really don’t think I can solve issues that men exponentially smarter than I, over the ages, never did.
I commute, I work at a job where I travel a lot, I always talk on the phone to customers and partners, I attend meetings, and type on a computer or my Blackberry most of the day. At home, I try to watch TV, exercise, read and write. I go out with my family and friends, on occasion I drink and smoke, and I eat lots of pizza. I philosophize in between.
The other day I did something as common as a cold and frequent as a Executive flier. It happened in my adopted hometown of Miami. Although technically a city, it really isn’t. It’s a community made up of 2 million islands. This is not the kind of trait that you would want to announce to the world as a top ten reason to live in Miami. It’s not a very big city, but funny enough in a Napoleonic way it tries to demonstrate itself as such. There’s one ruling family with more than a million members, and they have all been fleeing their island over the past fifty years, some even in rafts.
So, on this very regular day, in a very irregular city, I drove to work and parked my leased car. It’s a nice car, not very expensive, silver and a six speed standard. I leased it because I didn’t have any money with which to buy a car. The way things are in our country, it is cheaper, easier and quicker to get something new than old.
When I came to a complete stop in between the parallel yellow lines and the bottom scratching piece of concrete slab, I did not immediately shut off the engine. I wanted to finish listening to the song. It was Born to Run. Meanwhile, a polling agency asked me what musician would most likely make me stay in the car to finish off a song before heading into a meeting. Of course, The Boss was first. Maybe, Billy Joel, but his earlier music. Bruce Springsteen just continues to move and inspire through the ages. Why I pretended that some agency would find me important enough and more, would find this an important topic, is ridiculous. But ridiculous is what makes my world go round.
On most days, I’d usually just shut the engine off and hustle in like all those cattle around me, off to slaughter. There’s no rule that governed my particular behavior that morning. Sometimes, weird things happen, sometimes they don’t. My mood and Born to Run intersected in my car. Anyway, I hurried from the parking lot to the building because I was going to be five minutes late, but still on time. Yes, I do believe that. If asked why I didn’t leave five minutes earlier, I’ll respond that I did, but there was an extra ten minutes of traffic. So, showing up on time while being five minutes late, I'd get a bonus of slapping some controlling and unknown authority just a bit.
The building had two sets of doors. This is the same set up the space station has for astronauts coming back in from their space walk. I am sure of this as I have seen it on television. Since I am not in England, I always approach the door on the right. The outside set of doors to the building said pull. And that’s fine as the door could also have been pushed and someone could get hurt physically or emotionally if they pushed instead of pulled. But, there was no sign to tell you to walk through it after pulling, I guess because it is accepted as common behavior.
The closing of the first door is timed perfectly so that as you get to the second set of doors, the first one shuts completely. This is called insulation. It keeps the cold air on one side, warm on the other. This works kind of on the same principle as a McDLT. The building that housed this meeting apparently likes saving energy and precious resources. Who knows if they are coal, oil or nuclear. I guess turning the air conditioner up a few degrees has not materialized as an option in the mind of whoever it is that makes that decision. I can never keep it straight, by turning the air up does the temperature go down?
As I thought that to myself I noticed that the next door had a sign to pull also. But, there were other instructions. The door, I guessed, was broken. So, all of us cattle had to follow the instructions and use the other door. Again, the instructions were well laid out. Two hand written pieces of paper were on the door. The first one was at eye level more or less. In capital box style letters, it said “Use Other Door.” Right beneath it on the other paper there was an arrow. It pointed at the location of the other door. My guess is that both were written and hung by the same person as the paper, scotch tape and black magic marker seemed identical.
If the pull sign on the door is there to help people or prevent them from feeling like an idiot in the sixth grade again, then would the arrow serve the same purpose? There were only two doors. One door was broken but thank God for the explicit instructions and the arrow.
I can only imagine walking in the building on another occasion, with the broken door, and finding someone standing there and looking around because there was no arrow pointing to the correct door to use. Likely, this person would be a philosopher wondering about how many other possible doors there could be to get into the whole building, and which one was meant for him to take. Kind of like two doors diverged in a yellow building. By that logic he would never get in the building because he would never know which door to go through.
Since I am on time for being five minutes late, I happily followed the swarm, thanked God for the arrow and went through the door on the left. I arrived at my meeting five minutes late and excused myself due to the traffic.
My philosophies don’t hail from the school of Rousseau, Socrates or Emerson. I do not come up with things while sitting around in a darkened room, with lots of cushions, a few lit candles, mood music, Abisnthe and herbs. Coffee houses do not attract me either. I really don’t think I can solve issues that men exponentially smarter than I, over the ages, never did.
I commute, I work at a job where I travel a lot, I always talk on the phone to customers and partners, I attend meetings, and type on a computer or my Blackberry most of the day. At home, I try to watch TV, exercise, read and write. I go out with my family and friends, on occasion I drink and smoke, and I eat lots of pizza. I philosophize in between.
The other day I did something as common as a cold and frequent as a Executive flier. It happened in my adopted hometown of Miami. Although technically a city, it really isn’t. It’s a community made up of 2 million islands. This is not the kind of trait that you would want to announce to the world as a top ten reason to live in Miami. It’s not a very big city, but funny enough in a Napoleonic way it tries to demonstrate itself as such. There’s one ruling family with more than a million members, and they have all been fleeing their island over the past fifty years, some even in rafts.
So, on this very regular day, in a very irregular city, I drove to work and parked my leased car. It’s a nice car, not very expensive, silver and a six speed standard. I leased it because I didn’t have any money with which to buy a car. The way things are in our country, it is cheaper, easier and quicker to get something new than old.
When I came to a complete stop in between the parallel yellow lines and the bottom scratching piece of concrete slab, I did not immediately shut off the engine. I wanted to finish listening to the song. It was Born to Run. Meanwhile, a polling agency asked me what musician would most likely make me stay in the car to finish off a song before heading into a meeting. Of course, The Boss was first. Maybe, Billy Joel, but his earlier music. Bruce Springsteen just continues to move and inspire through the ages. Why I pretended that some agency would find me important enough and more, would find this an important topic, is ridiculous. But ridiculous is what makes my world go round.
On most days, I’d usually just shut the engine off and hustle in like all those cattle around me, off to slaughter. There’s no rule that governed my particular behavior that morning. Sometimes, weird things happen, sometimes they don’t. My mood and Born to Run intersected in my car. Anyway, I hurried from the parking lot to the building because I was going to be five minutes late, but still on time. Yes, I do believe that. If asked why I didn’t leave five minutes earlier, I’ll respond that I did, but there was an extra ten minutes of traffic. So, showing up on time while being five minutes late, I'd get a bonus of slapping some controlling and unknown authority just a bit.
The building had two sets of doors. This is the same set up the space station has for astronauts coming back in from their space walk. I am sure of this as I have seen it on television. Since I am not in England, I always approach the door on the right. The outside set of doors to the building said pull. And that’s fine as the door could also have been pushed and someone could get hurt physically or emotionally if they pushed instead of pulled. But, there was no sign to tell you to walk through it after pulling, I guess because it is accepted as common behavior.
The closing of the first door is timed perfectly so that as you get to the second set of doors, the first one shuts completely. This is called insulation. It keeps the cold air on one side, warm on the other. This works kind of on the same principle as a McDLT. The building that housed this meeting apparently likes saving energy and precious resources. Who knows if they are coal, oil or nuclear. I guess turning the air conditioner up a few degrees has not materialized as an option in the mind of whoever it is that makes that decision. I can never keep it straight, by turning the air up does the temperature go down?
As I thought that to myself I noticed that the next door had a sign to pull also. But, there were other instructions. The door, I guessed, was broken. So, all of us cattle had to follow the instructions and use the other door. Again, the instructions were well laid out. Two hand written pieces of paper were on the door. The first one was at eye level more or less. In capital box style letters, it said “Use Other Door.” Right beneath it on the other paper there was an arrow. It pointed at the location of the other door. My guess is that both were written and hung by the same person as the paper, scotch tape and black magic marker seemed identical.
If the pull sign on the door is there to help people or prevent them from feeling like an idiot in the sixth grade again, then would the arrow serve the same purpose? There were only two doors. One door was broken but thank God for the explicit instructions and the arrow.
I can only imagine walking in the building on another occasion, with the broken door, and finding someone standing there and looking around because there was no arrow pointing to the correct door to use. Likely, this person would be a philosopher wondering about how many other possible doors there could be to get into the whole building, and which one was meant for him to take. Kind of like two doors diverged in a yellow building. By that logic he would never get in the building because he would never know which door to go through.
Since I am on time for being five minutes late, I happily followed the swarm, thanked God for the arrow and went through the door on the left. I arrived at my meeting five minutes late and excused myself due to the traffic.
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