December 1, 2004
Object at rest
After a whirlwind couple of weeks - Rome, Zurich, Warwick - I'm back in Norwich for a couple of days of catching up before it all starts again.
The last year or so has given me a deeper understanding of David's attitude towards life when travelling. What I'd initially mistaken for impatience now makes a lot of sense.
When you see the inside of hotel rooms more than your own home, perceptions shift quite dramatically. I already have the whole airport thing polished to an art - traveling fast and light, with my magic expanding backpack which means no checked-in baggage, I can be through passport control and in a cab before you can say "anything to declare?".
Now I'm beginning to understand the hotel process. Establishing the critical path for checking in, dumping bags and finding the bar become a finely-honed routine. The conversation at the front-desk is suddenly short and to the point; it's not rudeness, it's simply about working through the procedure that both you and the receptionist have to follow, getting it out of the way so both people can move on. After all, if it takes 5 minutes instead of 2 minutes to check in, and you're going to do this 100 times a year, that's already 5 hours of your life you've lost.
It's about efficiency.
Next time you travel, try this. At airports with shuttle busses to the planes, look for the people sitting down rather than queueing to board. They know it's going to make no difference to your place on the plane whether you queue or not - when you get on the bus last, you'll get off the bus and on the plane first. Watch for the people that hand over their passports already open at the photo page. Critical path.
Posted by savs at December 1, 2004 5:42 PMNext bagel belly blog,
"In order to check into your jail cell as efficiently as possible ensure that you do not accompany the officers to the local station with shoes with laces - digging out your old school pumps can save precious minutes later..."
... after the rozzers have got you for using your phone at 60mph and publishing the evidence on the web ;-)
Use a phone when driving? Are you mad? I'm just -really- good with photoshop ;-)
(Yes, I was photoshopping this at 60mph...)
Yeah.. and not just travelling. For me, any process that is a means to an end, and not the end itself, I like to be pretty efficient. That's why shopping (for more or less anything) drives me nuts. I almost always know what I'm looking for, and I'm almost always surrounded by crowds of people who don't, and who can't walk and think at the same time. Christmas is particularly hellish in this regard..
But hey, my doctor tells me I'm supposed to me de-stressing, so I won't rant too much :)
Posted by: Steve D at December 2, 2004 1:29 PMSteve, you hit the nail on the head. Shopping is mostly a waste of time. There are few things that require physical presence these days - usually when you're after tactile or stylish things, like clothes or furniture. Other than that - let's just use the internet.