The Internet is conspiring against me

Whom would the internet conspire with eludes me, possibly the three sisters of Fait, who knows. All I do know is that for the last week and a half no matter where I am it seems the internet is not cooperating with me. At home it drops every 5 minutes and 40 seconds or so. So regular it is weird. When I talk to the wife I had to redial Skype 5 or 6 times for each conversation. The internet at home has also been slower than usual. Well I wouldn’t think much of it if it was just that it wasn’t working at home, but it doesn’t seem to work for me anywhere else. At my client I have no access on my personal laptop because I am waiting on security paper work to be processed. And just tonight in the hotel the hotel internet went down in the middle of my nightly call with the wife.. All I can say is arrrrrrggggggggg. To quote Charlie Brown.

So I am left to assume that the gods of the interweb are upset with me for some reason and have conspired to keep me from having the full and un-molested use of what many of my generation (and those younger) feel is a critical utility. So it frustrates me. And then frustrates me some more. But tomorrow there is at least a little relief. I will finally get my laptop certified for use on the client network. I think I will also finally get around to calling Qwest (again with the arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggg) to have them come and look at the phone line coming into my house. But alas at the hotel there is nothing I can do. I had an aircard for a few weeks but returned it when I found my next assignment is in an area with incredibly expensive roaming rates, so it seemed ridiculous to pay $50 a month for 10 months for something I would not be able to use soon.

One of the worst parts about having internet failure is some times I can’t even call for help because as would happen I have no phone book. So if there is no internet I can not even look up the repair number. I will have to remember to put it in my contact list on my cell phone. Well I guess I will now cross my fingers that the connection last long enough for this post to be updated!

It was much easier before

I guess I didn’t realize exactly how good I had it before – probably too good. I knew I had a great set-up but just didn’t realize how good.

How good did I have it? Well I knew that when RG left for Moscow I would miss the attention she lavished on me during the weekends. I have to admit that the best part of coming home after a long week away was being greeted by such a wonderful woman. I am the only traveling consultant that I have met in the last two years whose girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, or wife drops them off at the airport every Monday and picks them up Thursday or Friday nights. She liked the hellos and the good byes, and I think didn’t want to wait the extra ½ hour or so to see me that a cab ride would take. I also knew it would be kind of boring and lonely at home with out her. Having a roommate helps but it certainly isn’t close to the same (I don’t think he would be as cuddly and I certainly am not going to try).

But beyond that I didn’t realize home much a partner she was in my work. Though she worked full time she still put in a ton of time supporting me and my work. My laundry magically was washed, folded, and put away every week. My drive cleaning somehow dropped itself off and picked itself up. The house smelled better and was generally cleaner. There was more than beer and ketchup in the fridge. Other small tasks were taken care of while I was off and about. She would take care of things so I wouldn’t have to on the weekends. I never realized how short weekends really are until I had to do all of these things myself. I think I was just to list off all of the things I have to do myself now it could fill pages. So now I know how good I had it.

Airline Status may not always be a good thing!

Normally I am pretty glad that I have platinum status with the airlines. A lot of the time I get upgraded to first class. I have priority standby so I go to the front of the line when it comes to getting on a different flight. We also get a special call-in number to help us with issues. There is a lot more to it than that, you can go to NWA’s website and see all the benefits. Last year I flew over 120 flights, individual segments to qualify for status and this year I think I will do it by flying over 75,000 miles. That is a lot of butt time in an airline seat. I have to admit that I really do like flying first class when I get up graded, especially on longer flights.

But sometimes this can also be hazardous I think to one career. I know of four scenarios at my firm where being a Platinum status can get you into trouble, at least with jealous people. The first is if you travel with a client with out status. It never looks good when the person that eventually is paying your expenses (and hence wants them kept to a minimum) sees you flying first class all the time. If they do a lot of travel them understand and are used to it. But if it is not a regular part of the job they may not understand that you aren’t paying extra for the first class seat. And because the upgrade happens automatically there isn’t a lot you can do about it unless you want to call in and ask for a down grade, and then if coach is full it may not happen.

Similarly if you are flying with a manager that has lost his status or has lower status then you. They know the game, they know how it works, and generally they are a little upset that are no longer getting the benefits you are. In fact you getting the upgrade may be preventing them from getting an upgrade. So while they may just be teasing you about it being no big deal you may have to grow a pair of eyes on the back of your head. But most the time this creates a little humor in a group when all the junior staff are riding in the front and the manager is riding in the back.

Finally, and this is much more rare. I have heard of a time when a junior staff came to the gate after calling in to be put on standby, recognized two partners that were talking to the agents at the gate. And as he arrived he heard the agent say, oh sorry a Platinum member was just put on standby list – one of you isn’t going to make this flight. Then immediately called his name and handed him a boarding pass. Ergo, one of the partners didn’t get on the flight!

The finally scenario is the worst one to be in, the most dangerous one to be in – not just for your career but possibly for your life – that is when you have been upgraded on a trip going to or returning from a family function and you purchased your wife’s ticket with miles. When you get upgraded, she doesn’t. If you had purchased her ticket with money she would get upgraded. Now, when your sparky wife finds out that you have been upgraded she generally doesn’t give you many options. Either upgrade her, trade with her, or get yourself downgraded. Unlike clients, managers, or partners letting her fly in the back of the plane while you in the front would be an extremely risky proposition – and really SHOULD NOT be attempted. Ponying up the miles is really the best solution for all, though it may take a while to her them back. You still get to ride in first class, she is happy to be riding in first class (enjoying a little white zen) and you get to keep you life and all your body parts.

So while these tails are mostly humorist, most of us do not like being in any of these positions. Certainly they could be bad for client relationships, certainly they make a partner mad, but they could also ruin your home life.

Settle down I just got back from Russia

One of the things that is probably hardest to deal with being a consultant is navigating the minefields related to getting staffed from project to project. You will spend some time just sitting on the bench/beach with no assignment emailing everyone and getting no good leads for roles then you will be rolling off a project and get several calls for you be somewhere new the day after you leave where you are at. What makes it even harder and more arduous is the fact that normally your current project will not give you hard roll on/off dates. So you may think Friday is your last day on a project for 10 weeks in a row. Or you may think you will be around on a project for 3 more weeks to be cut loose this Friday. There is never any certainty. So when I went to Russia in September I had a roll off date that was in the middle of my vacation. I was a little apprehensive about this date actually coming true though.

Sure enough a few days before my vacation was over I was asked to return to the project when I got back (via emails… I know I shouldn’t check email on vacation… but). So I got set up my travel plans via the internet and was ready to go. Unfortunately I had made plans to help recruit the Tuesday of the week of my return. So I let my PM know I would have to have that day off. Also I was unable to update my scheduled availability because the utility didn’t work well from Russia. So I got home at 3:35 on Sunday. Took the train and a taxi home, did my laundry, repacked, went to bed, and was on a flight to the client Monday morning at 7:00am. Tuesday morning I drove the rental car back home. Again I didn’t update my staffing. But it was mostly because I had to run around so much.

Well sure enough my staffing manager thought I was on the bench/beach, and even though I hadn’t been able to line up a new project prior to my planned roll off date she had a hot item for me. So hot in fact the client wanted me there the day before. Of course my staffing manager got pissed because I hadn’t answered my desk phone. Now just an FYI this woman works from home and never uses her desk phone, but she gets really upset when we don’t answer ours when she expects that we are unassigned. God forbid you actually use my cell phone like I have written on my profile. Not only that I thought she was going to have an aneurism when I told her I would be at my project for at least another week. It turns out she had already presented me and the client had accepted me so the partners wanted me. Well sorry - she could have tried my cell.

So then she got all worked up about everything. I didn’t have the recruiting event on my schedule, I didn’t answer my desk phone, and I didn’t update my project availability. Sorry I only got back from Russia, flew to the client site, put out a dozen project fires, and driven back home for a one day event in the 48 hours. No biggie. I should have been able to update all the staffing paperwork too. That way when she decided not to follow the process and let me know I was being proposed on a project, she would have had more up-to-date information to ignore. Well over the next two days a couple of partners fought over where I would go and I ended up staying at the original client for an additional 3 weeks. But now I have a pissed off staffing manager. Though in the last couple of weeks I think I have begun to smooth things over by providing her with way more information than she needs. LOL

Interestingly enough, this last weekend, I had a similar problem to the one above. I had been staffed Thursday morning when I was flying out that night to go to Moscow. I booked my travel got all the paper work in order then headed off to the airport. Sure enough on the train to the airport I got a call. Tuesday afternoon was not soon enough for me to be on site. I needed to be there Tuesday morning; even if this meant flying right after I got home from Russia. Sure enough when I got to the airport and could get onto the internet my flight from Russia got in at 3:35 and the latest flight to NY was 6:59. Great. I didn’t have work clothes for the next week so I would have to land in Minneapolis, get my bags, clear customs, take a taxi home, repack, take a taxi back to the airport, clear security again, and get to my gate - all in less than 3.5 hours. Amazingly enough … I made it. I didn’t get to the hotel until 12:30 or to bed till almost 2:00a so I was worthless the next day, but I did make it.

I hope this doesn’t become a habit that when I travel internationally I need to make crazy travel arrangements the second I get home.

The Black Sea: No Codes, No Water, No Power and No Animal Control

While most of the blog really centers on some of what I saw at the Black Sea back in September the first part also applies to Moscow. Dogs. Wild packs of roaming dogs. I’m not talking about small or medium sized dogs, I’m talking about full sized 60 – 90 lb animals. They are everywhere. They roam cities in packs. Originally I thought this was do to just a lack of government oversight; the lack of political will or care to take care of a “problem”. In Moscow and in the town we were at in the Black Sea the dogs were just there. Other than needing to watch you step on the grass I never saw them do anything but sit around and look at people. Thinking in the American way I thought huh, why don’t they hire some dog catchers and get rid of these animals. I mean they were running around in the subways. But this last weekend I learned that it isn’t a lack of will, it is a different philosophy than we have.

The dogs and other wild animals in Russia are scene as a natural and protected part of the environment. There are actually laws against getting rid of the animals. So instead shop owners and other citizens tend to leave scraps out for the dogs. This keeps them happy and from attacking people. I don’t know if the animals spread disease or not, I don’t know if that is part of the reason we have such stringent animal control policies. The Russia way seems to make sense though in its own way. The animals don’t seem to be hurting people (at least not very often though there are a few stories) and it would be cheaper than having an entire work force just to round up strays and take care of them. But it is a major difference when you walk around say New York – no dogs roaming free – and Moscow – no dogs on leases – oh yeah they don’t have bag laws so you always need to watch where you step.

Originally I thought the three things in the title of this blog were related, after my last trip I found that they weren’t but I’m throwing it all together anyway. One of the interesting things about Russia is that in the major cities you really wouldn’t know you weren’t in Europe if it weren’t for all the cops and old Soviet ornamentation. However if you get a couple hours out of the city, say to the black sea, everything can change. When I visited we had no running water. Or rather it ran for 1 hour a day. I couldn’t believe this. The reason for this was because the river the water came from was basically dry. It hadn’t rained in like 100 days. So we had to drive a town away to take showers as needed. We also collected water in pots and pans for and hour a day while also trying to clean things and brush our teeth. Now I never would have imagined such a thing happening in the states. But if you have watched the news at all, you know parts of the south are having this exact problem. Some cities are turning the water off for hours a day. I guess drought is drought anywhere.

However in this town I must mention that many people do not have into showers and toilettes. This is still common in some places that ½ the houses in town still use out houses. That was a bit crazy. They are available it is just that a lot of people that own older houses don’t have or don’t want to spend the money to put them in. House with them do cost more, but if you don’t have the money what can you do. I didn’t think this was a big deal, but I would be surprised if even a percentage of people in the West have out houses any more, or in the last 30 years. So while the dogs and lack of water surprised me there are reasons for it and so it isn’t as weird now as it was two months ago. But the last thing I saw really is different than what you would see in the states. That is the lack of building codes.

In Moscow I saw the lack of finish work and polish in a lot of things but everything seemed sturdy and well built. At the black sea I can’t say the same. There really seemed to be no real building codes. Buildings were built out of anything. Some walls in the same house may be covered in metal sheeting, brick, or un-matching unpainted wood. Roofs were tile or tin or wood, or both, or all three. Rooms were added to existing buildings half-hazardly, out buildings were built with materials that rotten in a year, and some buildings stood and were occupied when they were only 1/3-2/3 fininshed. For instance people may live in the first floor while the second was still under construction and the roof had not been installed yet.

My favorite example was where I saw the exterior walls, roof, and second level of a new building built around and over an existing house! People were still living in this house while they built the newer larger one around it. I think the cause of this is two fold. First people can’t get capital loans, there are no mortgages to speak of let alone home improvement loans, so they must build things as they have the cash to do so. The second is that inspectors and officials in this area are generally corrupt and take bribes pretty easily to look the other way or never inspect at all. So you get a some what odd mix of really nice buildings and really strange thrown together structures co-existing on the same streets. Very different.

Mule

The other night I cleaned out my closet. This is something I should probably do once a year or more, but tend to do only at critical mass. When the there are so many clothes it is hard to find something or fit something new in. Don't get me wrong I don't buy a lot of clothing. I also tend to wear the same things until they wear our. Therefore a lot of the items can last for a long time. This whole activity was triggered by my wife leaving. Though obliviously it took a while to happen as she has been gone for 2 months. Before she left I made her make a bag for goodwill because she also tends to keep things forever. This bag has been sitting in the corner for two months because I only wanted to make one trip to the goodwill and wanted to thin out my old stuff to.

So the other night I finally did it. I took every thing out of the closet and made piles. Winter work clothes, summer work clothes, winter casual, summer casual, suits, pants that kinda fit if I loss 10 more pounds, shirts I like but haven't worn in 5-10-15 years, and other similar categories. Yes I have clothes I haven't worn since the beginning of high school. This year I did better than in previous years. I only kept 3-4 items that thought I probably wouldn't wear again but still liked. I used to keep 3-4 times that amount. Not there is a ton of room in my closet and goodwill has 4 (3 of my clothes and 1 of RG's) more bags of clothes to sell.

So during this process I was thinking of the term "Clothes Horse". This is a saying used to describe someone that likes to buy, own, and wear a lot of different clothing. Then I thought about how my closet was probably just as full as someone who would be considered a clothes horse, but for entirely different reasons. Instead it is because I never through anything away, even though I know I will probably never put that article of clothing on again it feels like waste to get rid of it before it is stain ridden and full of holes from wear. So I though maybe I am a "Clothes Mule" someone who just keeps packing up on old clothes. Someone who won't get rid of something until it is literally unwearable.

Then later that night I realized I was another kind of mule.... No not the kind that come from Columbia smuggling in a certain product from the coca leaf. No the kind that has to pack an entire extra bag for his up coming trip to Russia. A bag full of electronics and household items. Including movies, coffee, odor eaters, pain killers, chocolate, and lint rollers. Almost 40 lbs worth of this stuff. Of course if it makes the wife happy then I am happy to do it. Though I never thought I would be worried about fitting more chocolates into a suitcase.

The Black Sea: Are you serious… That thing flys?

Over the years I have flown quite a bit. In fact because my dad was a pilot all of my life I was introduced to it early on. My dad was a fighter pilot fighting the cold war in the late seventies and early eighties. He would dress me in a miniature flight suit – just the right size for a two year old – my mom had made me and would take on base to see all of the airplanes. When I was a little older than that he would take me along when he flew with his friends in small planes as well. Beyond that I flew on occasion across country or even trans-Atlantic when we would go on vacation or visit my family on the opposite coast than we lived. I remember flying gliders with dad, flying in single engine private planes, and I remember flying on my own to visit my grand parents when I was only 7. Later my dad became and airline pilot and I flew ½ dozen times a year after that. Now I travel for work, last year I flew 122 segments, this year I am already in the 80s. I talk about this because I feel I am pretty comfortable and used to flying, and have been doing it literally my whole life. However nothing really prepared me for domestic flights on a Russian airline.

First of all the airports around Moscow are not easy to get. For some reason they are not connected to the metro. There for you have two choices really, take a bus or spend a ton on the taxi cab. We took the first option. So we lugged our bags through them metro and the got onto a little mini-bus. It took a long time to get to the airport. For domestic flights we flew out of a different airport than I had flown into on the opposite side of Moscow. This airport was much more modern and was actually pretty nice. But that didn’t mean we didn’t have any challenges. The first is actually getting the tickets. If you purchase tickets over the internet you have to find a special counter to pick these up. Then you must check in a counter. This isn’t that strange, it was like this only 10 years ago in the states, though I thought it was weird that we had to pick up the tickets at a separate place than we checked in. Our bags were weighted and checked and we headed to security. Getting through security and to the gate was pretty standard and easy. Then when it was time to board we got on a bus and were driven to the plane. This isn’t very common in the states anymore but it hasn’t gone away altogether. My big surprise was when we pulled up to the plane.

For some reason I assumed wrongly that S7 airlines, a Russia airline, was so close to Europe they would be using mostly Airbus planes. What I was shocked to see was a TU-149; a plane that was designed in 1967 and was last updated in the early 80s. We had a similar plane in the United States in the Boeing 727. But it has been a decade since these have all been retired. Interestingly enough when I looked the plane up on Wikipedia it was said that the Russia version of the plane out performed its US counter part. However they burn a lot more fuel than newer jets and will not be noise compliant with in the EU in the next couple of years. The interior was at least 20 years old, the seats had fully metal back, much of the signage had actually been duck taped over, and the carpet was coming up in many places. We had to use a ladder truck to get into the plane, a little novel and out dated but no big deal. Looking out into the tarmac I saw much crazier looking planes – planes that are still being used – one looked like a WWII bomber complete with glass nose cone, another was huge and 4 engines attached to rear of the fuselage, many others looked like something out of the movie Air America.

The flight was not bad. It was relatively short. Thought the plane was loud, luckily I had brought a bunch of ear plugs to take care of this problem. In some ways the trip was nicer than flying on a US airline. They served us food, drinks, and then hot tea. The hot tea was amazing because they actually had larger silver tea sets to pour the hot water from. I also saw this on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Moscow. I guess even some of the minor effects of the American Revolution and the Boston tea party are still apparent in US society. Also the staff seemed friendly and service was pretty good. When we landed at the Black Sea airport, and everyone was finished clapping because we landed safely, I noticed that the airfield was surrounded by farms. I mean they came up to within feet of the runway. Also there were dogs running around on the tarmac and our luggage was unloaded into dump trucks, no fancy cargo carriers here. I have to say it was a little nerve racking but really it was just a few years ago all of this could have been seen in America. Ok maybe 20 years ago but still.

Excited

Well I'm about to head to the airport and fly to San Antonio for a work party. Yes they are willing to fly people around the country for a party. The first promotion is considered quite a big deal so they invite all 300 or so people to a weekend get away. Funny because I just got back from a two day retreat for our Quarterly All Hands meeting. I haven't been staffed for 3 weeks yet I haven't stopped traveling yet either. Next it looks like I am going to New York for a 5 week project.

But this isn't why I am excited. I am excited because in less than a week I get on a plane to Amsterdam, that connects me to a plane going to Moscow. While RG and I are used to not seeing a lot of each other with my job, the longest I have been away from her so far was 2 weeks. Well it has been more than 3 times that now. And honestly I am missing her something fierce. So as I sit her in my warm and freshly ironed shirt with no pants on, killing 10 minutes on the computer, I realize that while this weekend is going to be fun I really can't wait for next weekend.

It will be our 6 month wedding anniversary. Not the biggest of course but something somewhat tangible. So are plans are actually pretty cool. We are eating at a restaurant that at one time was the private club for the KGB. I'm sure at some point in his career even the current president of Russia, MR. Putin, himself has eaten there. Of course I think I will be in better company with my wife though. Hopefully the next 6 days will go by pretty fast.