Priority Club Connect Blog

[#1]

This is one entry in a series of blog posts written by Priority Club Connect members. Learn more about AyrMiles, the author of this post.

Whenever I’m on a plane, I’m astonished to be surrounded by so many incredibly important people. You’ve seen them too – the Blackberry can’t be switched-off until the very last minute (or even slightly later) and as soon as the seatbelt sign is off, they’re away – tap-tapping on their laptops as if their jobs depended on it (perhaps they do?). Then, as the wheels touch the runway, out come the Blackberries again – woe betide the cabin crew trying to interfere with the management of MegaCorp!

I suspect, of course, that they’re not terribly important people at all but just can’t admit this to themselves. What are they doing at 35,000 feet? Certainly not the usual office activities – games on Facebook, catching-up with friends on MySpace or searching the Internet for a new job… Perhaps that’s the answer – they do so little at the office they have to catch-up in the air.

Sleeping on a plane. Can you? I can’t and I’m very jealous of those who can. It’s a great ability – oblivious to the turbulence, the foetid neighbour, the stuffy cabin, noisy children in the row behind who keep kicking the back of your seat… Oh to be gently (or not so gently) woken by the bump of landing.

Given that I neither work nor rest, play is the only option. An iPhone has opened my ears to a world of podcasts and music in the air to accompany or supplement newspapers and books. I realise most people have had music on the move since the Walkman first appeared but the whole thing passed me by until last year. There is, by the way, an art to making the newspaper last until the nose turns towards the arrival gate - it come with practice.

On the subject of work, rest and play – these are surely the basic activities in any hotel. The hotel companies don’t seem to realise this – they think we’re there to work, rest play and read hundreds of pieces of paper/cardboard about other hotels, the frequent guest programme, the complaints procedure, the spa, the “wellness” suite (I look forward to finding a “badness” suite one day), the frequent guest programme (again, in case we missed the leaflet hung on the outside of the door).

It becomes a ritual – clearing all this junk off the desk and putting it out of the way again every evening, just as the cleaners had carefully laid it all out again earlier…

[#2]

I too am constantly amused by similar activities, including the mid-air 'board meeting' where a couple of people sat together are joined in the aisle by one or two more for what is obviously an extremely important discussion.

Except that it's clearly no a private one since the interaction between the various participants is done at a decibel level well above that of the aircraft engines.

Why can they not sit back and enjoy the flight with perhaps a couple of glasses of wince or a G&T; works every time for me!

[#3]

Jimmy2,

I call this the DYKWIA syndrome when these folks think they have to entertain the whole cabin. Wonder if their boss knows how much company information they divulge.

[#4]

Those DYKWIAs come in all genders, sizes and ages!  Always a source of annoyance and in a strange way a bit of entertainment at times.

Too much IP info is lost/leaked by those types..