but here are some downsides

[rausda27]

I once saw a news report on the cleanliness of some of the more popular hotel chains. They sampled door handles, the floors, vacuumed sections of carpet and sampled various parts of the bathroom. THe results were pretty diturbing, basically there is human feces on everything and the number of bacteria and bugs..would freak you out. They then did the blacklight test..which illuminates a certain male secretion and found that stuff everywhere..blankets, walls...ceiling..not sure how that got there...

 

[TheWife]

Oh man! I am never staying in a hotel again! Of course, if you did that in my house you'd probably see a lot of pee everywhere from my little diaper removing monkey that has quite the squirter on him.

Doug a "what I learned" post sounds GREAT! We do this on the mommy board I go to all the time and there is always something you can learn from others!

 

[flycanuck]

[ QUOTE ]
About being "scared off" ---

Well if you are scared off by bad overnights, time to leave NOW.


[/ QUOTE ]

I was just kidding! lol

 

[Mr_Creepy]

I saw that post and the primary victim was comforters and blankets.

Still reminds me of that skit on SNL where they had the glasses that detected fecal matter LOL. It was everywhere!

And guys, wash your hands before you leave the bathroom ok?

 

[TheWife]

Why wash your hands? It's your ass that touched the toilet.

 

[Mr_Creepy]

Don't be gross.

Common Hygiene.

1) Wash your hands as often as you can anyway (prevents illness and acne!)
2) Lift the seat before you pee (nobody wants to sit in your urine.)
3) PLEASE USE DEODERANT! Especially if your one of those that doesn't shower everyday.

 

[TheWife]

Hey I was just kidding. I always am grateful when bathrooms are stocked with the paper sheets that go on the toilets.

 

[naunga]

Well I thought I'd throw my stats into this post...

I do IT (Supply Chain planning systems for a Fortune 500):

1. Commuting - 10 minutes to the train station, and then 30 minutes on the train trying not loose dinner from last night (I don't get breakfast until I'm at work) due to the stench of the homeless guy in front of me. $54 / month.

2. Low Pay - Well. I'm not paid low, but in terms of what I do (not trying to flex my ego, but I'm THE IT guy for the systems, and if my systems aren't running neither are the company's plants.) Of course the moron next to me gets paid about twice what I do and couldn't find his ass with a flashlight and a map. Then again, is it bad when I'm having to look in the couch for change for groceries?

3. Overnights away from home - I don't have this except for the occasional business trip that the company grudgingly sends me on.

4. Long duty days - I don't ever stop working. I've taken calls in the middle of Christmas dinner. Hell, I went to Chicago for the weekend and was still taking calls. It's a good thing that fatigue doesn't effect job performance...wait...

5. No privacy. Well nobody outside of my company is watching me, but as I said above there is no time that I am not working. Just ask my wife...if the phone rings....doesn't matter what we're..ummm doing...I've gotta answer and deal with the moron on the other end.

6. Security Nazis -- Don't have this...unless you count the security guy who keeps locking the door to my office when I go to the can on the weekends. Weekends? It does? I was still working on a project in the dark on Thursday until my laptop went dead around 11pm.

7. No planning ability -- Even if my schedule changed month to month I'd be doing better because right now my schedule changes in real time based on what other people want....not what I want.

In the end everyone's job has upsides and downsides. Pilots have to deal with s**t and IT guys have to deal with different s**t. That's why it's called work.

The trick is to find something that you like doing so much that the downsides are mostly out numbered by the upsides. So people are luck enough to have those jobs and others aren't. That life. And it sucks a$$ sometimes, but that's it.

Later.

Naunga

 

[Mr_Creepy]

You actually get to be home on Christmas?

I spent one Christmas at home during Airline flying from 1995 to 2000. That was in 1998 because crew tracking had "lost" me.

Weekends were also rare.

 

[tonyw]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I probably get about 25% of my scheduled wakeup calls and probably less than half of the hotel alarm clocks work correctly.

I'm actually considering a new section called "Stuff I learned" or something similar where I can talk about stuff like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was travelling a lot for business, I never bothered with wakeup calls. I learned my lesson on my first business trip after I got out of college. They asked me if I wanted a wakeup call when I checked in. Well, when I said I wanted one at 7:30, and it didn't come, and I got chewed out pretty good by my boss for showing up like it was a final exam and I was still in college, I never relied on the wakeup calls anymore. Here I was, running downstairs at 8:30 to get stuff set up, with a baseball cap, a dirty t-shirt that I used to work out with the night before, and shorts.

Lesson one of business travel was never rely on the wakeup call. Always set an alarm and use that as a backup.

The most fun lesson to learn was that it is hard to get tips paid one dollar at a time to "entertainment" with clients reimbursed, but hey, live and learn.

 

[DE727UPS]

Doug...I hear stories like this and it sure makes me glad I'm not married.