So I\u2019m on the road again \u2013 but to a familiar place (Atlanta). I am, however, doing an unfamiliar dance. I appear to have lost lock and allowed five (ten? fifteen?) years to pass. Perhaps it was more. This is not my beautiful house \u2013 but I am not the new kid anymore. Suddenly, I find myself in the role of the dude who knows what he\u2019s doing \u2013 and who gets to show someone the ropes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in the day, I worked at a company called ERIM. They put me in DC for a couple of summers \u2013 since they got contractual points for having someone onsite with The Man \u2013 and I was 20 years old and thought that paid travel was sweet and a per diem was a daily bonus. On the first trip, my grandboss (boss\u2019s boss) traveled with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We got to the Hertz counter at BWI, he got his keys from the nice lady, and I was stopped cold for \u2013 well \u2013 being 20 years old and knowing nothing. After I flailed for a bit, said metaboss (John) leaned in and said (of me) \u201che made his reservation exactly like I did.\u201d They continued to dither and whine about how I wasn\u2019t 25 \u2026 or some other crap. He calmly got on his cell phone, talked for a few seconds, and then hung up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few minutes later, the phone on the desk at the Hertz counter rang. The clerk picked it up, said \u201cyes sir,\u201d a couple of times, hung up, apologized to me, and gave me a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I shit you not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is still my absolute benchmark for power. I have no idea how he made that phone ring \u2013 (I suspect that he called our travel agent) \u2013 but it impressed the everliving hell out of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find that I have similar chops now. I roll like \u2013 if not a hurricane \u2013 at least a tropical depression. I skim right over potholes and bumps in the road that used to stop me cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have no idea what we\u2019re going to do tomorrow \u2013 but it\u2019ll be cool. The phrase du jour is \u201chey, you<\/strong> called me<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I say \u201cwe,\u201d because I\u2019m traveling with someone who reports to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah life \u2013 you are a funny one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I\u2019m on the road again \u2013 but to a familiar place (Atlanta). I am, however, doing an unfamiliar dance. I appear to have lost lock and allowed five (ten? fifteen?) years to pass. Perhaps it was more. This is not my beautiful house \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,61,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consulting","category-just-bloggin","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}