Notes from seat 3F

 


I’ve been travelling a lot for work. More often than I’m comfortable with. Mostly by flight, sometimes by train. The hardest part isn’t troubleshooting or convincing customers to buy my product — it’s the travel itself, the endless logistics.

“If my flight is at 9 PM, I have to be there 1.5 hours before, so I have to start by so and so time so as to reach there by..” and there it begins a constant mental math of routes, making sure I have taken everything I need for the journey, the reminders and the backup plans. Sometimes, the stress of managing the journey feels greater than the work I am travelling for.



Another aspect of this is, besides whatever presentation or proposal that has to be prepared. How do you just pass so much time? I used to be content just staring out the window, but lately I find myself needing constant engagement - a book, a downloaded show, something. Another thing to keep in mind! Not forgetting to download if it’s a flight..

Sometimes it’s during a trip that I suddenly get an idea for a blog. I used to just think about it in my head, and then overthink it. Now I just open up some notes app, start typing it away. Now my app is full of notes that sometimes see the light of the day, the other times just sit there incomplete as an idea - to be continued next time I get some inspiration. I really wish Notion had an offline mode on the iOS app.

Then there are the many business ideas that I get that could solve many of these woes of business travel. Trust me. This is a huge consumer space that I feel is often overlooked by aggregators and booking services alike. If only I acted on those startup ideas that solve many of my travel woes, I could finally stop working and start earning more!



And then you reach the destination, half tattered. Ears still ringing from the Indigo jingle that was playing over and over again. All you want to do on landing is somehow get home and get some sleep. I find this very interesting, the departure hall would be full of food kiosks, credit card folks, someone who is willing to sell you a service and when you think about this deeply, these are all services meant to serve the destination.

When you arrive all you’d find are namkeen shops and the taxi services kiosks. If you're lucky CHOCOLATES! I mean okay. The tone shift from departing to explore to returning to rest. Maybe giving your family some candy, some namkeen on the taxi ride back home? 

Teams and Zoom was supposed to kill this all. And yet here we are, breaking our backs and chasing flights, serving customers across the country

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