Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Instant Karma – Just Add Passengers

Some people believe we get the karma we deserve. That may be true, but sometimes we get the karma other people inflict on us. There are two things I like to do when I fly. The first is work on my laptop. The second is rock out to Mark Knopfler or Daft Punk on my iPod^® while I’m working. My karma must show on my face because when I fly, I seem to attract the two things I detest the most to interfere with what I love.

The two things I detest when I fly? First is men in sandals who slip them off and prop their (badly in need of a manny-cure and an anti-fungal) feet on the tray tables. The second is people who sleep on airplanes. Yes, my brother-in-law Vince falls into that second category (he doesn’t wear sandals so I haven’t seen his feet), but I don’t often fly with him so he’s semi-excluded.

Flying, as Vickie will tell you, has progressively become a worse and worse experience. It’s bad enough feeling like you’re on a flying cattle car, but on my last United flight, just as I was getting ready to hook into the Wi-Fi and enjoy 3 ½ hours of ecstatic, unimpeded, productivity, the woman directly in front of me in seat 167F threw herself into her seat and immediately slammed her head back into my lap. Being a Tech Tipper makes me a somewhat higher-evolved form of male primate, so despite my relatively close confinement, I didn’t groom her hair for nits (But I admit, I was tempted).

Then she collapsed into what might best be called a “fitful sort of rest.” Her head was against the window at an unnatural angle and whatever she was dreaming about caused her to occasionally thrash about in what may have been a seizure. With each thrash I had to pull my laptop back to keep the seatback from breaking the screen. I felt like I was flying in a zombie movie – except zombies don’t fly United (Delta, I understand, has a “zombie class”).

Talk about keeping something “close to the chest,” I had to tuck my laptop back so far into my chest that I was hitting the space bar with my chin while typing this blog. In short, it wasn’t the most productive flight although I soldiered on, and on, and on. When they called for “seatbacks and tray tables” at the end of the flight I actually shouted out “YES!” garnering stern looks from the flight attendants.

Today’s Tech Tip? Always have a Plan B. An airplane is not an office – it’s a form of false imprisonment populated by people who, instead of taking advantage of the relatively quiet workspace, voluntarily self-medicate into near-comas to ease the pain and suffering of flying.

If you want or plan to work on a plane remember that to make God laugh, make plans. So either buy a small laptop and learn to type telepathically or carry some sort of work you can do offline such as reading for your legal nurse consulting business – business, nursing, medical or other books and journals. And keep in mind that sometimes it’s not the other passengers that interfere. I remember the time Vickie screened a complex maternal death case shortly after take-off and spent the remaining three hours of that flight facing the choice between the SkyMall^® catalog and a bad Richard Gere in-flight movie. She now packs extra work and her iPad^® too.

Or you could skip all of that and just change your karma.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

P.S. Comment and share how, or if, you manage to work on airplanes.