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i like Ham posted:I'm rather unhappy with my current pay and am currently looking for another job. This has less to do with the travel and more to do with some poor decisions I made when first starting in my job that have left me fairly underpaid compared to my peers or similar positions with other companies. I am an account manager, and so any positions I've applied for require upwards of 50% travel. Good luck man, and be careful on those red-eyes. My company prohibits red-eye flights because its literally dangerous to be so worn out but trying to operate in a city.
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Nov 9, 2012 06:10
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RazorDX posted:Can you elaborate on this? I've always been fascinated with this type of thing. It is kind of funny. All of the service people don't care at all, maybe because they're aware of hot shits dressing like shlubs but it is all the other passengers. When I typically fly its the opposite of Ham, I wear the same well worn jeans and well worn hoodie every time because they are extremely comfortable and 80% of my flights are more than 4 hours, so I'll be smelly anyway. My schedule at destination is not as tight either. I'll be wearing this, and they'll get the gate ready to call passengers. I'll be upgraded to first class so I roll up nearby, and these older guys in suits or khakis will push through and stand in front of me. They open up to first class and the guys in front won't budge. So I'll push through them. Its really bizarre and it has never not happened. It doesn't make much sense if you sit in economy anyway, because I'd rather stand a couple minutes longer than sit cramped up waiting for people to board.
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Nov 10, 2012 07:18
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mr_cardholder posted:I'm also one of those weirdos who loves the travel. The best perks of my job are I work on a rotation schedule so I work for five weeks and then get 5 weeks off and I get free air travel anywhere in the world when I'm going to and from a job site. I'm currently not planning on returning to the states until April so I can go gallivanting all over Southeast Asia. No offense, but this isn't really the type of travel that people are commiserating about. 5 weeks off is amazing and I don't think anyone would have a problem with that. Its more of the 'The last 3 days I was literally in the air more than on the ground' type of travel. tbp posted:Any recommendations for career paths for anyone that would be interested in doing this? Do you have any hobbies that require any amount of planning? They are all gone. That stuffed mushroom with crab dish you like to make, not going to make it again when you start travelling. Can't make grandma's 90th birthday this weekend, how many more does she have left? Play any intramural sports? No way, not now. Bought tickets to the game with your friends, now you can't make it. Same for any Superbowl party. A nice saturday morning with your girlfriend, tea on the balcony with homemade omlettes? Sorry, you are too busy cleaning out the crap that builds up in your travel bags on trips, and repacking for next week. Stuff happens that you can't even think is possible, too. My sister broke down emotionally in front of her class she teaches once because I was supposed to be around Sendai when The Earthquake happened. But I was too busy to realize it even happened, and the schedule had changed a month ago but I was too busy to let anyone in my family know. And god help you if you aren't in a relationship, because you aren't gonna start one if you can't schedule any nice dates ever. Basically constant travel has all of the downsides of living abroad without any of the perks. Also, travelling alone sucks. You eat out alone a lot, and sight see alone. You can meet other lonely travellers but its not like tourist destinations, 99% of the time they won't be going the same way as you, and they will be boring as gently caress. You can only talk about airport lounges and hotels for so long before you want to blow your brains out, because that is the only thing these people experience. Then every once in a while you meet the creepy rear end businessman who talks endlessly about loving '18 year olds' in Thailand.
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Nov 14, 2012 01:17
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Northwest used to be an awesome airline but of course they merged with Delta. I've had poo poo experiences with a lot of other airlines. The problem with Delta is that a lot of their pacific international fleet is old. Many of them have domestic type first class while other airlines will at least have lie flat. I believe they are changing it but the price is also getting so sky high I may never get to do it again. My colleague does milage routes every other weekend, just flies around the country without stopping. I think he might have an addiction. He gets diamond already from roll over miles for the next X years, so...
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Nov 16, 2012 14:51
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I just wanted to add to that crazy good programs post, that for Delta, if you use an address in Asia, you can get free lounge access at Gold Tier, instead of Diamond. Unless they've changed it since I did it. In addition, if you are travelling with a colleague who doesn't have lounge access, you can just tell the desk people you're travelling together and they don't mind. I am not sure about American however. Delta is really cool with messing around with free upgrades too. My girlfriend and I both got upgraded on a flight and they switched people's seats around so that we were sitting next to each other. I kind of get wary about asking people in first class to change seats, so it was nice. Uncle Jam fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Nov 22, 2012 |
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Nov 22, 2012 03:27
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InterceptorV8 posted:So, what this all this poo poo? PQM? LMNOP? It can get really complicated. On Delta, there are 2 types of miles. The first is the miles that determine your status, silver, gold, plat, or diamond. These are harder to get. The second type is spending miles. You can use these to book free travel, buy poo poo from their mileage catalog... These usually have some sort of multiplier on them, 1.5x for example, and when the airline gives you miles when you complain about something, they go here. For example, I had a flight the day Northwest and Delta merged, and they had booked the plane twice for some reason. Luckily nobody booked my seat on the ghost plane so I stayed but still got 10k spending miles. The best reward on Delta is the lounges. Lounges vary in quality from airport to airport but they all have: Free coffee/hot chocolate, free wine, free beer (poo poo beer though), free liquor and mixers, free snacks like trail mix, free yogurt and fruit. They also have nice bathrooms and wifi. It is a lot quieter in the lounges and the seating is nicer as well. Some lounges have more amenities. Showers, bartenders, sushi chefs, warm food, nicer beer, free massages, private work areas, are all that I've seen. These are all free as well. People will construct their route based on which airports have nicer lounges, its a thing that frequent fliers love to argue about. The next best thing is free upgrades to the next class. Going from economy to business class is a world of difference. The seat is huge compared, and you get free drinks and food domestically. Sometimes you'll get a meal while economy does not. If you fly into some areas on certain days though, you'll never get upgraded because there will be someone with better status/fare ticket/booked earlier. California on Sunday/Monday comes to mind. Then there are things like skipping the line in check in, security, and boarding. Free checked bags. Asking how you are doing by name on the flight (kinda weird honestly). If you are a super crazy flier, there are additional things. My manager clears half a million a year, and he gets poo poo like getting picked up valet style on the airport tarmac. I fly on Delta though because they have a hub here and flying not nonstop increases the chances of being late a ridiculous amount.
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Nov 22, 2012 17:14
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Trench_Rat posted:what is the etiquette on bringing a prostitute to your hotel room? also how many last minute anniversary/Christmas/birthday gifts bought on skymall Ive never had a prostitute, but probably the answer is you pay enough so she isnt the type that looks like an obvious crack addict. I read skymall for comedy, its targetted demographic is senior citizens who fly. All the shelvinh units specify how many VHS tapes you can fit, for chrissakes. SkyMall is going to die though, because you can access amazon.com on all flights for free. ( for delta) For toiletries, I also have to bring a razor and cream because i cant skip a day. Travelling to Japan is nice because everyrying is provided except hair product.
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Dec 3, 2012 19:57
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I would never intentionally extend my trip for status because the chance of a missed meeting costs more than any benefits status provides. If your company is giving you poo poo for bag fees but asking you to travel, they are being idiots. If you extend your flight, doesnt that defeat the purpose of queue jumping to save time? Plus the queues for checkin and security are not so bad, only one time having priority really saved me. It comes down to the fact Id rather be doing things i want to do than flying in a plane trying to collect miles.
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Dec 5, 2012 16:28
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TouchyMcFeely posted:Additionally depending on where you're headed, traveling for 9 hours directly or 12 hours with a layover is not that much different. In fact taking the layover might be better as you get a chance to get off the plane and stretch your legs a bit somewhere in the middle. This is just personal opinion but I have a semi common route that is 13 hours. I did a layover once because it was $1000 cheaper, it was 17 hours. It barely added any miles to my route and I definitely could feel the different. That time I almost got hosed over too because on my first leg the plane was throttling up to get on the runway and an engine died. Thankfully they just restarted the systems and we were gone in 15 minutes. But if I had missed my connection I would have been screwed.
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Dec 6, 2012 01:21
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Your company doesn't pay the bag fees? This is where I'm getting kind of confused by your situation. If they do, then why not let them? I'm sure they would prefer you to be working for a day than mucking about in an airplane.
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Dec 6, 2012 14:41
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You can get a milage boost on delta cards that counts for status but thats it. Basically if you spend over 30 k then 15 k gets credited in one big chunk. My manager got into the 700 k range this year and my colleague blew over a million miles on reward travel this summer giving his family a world tour and neither of them have the delta cards.
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Dec 6, 2012 23:07
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I didn't travel so much this year and only wound up Gold with 52k MQM. My dept. ran out of money so all of my trips past october got cancelled. It has been kind of nice. Plus I have a lot of loving work in the lab that I wouldn't know what to do about if I was travelling. I kind of regret missing to go to Japan again though. I have no idea how many miler miles I got because I spend them but my balance right now is about 70k. I'm thinking of getting a credit card to boost that and going on an international vacation in the spring. The most bizarre thing that happened to me is that I signed up for Hertz #1 Gold Club at the beginning of the year. My first trip with it and I get off at the Gold Club place and my poo poo isn't there. Despite the fact they had sent me a #1 Gold Club card in the mail and I presented it to them, apparently it only signs you up for rapid return and you have to click an additional link on your web profile to enable #1 Gold Club. Then the dude in the gold club office started his up selling routine. Do you want to pay and additional blah blah for a Ford Mustang? And I was like, No, Come on man... and so he stopped, but then he said he only dates Japanese girls, with my Japanese colleague standing there who is a woman. I was like what the gently caress and so he gave the Mustang for free. The thing that pisses me off the most in travelling is definitely those Car Rental offices. gently caress.
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Dec 8, 2012 17:09
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routenull0 posted:So when you hit a status mid year, you have it for the following year as right? And you just have to hit it again or more to keep it active? Yeah, this is why its debatable about bumping your status up right at the end of the year. You only guarantee 1 year plus a few days. If you let the miles roll over instead you might be able to hit it in mid year next year and have it for longer.
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Dec 8, 2012 19:27
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sellouts posted:The first time I got #1 club gold I had to use the office to sign paperwork and activate it. After that the only time I've been in a car rental office was at Avis to inquire how to rent the X5 they had parked next to my car. The guy told me I had to do it online, and sure enough there was a link there to activate it. I never use a rental place that doesn't have a frequent rental program sign up through my company now, for sure. The desk people at hotels will bend over backwards for you even if you are not in the rewards program. They've saved my rear end so many times, I love hotel front desks.
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Dec 8, 2012 20:48
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what is this posted:National Rent-A-Car. We have a company deal with most rental places but Hertz is preferred. Hertz #1 Gold Club is the same way. You get a car assigned to you that has the keys in it, but if you want another car you can just grab it. It was just a bizarre catch the first time where I wasn't really enrolled in the Gold Club despite them sending the card to me. Ever since then it has been butter.
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Dec 9, 2012 18:34
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Lyon posted:Am I the only one who has never rented a car? I always take public transportation (if it is available) or taxis. I guess all of my trips have been to Europe or major US cities where the airports are fairly close and taxis/public transportation are readily available. I used to take taxis semi regularly but I had two trips in a row where the driver made extraordinarily bad choices that ended in incidents. Other people in my division have also experienced crashing in taxis, those things are friggen traps. I go to universities a lot, and many of them don't have public transport connecting them to an airport. I love public transport though because it makes visiting things after work a magnitude easier.
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Dec 9, 2012 22:04
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Spookyblack posted:I don't think you answered this question yet but how does your travel/hotels get booked? Do you have an assistant/travel agent that does this all for you, do you do it yourself? Myself. It tends to take up a lot of time too. What is everyone's hotel policy? I'm asking because my hotel policy is a bit nebulous. We have some preferred hotels but many places don't have them around. I typically just book whatever is close/or has a deal on hotels dot com or something. The tough part: the main HQ for our company is in another country. There the hotels are really cheap ($70/night with breakfast, internet, hot springs all included...) and are charge per person, not per room. So they put a cap on us of $100/night. Nobody really follows this and just puts up with getting complained at by the travel finances people. For example, I was working in a uni lab for a week so I got a deal on a hotel next to the uni for $139/night, and I could walk, which saved $20 a day on parking. I got bitched out even though all of the surrounding hotels were $170+. I guess they expect people to shack up in the ghetto. But a conference in Montreal at $220/night and I didn't hear anything about that 
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Dec 10, 2012 23:56
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For food/alcohol and misc I don't need to provide receipts, its given on a daily basis. Food is further broken down into breakfast, lunch and dinner. If someone provides you a meal for free you need to strike it out of your expensive report, and a percentage of the per diem is subtracted with dinner weighted the heaviest. Misc is supposed to be for tips and other things that are really difficult to get receipts for. Food and Misc scale based on the type of city, cheap/mid/or expensive. I'm not sure which city is expensive, I've never gotten that classification despite being in some high cost cities. Typically I claim 100% unless I got a free meal, I never check against receipts. $45 a day isn't that much when you are eating out all 3 meals (especially in like San Diego) so I figure the times I am under and the times I am over balance out.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:11
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Ive got company shut down, but the trips are piling up already for next year. I dislike the TSA because Ll of that ridiculous poo poo and how many times have they nabbed someone versus the times someone got nabbed at the boarding door. Bleh
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Dec 17, 2012 17:55
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Thoguh posted:Bastards and your lounges. I bet you don't have to mostly fly on regional jets either. Nope, 90% of my flights are 4+ hours.
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Dec 20, 2012 00:28
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Even if you get into first class with power plugs, your flight will be half over by the time you figure out where they put the bastards. I almost always have to ask a flight attendant. Compare that to AmTrak that has power at every single seat, right on the wall. And not that half assed you have to take your battery out power. Its a sad day when you feel like a king in AmTraks normal seats compared to first class on flights.
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Dec 28, 2012 01:11
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Has anyone gotten crazy charges before on their hotel bills? I stayed at an airport hotel for a night, checked out no problem, got the email receipt no problem, then a few days later I get a folio in my email for renting some of their banquet rooms. On the day I got to their hotel at 11:30pm. And they saw fit to go ahead and charge that to my card on file. I'm already like 4 people deep in the call chain and they still don't know how their poo poo operates.
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Aug 22, 2013 23:15
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TouchyMcFeely posted:I'd just dispute the charges at that point. Yeah, I already called the Visa person at my bank and started the process but they want to wait one to two weeks to allow them to respond to my emails and calls properly before sending in the form. The front desk person went to the manager on duty, who said all billing issues were handled in accounting, and now I'm on my 2nd person in accounting. The biggest pain in the rear end is that its 4 time zones away.
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Aug 23, 2013 05:03
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Shipon posted:How common is this lifestyle for engineers? Say, someone who is asked to go from headquarters to a site out in the field? Pretty common. Everyone in my division travels somewhat! Two guys in my group have gotten the pick up on the tarmac perk from Delta. They routinely fly their whole family for free internationally, they are crazy. This year I have Delta 40k MQM, still have 1 (maybe 2) international trips and several domestic so I suppose that will be gold at the end of the year. No hotel stuff, but that happens staying in the middle of loving nowhere internationally.
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Sep 7, 2013 04:59
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Why the hell is DTW -> BOS on Delta so goddamn expensive? Or any surrounding airports? I'm told its usually this bad...
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Nov 24, 2013 16:23
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Thoguh posted:Because DTW is a hub so they know they can get away with it. Yeah but its usually not that crazy, Boston is particularly bad. I've gotten DTW-> LAX for sub $400 a few times this year. Hell, even DTW-> FRA was only slightly more.
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Nov 25, 2013 06:08
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Mackieman posted:http://www.skiplagged.com/ may help with that. This is an amazing website, but yeah connections aren't an option so I guess we will just take the hit. The lack of competition on the route makes sense though.
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Nov 25, 2013 15:17
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I just got gold oh yeah.
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Dec 4, 2013 15:52
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Uncle Jam posted:I just got gold oh yeah. Pros: Got Gold Cons: My fridge broke at some point during the trip, everything went bad, and I can't get the smell out no matter how much I clean.
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Dec 5, 2013 02:59
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Small White Dragon posted:Right now there's only two domestic AX lounges at DFW and LAS. SFO and LGA are supposedly under construction, and several more in the works (ORD has been rumored). How are those lounges compared to Delta? Also why does the DTW Delta lounge suck so much when its a hub? Also why do skyteam members with an Asian address get free lounge access even if they only have Gold status? Why are all the lounges in Asian so goddamn good? Why the gently caress anything argh
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Dec 6, 2013 03:43
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nikosoft posted:I just finished up my business travel for this year. That's 98 flights on Southwest since January, and 8 other ones on Alaskan/Horizon. I have a ridiculous amount of points and I've been holding out hope for the past 2 years that I can just redeem them all when SW finally flies to Hawaii, but who knows when that will actually happen This is frequent flying! How many miles would you have? On Delta you generally need 100k-125k just for asian economy ticket. They advertise lower rate days but good luck finding them. Last year intercontinental travel in business class policy was reinstated by my company. Since the upgrade came out of our project budget we could choose to do it or not. I did 1/3rd of my trips in BC. Yesterday my GM sent an email saying next year our department wouldn't be doing any upgrades next year to save money. Guess who went on the most IC trips this year? Guess who booked business class for 100% of his IC trips? Guess who is transferring out of our deparment to Europe starting the second week of January? Poor next GM doesn't know they angry debates he is in for.
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Dec 21, 2013 16:38
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If I didn't have status, I can get econ comfort upgrade through my company. It doesn't hurt to ask really.
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Feb 17, 2014 00:46
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I spent about 45 minutes in security at Logan Terminal A this morning. I need precheck really badly and the TSA won't tell me why I don't get it. Global Entry here we come! Precheck line wait was still about 15 minutes though. My last trip flying out of Boston, the place was just dead. My colleagues had pre check and I didnt. For some reason the pre line was longer and I got through quicker. The mysteries of the TSA.
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Feb 17, 2014 14:45
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I'm probably moving over to be United despite being DTW. 1. Delta poo poo rear end mileage benefit compared to Star Alliance 2. Blue deck parking instead of having to take off site parking shuttle and getting the hell rattled out of me (also save like 20 minutes) 3. Work pays for business class since the United/Star Alliance carrier fares are within the low-fare percentage rule and Delta is not Do a couple litmus tests and see how it goes.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:18
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oxsnard posted:People who recline without asking the person behind them are horrible monsters. The horrible monsters are the people who don't recline on a red eye and instead say 'Oh! This flight has internet, awesome! I didn't know planes had internet...' and turn on his light when you are stuck on back to back meetings on either end of the red eye. I really try to meditate on flights and give people leeway but I wanted to kill that fucker.
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Mar 20, 2014 05:20
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My position's Glassdoor is like 20% under what I make, I think it comes down to the fact companies assign different responsibilities to titles. It can even be wildly inconsistent within a single company!
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Mar 22, 2014 16:56
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:The only time I hate frequent travel is times like this, where I am sick with a cold waiting in Phoenix for a red-eye. Phoenix is awful, goondolences. Who just found a sub $1000 flight to Asia from Detroit? Oh yeah this guy did.
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Mar 26, 2014 14:11
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Traveling this year owns so far, I keep getting pre-check and today I ran to the desk and switched myself to an earlier flight 5 mins before they closed the boarding door and got home 2 hours earlier. Still, gently caress taxis.
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Apr 3, 2014 05:28
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Belldandy posted:First, my condolences for having to visit such an awful city so often. Second, TravelPro is very good and reasonably priced, and that looks like it will fit in an overhead. Plus, it has a suiter! I'd go for it. Man most places I go I think 'This place is cool, I could live here', but Boston was the first one where I just wanted to get the hell out. The hotels and restaurants are super expensive, and the quality is way under what you'd expect for what you pay. $240 a night and you get bedsheets that are so coarse and itchy that I can't even remember the last time bedsheets caused me to lose sleep since I stayed at a motel 8 when I was like 17.
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Apr 18, 2014 04:53
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Yeah but you get mad respect from Chinese when you do that. Wheelbags aren't good if you have a day trip to some working lunch or consortium meeting, gotta roll with a shoulder bag or backpack then (depending what I have to take)
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Apr 18, 2014 18:38
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