HE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN ETERNITY HAS NEVER BEEN TO HEATHROW

With less than five weeks to go before I leave for my trip, my mind is on travel and I have been thinking back to past trips. One day that sticks out in my mind for it's total absurdity is the day my daughter Ashleigh and I flew to Paris from London. I was treating my daughter, who was living in London, to a three day jaunt to 'The City of Lights' for New Years and to visit the Louvre and take in whatever else we could in that short time.

It was a grey rainy December day, the 29th to be exact, and it was very cold out. We were a little late leaving Notting Hill for Heathrow and I told the cab driver that if he got us there by noon, I would give him a handsome tip. He got us there one minute to twelve. Our flight was on British Airways so we were dropped off with our bags at terminal four. We had the requisite four hours until our flight left. When we attempted to enter the terminal, our way was blocked by a burly fellow in a reflective vest telling us that we could not go inside as there was an 'incident' occurring. We were to wait in the huge white tents that had been erected the previous week at the curb to house passengers who were stranded due to heavy fog. (I had just missed that fog when I flew into London from B.C., my flight had been delayed four hours because of it). He told us that we would be summoned for our flight well before it was due to leave.

We headed into one of the half dozen or so tents where, once inside, we were just two amongst about 300 other passengers. There was nowhere to sit so we stood and waited and discussed what the incident might be; maybe a terrorist attack? Or perhaps a passenger had a heart attack in the lineup? Or more likely, someone had gone mad with the usual Heathrow BS and was now waving a pistol about. Whatever it was, we hoped it would be over soon so we could get on with checking in for our flight.

We met a young girl from New Jersey who was flying home after spending Christmas with her boyfriend. She was very anxious to get on her flight and was as stymied as we were about why we couldn't get into the terminal. Even though we were shielded from the wind inside the tent, it was still very cold. As the minutes dragged on, the only passengers called out were for KLM flights, which I found disconcerting. Two hours into what I was now considering an ordeal, our hands and feet frozen, I'd had enough. The girl we had met was frantic as her flight was due to leave at two, which was moments away. I told my daughter to stay put and I would go see what I could find out. I went up to the door and the same man told me I couldn't enter. I told him I had been in the tent for two hours and needed to use a restroom. He let me in.

I walked straight up to the check-in counter for British Airways but it was clogged with people. An agent was standing guard at the back of the line so I approached him. I explained what our situation was and he told me what the 'incident' was. The luggage belts that take the bags from the check out to the back were down. No luggage could be moved. He then pointed to an enormous stack of luggage the size of a small house, and said that those bags belonged to passengers that had chosen to leave without their bags and if I wished to do the same, we could make our flight. I had no desire to travel to Paris without our bags so walked away.

I checked the flight status of the girl we had met and her flight had departed. I went back outside and broke the bad news. She was livid and marched off with her bags to find out more. My daughter and I continued to wait for another hour as I puzzled as to what to do. Finally, I decided to take some action.

We left the tent and, because they wouldn't let us inside with our luggage, I left poor Ashleigh outside in the freezing cold, her hood drawn tight around her face in an attempt to ward off the biting wind. I used the bathroom excuse again at a different door and headed straight for British Airways' ticket counter. There was one person ahead of me. When I got to the lady behind the counter I explained that we were about to miss our flight, the monitors were now reading that it was boarding, and I needed some help. She asked me what the problem was; that she had noticed a lot of goings-on at the other end of the terminal but had no idea what it was all about. I was shocked. How on earth could British Airways not be communicating with their own staff about an issue that was causing such massive problems for literally hundreds of passengers?!  I explained and her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh my. Let me see what I can do for you." she said, and quickly set about typing furiously on her computer, eventually finding two available seats on an Air France flight that was departing soon. As she handed the tickets to me she said that we had just forty-five minutes to make the flight, which was in terminal one and we would need to catch the train there. She pointed to a set of elevator doors 30 feet away that would take us down to the train platform. I thanked her profusely, and as I turned to leave, got a huge shock. There now was a line behind me that stretched the entire length of the terminal. I surmised that the guards at the door had decided to let everyone in and they had all fallen in behind me at the British Airways ticket counter. There had to be two thousand people in the line. I had made my move just in the nick of time.

I ran through the crowd to the door at the other end of the long terminal where Ashleigh was waiting, and yelled through the wind for her to come inside. The guard at the door did not want to let her in with the luggage (and it just occurred to me now how strange that was seeing how they had just let so many in with their bags) but I told him we had flights on Air France so he let her in. I told Ashleigh to stay close behind me as we now had to run back through the entire length of the terminal to get to the elevator that would take us down to the trains. I grabbed the handle of my wheeled luggage and started to dodge and weave as I ran back through the crowd. We made it to the elevator out of breath and after a quick ride down a few floors, we stepped out onto the train platform just in time to see the tail lights of the train we needed disappear down the tracks. The sign over the platform flashed that the next one wouldn't be for sixteen minutes. We now had less than half an hour to make our flight.

When we finally caught our train and stepped off at terminal one, we ran to find the Air France desk. When we spotted it, there was a line up 5 or so deep with just one agent to help them so I decided that using the kiosk to check-in would be quicker. I inserted Ashleigh's ticket into the kiosk and waited for the screen to come alive. Nothing happened and nothing I did, which basically consisted of frantically pushing buttons and hitting it, worked. The kiosk had 'eaten' her ticket. I ran over to an Air France employee who was behind a small pulpit-like desk at the entrance to the line up. "Hi, I am in a dreadful hurry to make a flight and your kiosk just ate one of our tickets." He looked at me and then over to the kiosk then back at me, and in a heavy French accent replied, "Ah, no problem madame. I have zee key." and proceeded to search through a small drawer in his desk. As he rifled through papers and various stationary items, his brow furrowed. He finally looked up at me. "Zee key, eet ees missing." Great. He felt all his pockets. No key. Then his face lit up. "Ahh, I know. Collette, she has zee key." "And where is Collette?" I asked. "She ees on a break." Even better. "We really need to get that flight. Do you know where she is? Can you find her?" "Yes. I sink I know where she ees. I will go find her." And off he went.

I looked over at the check-in counter and the lineup was gone. I went over to the female agent and explained our dilemma. I asked her if she could check me in and get our luggage tagged while we waited for the key to get my daughters ticket. She looked at me with total disdain on her face and with a heavy French accent said, "Do you wish to travel to Pari wizout your daugh-tear?" "No." "Zen I not check you in until you have zee ticket."

My panic was mounting as we waited what felt like forever for the man to return with the key. In what was probably more like ten minutes, he returned triumphantly, holding the key aloft. "I have zee key. I will get your ticket out, no problem." He went to the kiosk and the crabby female ticket agent came from behind the counter to help. They got the machine open and bent down to fiddle around with the guts of the thing for a bit. "Ah! Zere ees zee ticket." one of them exclaimed. They both stood up and he closed the door and locked it, extracting the key. I looked from his hands to hers; no ticket. "Where's the ticket?" I asked. They looked at each other, puzzled. "Did you get zee ticket?" "No! I thought you got zee ticket." Uhh - WHAT?!? I looked at Ashleigh and she mirrored my disbelief. The two of them were still standing there, somewhat dumbfounded. I snapped them out of it with my sharp, "Will one of you PLEASE get the ticket out of there?!?" They jumped and the fellow opened the kiosk back up and extracted the ticket. He handed it to the woman. She looked at it and then at me, "Zis ees a British Airways ticket zat has a sticker on eet changing eet to Air France. Zat is why zee machine did not accept eet." and then stalked off to the check in counter. We followed with our bags and put them, one at a time, on the scale. Mine was overweight. Fabulous. "Zat will cost you fifty pounds." she snapped. I didn't care. I just wanted to be on that flight. I pulled out my wallet and handed her three twenties. She took them with, "I don't have change. I will have to go get you change." as she handed us our boarding passes. "I don't want the change. We have to go." She looked at me, horrified. "No! You wait here. I must give you zee change." She snatched the boarding passes back out of my hand and walked off across the terminal. I don't know how she knew I wasn't about to wait for her to come back, but now she had our passes we had no choice.

After about five very anxious minutes she returned. She was holding the sixty pounds out at me. I didn't understand. "I forgot. You were booked on British Airways and we honor zeir baggage limits. You were not overweight for zeir flight." At that point the fact that I just saved fifty pounds did not factor into my reaction, I was just stunned that we wasted five precious minutes for nothing. As she handed me our boarding passes, I was still trying to process what just happened so hesitated a little. "RUN!" she yelled into my face. "What?" I rather dumbfoundedly replied. "RUN!!" she yelled again, "You have sixteen minutes to make zee flight. RUN!" As I fumbled to get the cash back into my wallet, the fellow from the earlier debacle helped by grabbing Ashleigh's backpack off of the floor and escorting us over to security. He got us to the head of the line where we were quickly processed. We were pointed to a set of stairs and told to run up them and that our gate was at the top.

My knee was very sore from days of walking around London's unevenly paved sidewalks and not having sat down for the past four or five hours so there was no way I could run anymore today. I told Ashleigh to go ahead and hold the plane and I would be behind her as fast as I could manage. She took off like a shot and I hobbled as fast as I could up the long flight of stairs. When I got to the top, there was no boarding gate, just a long hall that stretched both to the left and the right of me with no signage that I could see pointing the way. And there was no sight of Ashleigh. Utterly frustrated, I nearly lost it. I was very close to tears. I squinted as I tried to see down to the end of the long hall to my left where there seemed to be some signage, and I managed to make out our gate number. I took of at a rapid hobble and made it to the gate to find Ashleigh waiting for me and two attendants who were holding the flight for us.

As we collapsed into our seats, me on one side of the aisle and Ashleigh on the other right across from me, I looked over at her, "Paris better be worth what we've been through today." I said. She heartily agreed with me. As the flight took off and leveled, I realized how hungry and thirsty I was. It had been more than 7 hours since we'd had anything to eat or drink. I noticed that the attendants were starting to serve drinks and Ashleigh was as anxious as I to get our hands on something - anything - to drink. They started on the row right behind us, which I thought was very odd as we were just six or seven rows from the front of the plane; why wouldn't they have started there?

As I heard the familiar 'pshhht' of the fellow behind Ashleigh opening his can of soda, I looked back at him with longing and continued to watch as he opened a little bag of crackers. Oh how I envied him. I tore my eyes away to turn back just as the attendant was drawing a curtain between him and me. When I turned completely back, it was to find a literal spread before my eyes. On my tray had been placed a bottle of Perrier, a bottle of red wine, and a plate of cheeses, meats, veggie sticks, bread and crackers, and a truffle. What? How??? Then it dawned on me - the curtain, the food - we were in FIRST CLASS!! I looked over at Ashleigh, where she was staring down, wide eyed, at the same spread I had, and whispered "We're in first class!" She looked over at me and we both grinned from ear to ear. This was much better than a can of pop and a tiny bag of crackers!!

Perhaps the torturous day would be worth it after all!!

JUST SAY NO TO MICROMANAGEMENT

When I get home, I am so stiff from standing on concrete all day and now sitting in my car for an hour, that I can barely walk up the path to the house. My back is hurting and so is my right knee and hip. Even my ankle on the right keeps getting a stabbing pang. I might look only 43, as Guy claims, but I feel about 73 at the moment. Getting old sucks.

When I get inside, there are three women and Denise sitting at the table, scrapbooking. They ask about my day and I tell them about the George Clooney look-alike. They want to see the photo so I get my camera and show them. Their jaws drop. "George Clooney with a French accent," one sighs, "it doesn't get any better than that." I have to agree.

After a hot shower and a meal, I am exhausted so turn in by 7. I wake through the night a couple of times with a bad stomach ache and think to myself that it feels like flu and I might have to call in sick. But each time, I get up to use the bathroom and as soon as I am vertical, the pain is gone. Did I just dream it? One of the times I go back to sleep I do dream that I faint at work from the pain. When the alarm goes off, I roll over and turn it off and feel the pain again and I feel dreadful. But when I get up, I feel not so bad. I have no idea what's going on.

On my way into work I think about all of the changes in instructions I am getting all of the time. Yesterday, we had three WOP buses that were to be diverted to another location. When they pulled out, Jessica went into panic about something and needed to call one of the drivers. She asked me for his phone number. I told her that I don't have it. Her eyes widen and she yells, "Why not?!" "Because you told us just to get the bus number." "Oh no! You shouldn't listen to me." she says, realizing what she is saying so her voice trails off at the end. As I think about this and other scenarios that have taken place, I decide it's time to go into movie set mode. I am done with going along with whatever changes come down, seemingly on a whim. I am done with dithering about. I am done with feeling like I am making mistakes constantly. I am going to start to assert myself and call someone out when told conflicting things.

It's pissing rain again, really coming down hard. So I put a cheap plastic poncho over my reflective vest and other gear. It doesn't breathe so right away I start to heat up. I want to get outside but Jessica says we need to have a meeting before we go. I tell her I need to get outside and place some cones I requested from parking yesterday to mark a path for the buses to follow up at the top of the road into the loading bays because I don't have the crew to place someone there today. "Fine, take your crew and go do that and then get back here right away." I do and within fifteen minutes we are back in the office. She isn't there. I try to radio her but am told she has gone to WOP and isn't wearing a radio yet. Fabulous. So we go back outside and get ready for the first workforce bus to pull in. But before I do, I spy a pair of those reflective gloves. They have the 2010 logo on them. They're so nice. I pick them up and say, "We were supposed to get some of these." A parking guy tells me that there's boxes of them in the office. We're not supposed to go in there but I am done with the nonsense, as I said, so I knock on the door and when there's no reply I walk in and find the boxes. They are all marked XL. I grab three pair out of the top box and hand one pair to each of my crew and put the other pair on my hands. Done.

No sooner does Guy arrive with our 4:50 departure bus than we start getting waves of WOP buses again. I am down at the bottom of the road directing them all. At some point Jessica radios me for something. I respond and then say, "...and I came back in to have that meeting but you weren't there." "I know I wasn't there," she says with sarcasm, "I had to go to WOP about blah blah blah..." she goes on and on and I wait for her to finish. "I know you know you weren't there," I respond finally, "I just wanted you to know that I didn't forget, and that I came back for the meeting." She doesn't respond.

Later, during a lull with our workforce buses, Jessica calls us all back in for that meeting. When we get there, someone closes the door behind us. I go and open it and say "Let's leave this open during the meeting, shall we? We're all dressed for the cold and we will quickly overheat in here." Jessica shoots me a dirty look and I just hold the look with a blank gaze. Shall we continue? She starts by telling us how she was sent twenty workers yesterday afternoon from another agency and she was supposed to train them and had no idea what they were doing there so she sent them home. I don't know why we need this information but I am about to respond 'Really? When we are short staffed and I am trying to work with just two crew today - you actually sent people home without scheduling them in?' but right then a bus arrives. Jessica sees it. "OH SH**, a bus!" she cries, and then jumps up and runs outside. So we all stand inside and wait, fully geared up for the elements, as she runs out alone and dressed in just a tee-shirt and polar fleece vest to do our job. I look at Olga and we shake our heads. This is starting to border on the insane. After what feels like ten minutes but is probably just five, I tell everyone to go outside and lets do our jobs. We're all too hot to be waiting indoors any more.

I am kept hopping all day at the bottom of the road, directing buses and keeping in touch with my guy up top. Olga came in on her day off to help me or I'd just have one crew today. I give her the clipboard and get her to take all the driver information and the WOP bus numbers. Once the spectators start to arrive, Jessica puts her back in charge of supervising the loading crew as the woman who was supposed to show up for that today didn't arrive. Olga puts one of her crew on to taking driver info but no one tells me the switch has taken place. Jessica tries calling Olga's alternate but there's no answer at 5 a.m., predictably. She gets hold of her later in the day and asks why she didn't show up. I hear her say, "But you had your four days off. You are four on and four off. You were supposed to be here today." Later I realize that Olga and I started out with the same schedule. Four on four off, so we were always working together. But today she was supposed to be off on the new schedule. She booked in for an extra day of work because we needed more workers. How is it that she was off today? Turns out when Jessica made up the new schedule, she screwed up and gave Olga only three days this shift. So that woman was right in not coming in today as she had only had three days off, not four. She originally wasn't scheduled to come in - Olga was. When I try to explain this to Jessica, it takes me several attempts to get her to understand. When she finally gets it, she admits she made a major mistake. Olga and I want to work together. We work well as a team. So Jessica says she will fix the schedule to put us on the same four days again. This is a typical example of what goes on in every area every single day. Jessica always blames the higher ups for changing things but I have my doubts. She seems to make a lot of it up on the fly. You know, she seems like a really nice person and in other circumstances I am sure I'd like her, but she is just not up to the task of manager. In fact, I hear later that she was lamenting to someone that she has never managed anything in her life before. What... WHAT exactly was the criteria for people getting the jobs they got around here? Because I am seeing nothing but people doing nothing they are qualified to do every time I turn around.

Take another incident today, for example. Our last bus to Whistler Sliding Center has departed over an hour ago and we have six Americans show up with tickets to the luge today but no bus tickets. When we were in training (and I use that term loosely) for our roles here, we were told in no uncertain terms that if spectators showed up too late for the bus, it was too bad. There was nothing we could do to help them. Even if we put them on a workforce bus, which we were NEVER to do, they wouldn't make it in time for the event anyway, by the time they drove up, went through the security line up, and then walked the 20 minutes from there to the venue. These guys protest vehemently that there was no information when they purchased their tickets online that they needed to buy a bus ticket. I have no idea how almost one thousand five hundred other people managed to figure it out then. Granted, we have about 20 per event that have to go to the ticket kiosk down at the trailer and buy their bus tickets because they also failed to read that a ticket was required so didn't purchase it ahead of time on line. But the vast majority manage to see that just fine. Jessica is called outside to give them the bad news. But instead, she tells them she will see what she can do. She goes back inside to get an information booklet that each ticket buyer gets. These guys say they never got one. Meanwhile, two other Chinese guys join the group. Turns out not only do they not have a bus ticket, they don't even have an event ticket and they want to hop one of our buses to Whistler. This is a definite breach of security and in no way is allowed. But as Jessica comes out and decides to let the Americans ride up with work crew, and without buying a ticket, she also decides she has to let the other two guys ride up as well as they heard her allow the Americans. Today after work, we do have a meeting to work out any wrinkles and this issue comes up. I say that none of those people should have been allowed on the bus, if we were to go by our training. And they should have had to buy tickets to get on the workforce bus because that is not fair to all those who had to pay $50 a head to ride up. I say, "What if they tell their friends, just show up late and you can catch a ride with the worker bus and you won't have to pay?" She shrugs that off as something that will never happen. I tell her that I can see letting the Americans go up with workforce, but they should have paid and there is no way the Chinese guys should have been allowed on the bus as they can't get into the luge. She says there is a place in Whistler where tickets can be purchased. I tell her that can't be the case as all tickets were sold months ago and the only way to get any now is on the fan-to-fan website. She disagrees with me. I am appalled at her lack of knowledge and her flaunting of rules that are in place for security. If Richard found out about this, I think she would be fired on the spot. He fired the head of parking yesterday just for not being strict enough with his crew. He'd blow his stack over this.

At some point in the day, Jessica starts to rag on me about some information I didn't get that I should have gotten. (I can't recall what.) This is news to me. She does it in front of three bus drivers so I pull her to one side. "I am not stupid." I start. "I know you're not." she interrupts. "I am not stupid." I say again, "If you want something, ask for it and I will do it. If you don't ask, do not come at me because I don't have it." I am angry and she knows it. "I was not coming at you." she says. "I am sick of things changing from moment to moment and having no consistency in what is required. When you decide what it is you want, you let me know, and I will do it. Alright?" She starts yammering on about how everything is changing for her as well and she can't do anything about it. "Well until whoever decides how it's going to go, I will keep on doing what I am doing and you can let me know." I say and then walk away.

And speaking of changes and of Richard; at one point I am part way up the road, signaling to a bus just arriving to come up and park. But he continues to drive straight ahead instead of coming towards me. Then I see someone kick cones out of his way so he can drive into the gravel lot. What the.....?? I run down the road and see Richard waving the bus into the lot. Once the bus, and the five behind him, are parked in the lot, I ask what's going on. Because now I have two of my buses trapped behind WOP buses. I am less than thrilled, to put it mildly. But this is the big kahuna so I have to be diplomatic. He says that there's no point in clogging up the road with all of the drivers, it's almost full. And they can't be circling around the block. Really? I had just sent four of them to circle. I ask why, then, were we told that they could and would, when we were in training. He says it's changed and they won't be circling. Man. I am so sick of the constant changes. He goes on about how he once, back in the States, had 20 buses lined up like this and how he just pointed and gestured when they needed to move and it was fine. Huh? What has that to do with this situation? I am done to the death with being micro managed. If you want to do my job, have at it and I will go sit in the trailer out of the rain where it's warm and I can give my back and legs a break. But if I am supposed to be doing this, then let me do it. And if you wanted things to work your way, then where the H, E, double hockey sticks were you on my first day here to train me properly instead of my being handed a clipboard and radio and told to get out there and do it? I have spent hours both on and off the job trying to figure out how to make this all work. I finally have a system that seems to be doing alright and then it gets kicked aside. Just like that. I am so done.

I never get to speak to a bus driver all day, other than Guy in the morning when I give him my phone number and days off so I can play tour guide for him AND the other bus driver who showed up right after him. Safety in numbers. Then he won't get the idea that I am caving on my 'no married men' rule. Oh, I did manage to talk to 'George Clooney' as he was parked in the lower line-up. I told him that I showed his photo to my friends and all of their jaws dropped. He laughed. I told him about the comment - George Clooney with an accent and he throws his head back and laughs... he loves it.

I only manage to grab one 15 minute break all day. By the time the last bus leaves, I am in agony. My back is killing me, and not in the usual place. It's right across my upper back and extends into my rib cage. This is a pain I only get when hunched over my binder all day at work (in film), thus I now use a music stand to hold it higher. When I head inside to take off my gear, I get the overwhelming urge to vomit. I run around to the back of the trailer to do it away from where anyone walks, and then fight it back. I will do anything not to vomit and I manage to fight back the bile and not throw up.

When I get home, I try to eat a little dinner but feel nauseated again and can't eat. I call Shawn to fill him in on some changes we have made to how we stage the buses to avoid the shmoz we had yesterday. From now on WOP buses go to the left only, and we will park them in two rows at the top. Our buses, to WSC, will go to the right and into the bays, snaking down the right side of the road. The workforce buses will go straight into the gravel parking lot. He says I sound tired. I tell him I think I am coming down with the flu. He gives me the recipe for a concoction he learned about while teaching in China. You take a can of coke, and bring it to the boil on the stove with a golf ball sized piece of ginger finely ground into it. Then you pour it into a mug and add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoon of honey. Drink it down half an hour before going to bed.

I find all of the ingredients in the house and cook it up. At first it doesn't taste too bad, it just has a bit of a bite. But as I get farther and farther down the mug, it starts to taste awful. I guess the ginger is getting stronger. I am worried I will just bring it all back up, and I almost do but fight it down. I fall into bed, completely exhausted and feeling like I've been hit by a bus; no pun intended. I sleep like a log and wake up feeling much better. I think it must have been food poisoning from the horrible half of an egg sandwich I ate at work yesterday. We are provided with a sandwich a day made by the same caterers that make food for Air Canada. It is the most dreadful food I have ever had and have stopped eating it. Except for yesterday. I was so hungry and the egg salad didn't look so bad, even though there was no butter - as usual - on the bread and no mayo. It was a bit dry, and when I kept coming across chewy bits the consistency of cooked chicken breast, I threw out what was left. I should never have touched it.

(I found the picture of the tee-shirt after I came up with the title of this post and was searching the internet for a photo to use as I had no time to take pictures today!)