Meh. Sounds to me like a weak rationalization to be a dick in public. Same argument people make when they treat you as a customer with contempt and annoyance in a retail or services environment, or perhaps say drop a toolbox on my wing and left me airplaneless going on months now and through the holidays, now facing six 6-hour one way trips in a car with a toddler. The whole "Hey, 5 dollars doesn't buy my undivided attention, so I do what I do, sorry I'm not sorry about your airplane nothing personal"
Don't like your job circumstances? Address it with the employer. Don't take it out on bystanders. Aka don't be a dick.
Nope no dickishness at all. Just speed. Most folks wouldn't know a frequent traveler just boogied on out of the area, even if you hit them with a large stick -- every time one went by at a fast walking speed. They're mostly oblivious. If they saw Rolivi deplaning they'd not give a second thought to it, he'd be gone.
And definitely not the sort of jerk who'd drop a toolbox on an airplane. Ha. That does suck man.
Ask any of the pro flight crew here if they know how to boogie without a) being any sort of dick, b) being noticed much if at all, and c) across the airport in about 1/3 of the usual time of the "Standard American Family and 2.5 Children" dorking about and gawking at every sign in the airport on their way to the Disney TFR Land.
Whoosh. Gone. Someone might say, "Hey where did that dude go that we were talking to?"
You just get fast at it. My biggest slowdown was when I had to check $30,000 worth of test equipment instead of ship to the site ahead of time. Hated that. Haaaaaaaaated that.
Only time it came in handy was in SLC when some rental car counter moron kept insisting I wasn't old enough to rent a car.
My former submarine XO boss yelled something at her along the lines of (after he told her the company was self-insured and I was most definitely on their approved renter list), "Does he have a couple of cases sitting next to him? Okay, the equipment in those cases costs three times more than the rental car and we trust that he'll bring those back, so would you just hand him the keys to the car already?"
He wasn't exactly what you'd call, a patient man, when people weren't doing their jobs correctly. Haha.
I actually loved that job, back then. I said I was glad I don't do it today... back then I could make sure my belt buckle wasn't magnetic and be to the gate and boarding in minutes from walking in the airport door. Bust out at the far end, hit the customer site, see if they were a "fast" or "slow" customer (Slow customers needed training on what a phone was. Haha.) Hop the flight home, and be done with it. (Nothing was ever completely full except the aforementioned weekend warrior days...)
Next flight was already booked by the travel agency and in my email inbox before I got home if they were back to back. If I actually made it to my desk at the office there would be a pile of printed airline tickets on it in those fancy slipcovers.
I got paid a LOT to do that crap back then, for the day and the economy. It was good. I wasn't rude or running into people, but I wasn't slowing down in airports I knew well, ever.
Trips got more annoying as I moved into Product Support. I got all the nasty stuff nobody thought would work. Took many more days on-site and I finally said enough was enough when the fourth company to buy us out messed up the reimbursement system so bad, I was three or four months behind on getting reimbursement checks for the trips.
Decided I'd apply to go manage the NOC for a while instead of wondering if they'd paid their bills on time this month. Desk job, corner office, downtown high rise, windows... vs airports. Was a good career move.
Great staff of nutty people who worked hard, and played some great pranks on everyone including me. Still in touch with most of them. Met up with one who's well into his 70s now for Mexican a couple of months ago and told War stories. He was the old telecom coot who kept a small bottle of whiskey buried in the far back corner of a desk drawer and never took it out unless a "company saving" type of event happened along with the standard craziness of a day like that.
He'd grab his usual cup of coffee after it all died down, and he'd pour a shot into the coffee, and anyone else who happened to have coffee nearby was welcome and then it went back in the back of the drawer for another year or so. One of a few old Bell Labs and Bell System guys who had seen it all.
Nothing phased that guy. Best night tech one could ask to manage. He'd raise a big bushy grey eyebrow at fire alarms, blackouts, fiber cuts, it didn't matter... then he'd say in his NY accent... "Guess we better see what needs to be fixed."
Good times. Insane hours and travel replaced with just insane hours and no travel.
I had it easy, too. We had not one, but two field engineers gone so long to foreign countries they both ended up divorced and brought home new wives. LOL. Worked out well for one of them and not so well for the other.
I remember joking with the one that brought home the tall blonde Swede from his time in Amsterdam that I could bring back a sweaty, hyper, balding, middle aged, GTE engineer from a basement where they kept him in Chantilly, VA... working the FAA telecom contracts... if he wanted to trade.
He didn't take me up on the offer. Never could figure out why.
Business Travel can be as fun as you make it, but none of us dawdled around airports. Seen one, you've seen them all. Although I do know what the guy who pointed out that each one has something interesting stashed away somewhere is saying. Once in a while you just got stuck and you might as well go wandering and sightseeing around the place.
