Moving about the world on a Wednesday

I see a lot while traveling for work. People. Situations. Interactions. Various levels of awareness.  Today was no different.

I'm on my way back home from a trip to Chicago for the B2BOnline 2019 event where I got to reconnect with some of Episerver's most innovative partners and customers. It was a great forum for sharing ideas with an area of industry that is seeing rapid change and transformation.

I woke up with a smile this morning thinking about how great the day before went. It was just a feeling that I did my job really well yesterday. I got some great feedback from a prospective customer last night that they had learned so much from myself and my colleague over dinner, and that they were glad to have spent the time with us (instead of their original plans with our competitor). I was told we changed their original perspectives. I felt gratitude for being able to work with some inspiring colleagues who care to bring their best selves to the job everyday.

I was mostly in my own head this morning from the moment I woke up to the moment I arrived at the airport. I did smile at two strangers in the elevator to the lobby, remarking how interesting that we had shared the same elevator two days before when we arrived, despite being on separate floors. I tipped the Lyft driver despite having a less than clean ride because he rushed to meet me outside the vehicle to put my luggage in the trunk.. I appreciated not having to stand in the rain for long. I could also tell the wear and tear on his backseat were from his kids because of a crayon on the floor.

Before exiting the Lyft ride I queued up a screen-shot of my boarding ticket I captured through my browser because the JetBlue app has been recently loading a blank screen instead of my ticket when checking in through the app. Through some googling I found this was actually an issue with the underlying Sabre system it uses, not necessarily JetBlue's fault. At the same time Southwest's app doesn't seem to have this issue. Having been over a month experiencing this issue I decided to rate the app with a single star when it prompted me, entering my feedback as I passed through the entrance at Terminal 3 at O'Hare.

It was shortly after I was jostled out of my internal thoughts. Walking up to the security checkpoint, the security agent looked at my phone and dismissively scowled "9". Confused, I said thank you and started to walk on, and she stopped me and yelled: "Sir! Number 9!". She carelessly gestured towards the entrance where I came in. I responded: "I don't understand what you are trying to tell me". The guy behind me who must have been in a rush to catch his plane sighed loudly and then accidentally pushed my bag aside knocking it down saying as he passed: It's not that hard, you are at the wrong gate, let's keep it moving…" as he shoved his phone in the woman's face barely getting her nod to proceed on.

I looked up to see a large number 8 directly above my head and realized in an instant her pointing towards the entrance wasn't to help me find where I was going, but to point me away from her line. I decided I wanted a coffee.

Once in the correct TSA line the gentleman overseeing the conveyor belt was barking at some of the people passing their items through. Hey! You need to stay with your items until they are all on the belt. It happened twice before it was my turn. One guy who clearly did not speak English had just about walked into the full body scanner when the agent had to get the help of the other agents to stop him. This held up the whole line. I kept my hand on my last bag until it was fully on the conveyor belt before stepping into the body scanner line. I assured the body scanner technician that my pockets were empty. Suddenly I was being yelled at too. The agent seemed especially annoyed at me because he knew I had seen the previous corrections about the conveyor belt. I got pulled from the line.

I quickly pointed out to him that I had followed his directions, but that it was the conveyor belt that reversed my items back onto the rollers. I was starting to feel slightly agitated at his tone towards me and the others when he told me to push my items onto the conveyor belt(again). He goes: "go ahead, push" I pushed, but the conveyor belt was not moving, and my carry-on was heavy. He advised further, this time with a hint of sarcasm: "Go ahead... you can do it…"

Now I was annoyed. I raised my tone to match his and looked him in the eye: You are telling me to push but the conveyor is stopped. The conveyor belt isn't moving, and my shoulder is injured, perhaps you could be a bit kinder and help me?" I took my hand off my bag to show I was done taking the abuse.

His tone completely changed. "Why didn't you say so before! I'm glad to help" as he pushed my items on the conveyor. "Thank you", I said, even though I'm my own mind I had swapped the first part of that sentiment with a very different word.  I proceeded on looking back to see him help the next person push their items through.

It was at this point I started to think about how easily and quickly people's individual moods and levels of awareness at a given moment can so easily affect others through their interactions.

Had the woman at the security checkpoint been able to simply point in the right direction or used more than two words by saying " you want to be over there at gate nine", she would have received a thank you instead of a dumbfounded look from me. Had that guy that knocked my bag over showed up on time maybe he wouldn't have been frustrated at the 5 seconds of his time I took up entering the line.

Had the conveyor belt agent been a little more aware he might have realized that helping others is much more efficient that belittling them.

I thought about my own interactions with the world at large and how often I let my awareness or lack thereof create collisions. I like to think that I'm more often an agent for unity as opposed to an agent of chaos. We all have our days though. As I stood up to get in the line to board my plane I told the person sitting next to me who had been talking non-stop for a half hour at the gate, that I was sorry for interrupting but that I really enjoyed her wonderful laugh. 

The beaming smile I got back was as if she'd never been given a compliment in her whole life. I told her that I was in somewhat of a bad mood when I sat down but that her laugh had changed my perspective. She responded as if straight from the universe itself: "You know, we are all in this together."