I'm beginning to understand why some people with supposedly glamorous jobs decide to retire anyway.

[DFW]

I'm just getting tired of this becoming the rule rather than the exception.

I have three work appointments down in Paris today. I got up at 4 A.M. to be there in time to make them, and still get back by 11 PM tonight. I have family obligations in northern Germany tomorrow in one of those places so off the beaten track that most GPS programs protest "You can't be serious!" when you try to feed in the location. My wife knows because it's where she is from. Sort of like the Marshall's Service needing Raylan Givens to find places in Harlan County.

So, I got up at 4 AM, took a shower, snatched up the small suitcase and two shoulder bags, poured down the tea my wife made for me, and we rushed off to her car so she could drive me to the airport train station. The train station in our town has been closed for months, and part of the local route has been shut down for repairs for over two years.

Because of track repairs going on for months (sometimes years) longer than originally announced, I planned to make the 5:32 train from the airport down to Köln (Cologne), where, if on time, I would have 30 minutes to make the fast train down to Paris. I got to the track ten minutes before departure. Oh, crap, I had left my ticket for Köln on the table in the house! But there was an automatic ticket machine for nearby towns in the station. At 30 to 40 minutes, Cologne is considered "nearby." So, with 4 minutes to spare before the 5:32 train, I bought another ticket (overpriced, but my fault, so I shut up). I rushed back down to the track to find that my 5:32 train to Cologne was delayed by 40 minutes. But, but, but.....I only had 30 minutes in Köln to make the train to Paris! The NEXT train to Köln was listed as on time, so I decided to risk it. Miraculously, it got to Cologne at 6:32. The train to Paris was scheduled to depart at 6:44, and I only needed 2 minutes to get to the right track if I hauled ass. I did, and got there to find that the train to Paris was delayed by half an hour due to: 1.) a police action, or 2.) construction work on the tracks, or 3.) technical difficulties with the train. I think it depended on what make of car the announcer had just seen out the window. I heard all three in the space of 20 minutes. So, I was stuck out in the cold for half an hour, on the crowded track with a few hundred other frustrated passengers. It finally arrived a little over half an hour late.

So, I'm looking at (probably) trying to get 6 hours' worth of work compressed into 5, and hoping to get back home by midnight so I can join my wife tomorrow up in the tiny farm country village where her distant cousin is having his 50th wedding anniversary party.

But so far, the train to Paris from Köln is half an hour late. and we're somewhere just past Brussels in Belgium, where the train stops before the last hi-speed leg of Brussels to Paris in 80 minutes (used to take 3 hours). It's barely 9:20. I'm already beat, and I can't even start work down in France for another two hours. I do have three French-speaking co-workers (one in Geneva, Switzerland and two in Paris). However, they all had other things to do today, and I can't ask the guys in the Dutch office or the London office to run over here because their French is not up to the job(s) at hand. I'm pretty close to fluent, so I'm elected, as usual.

I think even James Bond must have felt like going on strike every now and then. That stuff in the movies was always sanitized, (although, some 50 years ago, I did get the beautiful girl, and she still is).

It's not always this crazy. On days like today, that is no consolation.

[elleng]

1. OH GEE!!!!!

'Glamorous???'

TIME to retire!!! My unplanned retrement from the Feds followed a R i F!!!! (Fortunately a few interestng and related positions became available.) Didn't RIDE any trains hither and yon as do you, just 'helped' freights around a bit!

[Skittles]

2. oh dear

you poor thing

[NJCher]

3. This is why I don't travel

It always ends up as something like this.

I had many situations that people might consider glamorous in my job but nothing compares to being able to do what I want with my time. I love it when my calendar pops up and tells me I have 0:events for the day.

[multigraincracker]

4. I retired a little over 23 years ago at age 53.

With lots of time, not money, I’m never in a hurry. Always drive at least 5 under the speed limit.
Can’t afford lots of travel, but really enjoy it when I do. My hobby is saving money, which has allowed me to never pay interest. Just paid cash for my third home and haven’t had a car payment since 1982.
Most of my hobbies make me some extra cash and are lots of fun.
I even run at a slow pace. Try to get in 3 to 5 miles every other day. Some times on my runs I ever stop to smell some flowers.
I’ve found out how to take advantage of my ADHD by always chasing my dreams.

[DFW]

10. My trouble is

MOST of the time, my job is a dream job. It's fun, I like the traveling, and the very notion of boredom terrifies me. I am paid enough money to not need more, although getting taxed at 73% on earned income is not conducive to making an extra effort. I finally got it sorted out that unearned income is taxed where it was (un) earned, and that is all USA (37% as opposed to Germany's 50%).

But, when hings go sorta to plan, I have a good time. It's when everything goes wrong that I bitch and moan. The trip baxk, by the way, wasn't much better. Half an hour late leaving Paris, an additional half hour delay during a stall between the Belgian border and Köln. Luckily (for me, not the other passengers waiting for the same train), a connecting train back to the Düsseldorf airport was also way late getting into Köln from the south somewhere (Koblenz?), and I got back to the airport train station "only" 45 minutes late.

At some point next week, I have to be back in Brussels, and then down to Switzerland and back twice, somehow squeezing in some more family obkigations. Spain will have to wait until the week after. Since I used to live there as a teenager, it is familiar territory, and I always enjoy going back.

[Ziggysmom]

5. Sounds so stressful. But I really envy the rail systems in Europe. I would trade my

horrible congested freeway commutes any day. At least once per week an accident snarls and backs up traffic for hours. With the current economy I’ve delayed retirement till at least age 70 and dread years of commutes. Hope you enjoy the celebration in the farm village. I was raised on a small farm and really miss having a quiet country life.

Best to you and yours!

[cachukis]

6. Running on empty? Retirement's not so bad.

[RockCreek]

7. Not to sound Polyannaish (if that is a word..)

But can you look out and enjoy the scenery? All the history (much of it horrid in that area of Europe)? The roads lined with trees between the small villages?
I was an exchange student in the North of France in the 80s. Remembering the scenery now, and smiling. But the residual feeling of all the battles fought in that area always got to me....
I remember the discussions over the route that the TGV (the high speed train) would take from Paris to Bruxelles. Many unhappy communities in the wake of those decisions.

[NNadir]

9. I used to travel 60% to 70% of the time. I was young then. At first it was exciting; I actually flew on the Concorde

It was, shall we say, "an experience," but not one I'd pay for. (Air France used to give free 1 way upgrades to American business class travelers, so I just paid a business class ticket.) It really sucked going to France, if one is an insomniac, which I am. I flew it twice to France, and once back to the US, which was mildly fun as I arrived before I left in clock time.

Six times to Europe every year; struggling with my bad French, traveling all over the country, sometimes to Germany or Italy or the Netherlands.

All over the US, NJ, California, crazy cities in Michigan like Kalamazoo, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, lots and lots of trips to Boulder, Colorado via Denver, on average once a month.

Once, on my youngest son's first birthday, I flew home to New Jersey from San Diego, to attend his party, took a shower and flew to Norway, where I met a bunch of people who liked to drink until sundown, which at the Summer solstice well north of Oslo is around 2 am.

When the French came to the US, they used to think that the US was the size of France, and want to do ten or twelve companies, scattered across the United States in less than 8 days.

It got old before I got old.

Now I do two or three trips a year. That's it. I should probably retire, but I don't. My wife is younger than me, she still works so I do too.

At first I thought the traveling life would be exciting, sexy, whatever. After about 2 years, I realized that all I wanted was to be home with my wife and (then small) sons. I did it for about 12 years; happily I'm done.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Lots of Europeans think the U.S is the size of France.

I used to work at Washington National Airport and would often get visitors from Europe (the Scandinavians were somehow the worst here) who had no clue how truly large this country is.

[LogDog75]

12. I think people with glamorous jobs don't consider them glamorous

At first, it may seem glamorous but then things become routine or they have to do things or go somewhere that takes more of their time and effort it quickly becomes old.

My job in the AF wasn't glamorous by any stretch of the imagination and you basically had to figure out what made you happy doing your job. I used to think the Senior NCOs jobs were "glamorous" because they didn't have as much to do as the junior ranking troops. When I became a Senior NCO I realized there was a lot more work and responsibilities the junior troops don't see. There were times I'd trade my "glamorous" Senior NCO job for that of a junior troop's job.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Totally Understand

A major motivation to retire was to quit traveling.
I'd had way more than enough of 6, 8, 10, 15, 20 hour plane rides. Even in first or business class it gets very old.
People think world travel is glamorous, but at some point it's just a 600mph bus ride.