Six Tubs!
The woman a bit ahead of me at airport security needed six large plastic tubs for what she planned to carry-on to her flight…Okay, one tub held her “I hate the cold” parka and boots. Still, one tub got filled by an oversized purse, another by a hard-sided rolling bag, next a soft sided thing, and two tubs stuffed with shopping bags from the Deseret plateau’s many fine shops seemed excessive.
Just after 2:30 p.m. on a crowded Friday afternoon at the Salt Lake City airport no one wanted to wait for Ms. Six Tubs’s junk to all go through the x-ray machine. Yet – other than me – everyone had at least a piece of luggage or a major backpack they planned to carry on to their plane. On my flights, I met many people unable to even lift their own luggage up to go into the bins. (If you need wheels to move it, is it really a ‘carryon?’)
Natalie: I really like my luggage.
Ryan: That’s exactly what it is, it’s luggage. You know how much time you lose
by checking-in?
Natalie: I don’t know, five, ten minutes?
Ryan: 35 minutes a flight. I travel 270 days a year. That’s 157 hours. That makes
seven days. You’re willing to throw away an entire week on that?
Ryan (George Clooney) & Natalie (Anna Kendrick)
Up In The Air 2009
With due respect to George, using a skycap at Lambert last week to check my one bag took about a minute and a half. My bag got back to me about five minutes after I’d gotten to baggage claim, meaning my total “lost” time was less than seven minutes. Coming home again cost me about seven minutes. I happily pay that cost…
❶ Carrying and then stowing that luggage really slows down filling and emptying planes;
❷ The planes aren’t designed for the incredible amount of junk flyers stuff into the overhead bins (on all four legs of my trip every bin got filled and the crew had to drag excess items back up the aisle to go in the hold);
❸ On a really bad flight, every one of those heavy items becomes a dangerous flying object; and,
❹ Carryon luggage is another plot to kill American jobs.
No, I’m not joking.
Remember when store employees totaled your purchases? Now most stores try to get you to check yourself out at what my wife (a retailer in recovery) called “stop and steals.”
Same way banks have replaced tellers with ATMs, you “pay at the pump,” type in your order at the fast fooder and in a score of ways each week you do what someone used to get paid to do.
Oh, yes I’ve heard the talk about “convenience:” how many gallons of milk did you buy with the money that convenience saved you?
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. “A jobs threat worse than mass store closures could fire more than 7 million retail workers” [ http://www.businessinsider.com/how-automation-will-impact-the-retail-industry-2017-5 ] The threat is even more automation.
The airline industry has been embracing technology to dump jobs for years. Call to make a reservation and you get a recording directing you to a website to buy your ticket. At the airport you face self-service check-in terminals. And, with most people dragging all their luggage on to the plane the number of folks employed sorting, loading and unloading baggage falls.
True, the lost jobs aren’t the best paying. Still, they provide some workers the ability to support themselves.
In a time when they that rule demand that every able-bodied or kinda-bodied person work in order to qualify for food stamps, health care and other basic needs, well, the American economy needs all the job opportunities it can find.
Do your part: check your bag. And, feel free to grumble when Ms. Six Tubs is on your flight.
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member