Clear as mud
Just wrapped up Business Trip No. 1, to the current company headquarters in the D.C. ‘burbs. Am in the airport waiting to embark on the next trip, to a little hamlet in southwest Oklahoma adjacent to a big army base. Still trying to figure out this business-travel thing; still overpacking, still at the airport way too early. I guess it takes some time to find the rhythm. All the waiting certainly gives me plenty of time to assess the situation.

My trip last week took me to a nearly empty office. A couple of customers were in for some training. The trainer and a couple of other employees were there. The company headquarters is preparing for a move to the Western Edge. Like any move, trepidation is coming along for the ride. Those who know they are going are anxious. Those who don’t know yet if they’re going are even more anxious. For a few, it’s an easy decision; they’ve lived in the D.C. ‘burbs all their lives, and all they know about the Edge is tourists and big flying cockroaches and alligators and retirees. They like their seasons; the fact that it can be 85 degrees any day of the year isn’t a big selling point to them. But facing the prospect of being home and unemployed has its faults, too. So they wait, with trepidation.

My trepidation, of course, goes the other way. I know where I’m going to be living. What I don’t know yet is what I’m going to be doing or how exactly I’m going to do it. I’m dealing in abstractions, figurative and literal: I have an e-mail address, but no password. I have a cell phone, but no number. I have a computer, but no software. I have a job, but no real knowledge of how I’m supposed to do it. I have a stack of airline tickets, but am not yet sure what to do once the plane lands.

It’ll all clarify at some point, I’m sure. In a few weeks, I’ll be accessing that e-mail and using that cell phone and blasting away on that computer and finding more normal stuff about which to be worried. Right now, I’ll lug all my stuff to the next place and wait.