My Travel Assistant and BOSS

It is really hard work to pack your bags and leave on short notice. Just when You are checking into the airline counter you remember that you have left your favourite pair of under wear on the clothes line and you forgot to pick it up. So every trip I have been on, I have missed out taking some thing that I have wanted to take. So I designated a travel assistant. My Wife. She loves travelling but does not get as many oppotunities as I do hence seeing me off is also a thrill for her. She will take extra care to pack the right stuff in the right quantities and in sequence so that I find them with out a hitch. I work out of Mumbai but my engineeriing team sits in Bangalore and my customer is in Delhi, plus recently one was in Africa. Hence my travel takes me north south and east of the country. I have a fixed set of clothes and articles that need to be replenished after each trip. Unlike some executives who have a bag packed and waitingg for them when they return to catch the next flight.

However over time her tasks went beyond packing bags, now she buys the medicines for travel, ensures I have got my ticket from the office, checks if I have transfered my files to the travel laptop, sumitted my bills to the company or alteast prepared them [so that I dont miss the submission date while on site.] and the list of things go on. I also get instructions on where to dine, what to eat and how to spend my time over the week end while I am on site.

She has a fantastic ability to digup lifestyle and luxury information from the web, she invest a couple of hundred bucks buying food, city and travel guides ever month. But I dont make much of that information and come back an old man from the trip. However when the mood kicks in it is good to know more than the locals at times [thanks to my wife I have out smarted them many times by giving them gyan about their city.]. Believe me she even predicted the French type power sockets in Rwanda which I ignored saying "whats the big deal"... Fact is that we roamed around 1 hour in the sun trying to get a French to British plug convertor the next day and paid 10$.

So I have come to regard her as Boss when it comes to the travel agency that she runs, a full service travel agency that will do every thing required for you to travel and ensure that you wake up at 4 am to catch the cab for a 6:30 am flight. She will also buzz me in her sleep as I am about to enter the aircraft just to say Good bye.