Shut The Fudge Up!
We travel a fair bit and we’re coming up to one of the busiest times of the year for that particular activity. However, while we may be travelling, the work doesn’t stop. News comes in, emails need answering, and telephone calls need to be made and taken. I also need to write my Sunday Thoughts articles…
Never fear, the airport lounge has been specifically created for the busy international traveller and offers a bite to eat, showers, nap areas, coffee, wine and beer if that’s your thing, along with lots of other stuff designed to make your working day while on the move as pleasurable and easy to navigate as is humanly possible. The lounge is supposed to be an oasis of calm in the general hubbub of the airport.
Or that’s the idea.
I’m currently sitting in the lounge at Charles de Gaulle Airport – Terminal K, for those who are interested – and up until about half an hour ago, it had been a very pleasant experience. They’ve had nice cold Perrier, half-decent espresso, vegan mains and salads, and even a lemon vegan pudding that tastes somewhere between washing-up liquid and hair conditioner. Hey, look, I’m well aware that my self-imposed dietary requirements can be a pain in the arse for everyone concerned, and I’m genuinely very grateful that there was anything available at all. However, I do wonder whether the person responsible for developing that particular dessert had ever actually tasted a lemon, or whether they’d simply had one described to them by someone working in the household-cleaning-products industry.
I ate two of them, obviously.
Meanwhile, Lin has just hammered a plate of fruit cake and cheese, which looked really rather nice. I’m not jealous, you understand, but I did find myself looking at it for slightly longer than was strictly necessary.
People come, and people go in airport lounges. I ate, did a bit of work and then went for a walk around the terminal to gawp at watches and other luxury goods that I neither need nor can really afford. I always ask the very nice lady in the Rolex boutique whether they have anything in stock and available to buy. On this occasion, she had a gold Submariner that was either thirty-something or fifty-something grand. I forget the precise figure because it was immaterial. Whether it was thirty thousand euros beyond what I wanted to spend or fifty thousand euros beyond what I wanted to spend made little practical difference.
After my march around the terminal, undertaken by way of getting a bit of exercise and definitely not because I wanted another look at the gold Submariner, I returned to the lounge. I had another helping of the washing-up-liquid-and-hair-conditioner gloop, a double espresso to wake me up, and a flick through the internet and my emails to see what was happening in the world. I also took another antihistamine because every airport lounge, hotel and bar in the world seems to use something or other that plays havoc with my allergies. Whether it’s the air conditioning, cleaning products, carpets, air freshener, somebody’s perfume or a coordinated international conspiracy against my sinuses, I don’t know. The thought occurred to me that antihistamines might be more effective if I snorted them, but then I don’t imagine cutting out fat lines of loratadine on a table in an airport lounge is going to endear me to the staff. It is also likely to result in an awkward conversation with airport security and possibly me not getting on the flight.
I digress.
Now, I like to think that I’m a reasonably considerate kind of person. I tend not to be overly loud and, importantly, if the phone rings, I’ll answer it and then move into the lobby area so I don’t disturb my fellow travellers. It’s hardly a monumental sacrifice on my part, but it does mean everyone else in the lounge doesn’t have to listen to me discussing review products, show arrangements or whatever minor crisis has decided to unfold while I’m on the move. I’m certainly not the kind of person to play last night’s football match at full volume on a tablet, like some bloke did the last time we flew into Birmingham. How the airline staff didn’t throttle him, I don’t know. How I didn’t forcibly insert his tablet into a part of his anatomy where the sun doesn’t shine, I also don’t know. Perhaps it was my quiet, reserved side finally coming to fruition. Perhaps I was simply too tired to summon up the necessary level of violence.
Anyway, a woman sitting a couple of tables away took a call. I’m not entirely sure she needed a phone at all, and I’m fairly certain the person she was talking to could have heard her without the wonders of modern communications technology. She was loud. Really loud. Not somebody speaking slightly above the generally accepted level because the connection was a bit crap, but someone projecting at sufficient volume to communicate with another continent without the assistance of a satellite. Perhaps she was trying to communicate with a recently deceased relative.
I very nearly said something, but it seems that being an inconsiderate moron is catching. No sooner had she started yelling into her portable device at whoever’s face was staring back at her from the screen than other people around the room joined in. It spread through the lounge like a pneumonic plague. Within minutes, the supposed oasis of calm had turned into an international scam call centre in which every employee believed the only way to be heard was to shout louder than everyone else.
The woman in question wasn’t speaking English, but I could understand enough of the conversation to realise she was recounting the contents of her lunch. I caught the word “Perrier”, at least, though her delivery suggested she’d just discovered an exciting new mineral water rather than taken a tin from the same fridge everyone else in the lounge had been using. Not content with sitting down and screaming at the top of her lungs – I exaggerate a little, but not by much – she then proceeded to wander around the room. She looked at the food, poked around in the fridge and inspected the drinks, all while continuing her conversation at full volume.
I wondered whether she was married, and I felt a good deal of sorrow for her poor, ear-battered husband. Perhaps he’s partially deaf. Perhaps that’s why she has become accustomed to communicating at the same volume as an aircraft taking off.
I went looking for a quiet space where I could perhaps escape the bellowing masses. This felt mildly ridiculous, given that I was already inside the part of the airport specifically intended to provide a quiet space away from the bellowing masses. However, our flight’s departure was looming closer, and we eventually decided to leave the lounge half an hour early simply to get away from the shouting. We returned to the relative peace and tranquillity of the rest of Charles de Gaulle Airport, a sentence I never thought I’d find myself writing.
Look, I know airport lounges are public spaces and that people need to make and receive calls. As I said at the start, work doesn’t stop simply because you’re travelling. However, there is a world of difference between quietly answering a call and broadcasting the full contents of your lunch to everyone within a fifty-metre radius.
Headphones exist – I’ve seen them! Lobby areas exist – I’ve been through them. Indoor voices exist – I have one…sometimes. If none of those options is available to you, there’s always the radical possibility of waiting until you’re somewhere more appropriate before telling someone about the Perrier water you’re consuming.
For pity’s sake, people, show a little consideration for your fellow travellers and STFU! We’ve all paid to use the lounge, and none of us paid for the added benefit of listening to your conversation at the volume of a stadium public-address system.
If you see me in an airport lounge somewhere around the world, give me a wide berth. I was most likely up very early, didn’t sleep well because I never sleep well the night before travelling, I’m probably hungry – I wasn’t this time – and my mind may be occupied with wondering whether the lemon-flavoured hair conditioner I’ve just eaten is poisonous or the very latest development in modern gut health.
I may be tetchy, in other words. If I’m quietly drinking an espresso and minding my own business, it’s probably safest to do the same.
Stu
