How International Travel is Prejudice Against Middle America

So many of my colleagues are starting blogs for their upcoming Semester at Sea voyages. My friend Dave did a blog when he sailed a couple of years ago and wrote every day. Every day. Considering all of the communication challenges that arise when sailing on an oceanliner around the world, it's really something of a technological miracle. Looking back at my first sad attempts to blog about my last voyage (I believe I posted about our first day on the ship which is before we even left Florida which I'm pretty sure is cheating.), I am a bit disappointed that I don't have the narratives to go along with the pictures. (I did, however, post a handful of my favorite pictures from each port from my last voyage. Oh, who am I kidding? That is still a sad attempt at blogging.) This time I am optimistic that I will keep up with it. At least a little bit. But instead of making empty promises about something that may or may not happen, let's begin with the voyage to the voyage thus far...

And for my first official Spring 2013 post, I'd like to make a case for how international travel is prejudice against middle America. I'll prove it to you. While I was preparing for my upcoming voyage, I was living in the booming metropolis of Monticello, Iowa. (They pronounce it Montisello not Montichello like that of presidential homestead fame if that gives you any indication of the level of culture we're dealing with here.) In order to submit my visas for China, India, and Ghana, I needed to print PDF copies of the applications to mail to the company submitting the paperwork on our behalf. So I went up to the camp staff office, dusted off one of the old Macs, and went to work. Or tried to. You see, the very first Mac desktops aren't compatible with Adobe. And apparently neither are the computer's security settings. Red lights started flashing and sirens started going off when I attempted to download said Adobe so I quickly aborted the mission. Instead, I had to coerce the lovely nurses into letting me use the computers in their office on two separate occasions in order to print said PDFs. By this time, printing a PDF was something of a miracle. 

The preferred method of submitting these important international PDF documents along with my passport was FedEx. Do you know how many FedEx drop boxes there are within a 25 mile radius of Monticello? None. There are no FedEx drop boxes anywhere near Monticello. According to the map, I would have had to drive over 30 miles to a supposed drop box on a dirt road even more in the middle of nowhere than I already was. And pay $26 to boot to overnight it. I'd have to pay just as much in gas to get it to said drop box. No thank you. The US Post Office (which, thank goodness, every tiny town has) with delivery confirmation will suffice just fine. 

Now onto immunizations...The laundry list for the immunizations required for the countries we are going to is long and involved. And in order to get them I had to drive about an hour away. (Why would there be a doctor in Monticello who knows anything about Japanese Encephalitis? That's just ridiculous.) So I scheduled my appointment with the travel clinic in the closest big city-big being a relative term. The travel nurse went through all of the precautions for all of the vaccinations and, as she was administering one of the immunizations, said something along the lines of, "I don't know much about polio but I sure hope you don't get it." Oh geez. That's comforting. So hopefully I have all of the correct immunizations shot into my blood stream. Fingers crossed. 

So, in summation, I think I have justly proven my point that international travel is prejudice against middle America, against those with computers older than they are, against those with no FedEx boxes in a driveable distance, and against those with travel clinics whose clientele visit exotic destinations such as...North Dakota. 

Maybe Christmas Doesn't Come from a Store

So after yet another holiday season working retail, I feel that all of that personal growth I've done over the past however many months is long gone. It only took seven weeks to flush the 12 weeks of challenge, learning, growing, and reflecting  I did at camp out the window. That must be a new personal record. Who knew a mall could suck your soul that quickly? I'm convinced that working retail during the holiday season makes you a worse person: less patient, less tolerant of messy people, more irritable, and the list goes on. I suppose a less pessimistic view would suggest that working retail during the holidays could, in fact, make you a better person: more efficient, better able to duke it out for a good parking space, a faster folder, more appreciate of other poor saps in your same position, and better able to color code one's own closet. These are all important skills in life. So I'm going to stick with the latter. That working in retail has, in fact, made me a better person. Happy holidays, y'all.

Work Like You're Worth More than Minimum Wage

So it has been a few weeks since the end of camp and here I am, back at the same mall I was at when I was 14, working retail for the holidays. Since I have worked for Gap Inc. for I don't know 14 years off and on, I was expected to be compensated somewhat accordingly. I was a manager at my old store and while I knew I wasn't going to make the same amount, I expected to at least start where I left off when I was a sales associate. That line of thinking pretty much set me up for disappointment. Minimum wage in Nebraska is $7.75 and I am not making too much more than that. Honestly, after walking out of that meeting, I was pretty shocked, appalled, and offended. I felt like I was in some kind of social experiment, like Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed where she attempts to live off minimum wage and make ends meet in a few different cities around the U.S. Here I was, with a master's degree, getting paid only a few peanuts more to fold pants than I did when I was 16. But after listening to the general manager talk to her supervisor about how bad business is, how much is it appropriate to complain? After all, I am there only 6 weeks and there are folks who are there for the long haul probably making less than I am and getting less hours. I thought I was going to get at least 15-20 hours a week, but when I only got 8 my first week, I went into panic mode. I started shamelessly promoting myself. I was willing to take any shift for anyone. (A huge thank you to a girl named Ali. I've never met you, but you have graciously sent 15 hours my way!) And once the big bosses saw that I wasn't dumb, that I did know stuff, and that I did work hard, I started getting scheduled even more than the 15-20 hours I was hoping for. My strategy? Work my ass off. Work like I'm worth more than (barely above) minimum wage and work like I'm being paid more (even though I'm not). I guess that is a good strategy for any job. I hope.