The train trip is 1.5 hours, not .75 hours. At least, that's my
experience. The trip back has been eventful, interesting, and odd.
The first clue of a botched trip was easily the traveling
pyramid-scheme sales people who tried to sell to someone who was
clearly not a business man (me). The second clue I had was the ticket
counter telling me I missed my flight. Just after that was the cup of
ashes sold to me by Coffee People, half of the pay-phones working half
the time, no internet access in a town that's supposed to be the best
wireless covered on earth, and the staff of the deli being clearly
uneducated in the workings of a retail point-of-sale system. If you
haven't guessed, I'm annoyed.
I'm on the train now, on my way back to Allison and the Perl 6 Design
meeting. At least I'll have something interesting to do while I wait
till 7:00pm to find out if I can come home tonight. I was just
telling Allison last night that I've been much better in the past year
of not botching trips, but throw that out the window.
This is where impostor syndrome kicks in and I forget that everyone
else is just as imperfect as I am. So instead I'll enjoy the view of
industrial Portland on the east side of the City Center.
I want to take just a minute to talk about these salesman. They are
part of a "personal franchise" convention. There are possibly
thousands of brainwashed salesman here in Portland trying to convince
people that if they start their own private business that's dependent
on the main business, there will be wealth in abundance. They took
the time to tell me that the person who pulled them into "The
Business" can pay cash for a Lexus, has his house paid for, and can
golf anytime he wants. Also, part of "the deal" is that when you
"come into" the franchise you have to help another person "come into"
the franchise, to share the knowledge and wealth. I played nice long
enough to hear all this, and replied with "oh, that's nice" and
"interesting" and so on. They abused me shortly before leaving the
train by assaulting me with their canned sales pitch and contact
information. This was not nice.
Posted from caseywest.com, comment here.
