Category: News

Why do people queue so early for Easyjet flights??

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It’s quite a simple pondering today, but one which genuinely puzzles me. It just so happens that I have travelled on 6 Easyjet flights in the last 3 weeks so have had plenty of time to observe this phenomenon. For those who are frequent travellers on the Orange Airline, they will perhaps remember that in days gone by there was no seat allocation on their planes, and it was a simple case of ‘First come, First served’. Therefore people threw away their manners, extended their sharp elbows and shoved their way to the front of the queue in order to board the plane first, and consequently get ‘the best seat’.  This I can sympathise with, as some passengers prefer the window, some the aisle, others the front of the plane and so on.

However, this is no longer the case. When booking an Easyjet flight all passengers are now allocated a seat on the plane as part of the booking process. Couples or families are cleverly placed on seats together, hence avoiding this mad rush for the ‘best seats’. I believe there is even a system to choose your seats for an extra cost if passengers so desire, therefore if a long legged traveller is desperate for the emergency exit seat, then they have this option.

So just to reiterate, it makes absolutely NO difference at what time you board that plane, your seat is there waiting for you, empty until you grace it with your bottom. Whether you get on that plane first or last, you will spend your journey in the same seat.

So why, may I ask, is there a snaking queue from the boarding gate long before the flight has even been called to board? Clearly it makes no difference to my journey, I just sit comfortably in my seat in the waiting room until there is no more queue, then board the flight with the few remaining passengers and head straight for my seat. But WHY do people feel the need to queue for SUCH a long time, when it makes not the slightest difference to their flying experience? And it’s not just on the occasional flight, it’s EVERY one! Flying from Nice to Geneva last week there were people queuing from easily an hour before the flight had even started to board; standing in a queue for over an hour, when they could have been sitting comfortably in a nearby seat reading their newspaper.

This is something that genuinely puzzles me and I can’t think of any reason why it happens other than that in our society people just feel the need to queue! But doesn’t everybody hate queuing? I certainly do, and will do anything in my power to avoid it.

I have no doubt that this will continue to happen and it will continue to amuse me. Long live the hapless queuer!

Queuing for the sake of queuing?
Queuing for the sake of queuing?

Should you move for the job or the place?

sharonwraywriting13 Comments

Only once have I moved somewhere to follow a job, and that was as a young newly qualified teacher who needed year of experience under my belt, so for the sake of ten months it didn’t really matter to me where I went. It was pretty dull, but a means to an end and since then I would never dream of moving somewhere I hadn’t chosen purely to follow a job. I’ve always lived in places that I want to live, places that I chose. But I’m very aware that this isn’t really the norm. Almost everyone you meet is where they are because either them or their partner has followed a job. I guess to most this seems like an obvious life choice, go where you can earn money, but it strikes me as surprising how highly people place jobs and careers on their list of priorities, and I’m intrigued as to why more people don’t consider where they would like to be and their quality of life as a lot more important. Indeed an astonishing number of people you meet have reached retirement having lived in a mediocre town that they simply tolerated rather than enjoyed, for the majority of their working lives. A two week holiday once a year is their only chance to escape to somewhere they enjoy. Fifty weeks of slog for two weeks of reward just doesn’t seem enough to me.

When I moved back to the Alps many years ago and got a teaching job, I lost track of the amount of new colleagues who asked me “So is your husband working here?” And oh the strange and bewildered looks I got for saying that no, my husband didn’t have a job here, I had chosen to move here!

Of course there are the obvious drawbacks to simply following your desires, and being reckless often doesn’t work out for the best, but sometimes I wonder whether people focus too much on money, jobs and careers, and forget that their own happiness also counts. How many people stop and consider whether they actually like living where they do? Or have they just grown accustomed to it, and aren’t brave enough to think about changing? I spend a lot of time considering these things, and like to think that I’ve found a healthy balance. I love my job, and could be doing exactly the same thing in a place I hate, but instead I chose to explore my options, and I discovered to my delight that there was a way of doing what I love, in a place I love.

My thoughts are, you only live once, so make the most of it…

New book for the Chamonix Book Club!

sharonwraywriting8 Comments

The new book has been chosen; this time a non-fiction. A far cry from The Book Thief, the new choice is ‘It’s not about the bike’, by Lance Armstrong. This was an interesting choice by one of the group who was a huge fan of the 7 time Tour de France winner, and is interested to see how people’s opinions may have changed since he was exposed as a drugs cheat. Does his cheating completely cancel out any success he ever had? Or is what he achieved still impressive despite now knowing what he did?

We shall find out!

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First non fiction choice for the Chamonix Book Club

Rainy places, what a difference the weather makes…

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No-one likes the rain, but we all deal with it and try not to complain too much, especially  those who live in unfortunately wet parts of the world. I’ve often said that despite the UK being a beautiful country, with some wonderful places and great people, I could never live there again because of the constantly awful weather! It’s true that in some places the rain is a welcome break, but I’d hazard a guess that for most people, heavy skies and incessant rain is purely just an inconvenience that has to be endured until the sun reappears.

I’ve never before really stopped to think about the profound impact that grim, dreary weather can have on your enjoyment and your overriding memory of a new place. For example, a couple of years ago I visited Canada for the first time, and thought it was a wonderful country. After travelling around and enjoying the whole experience, I ended up visiting Banff, on what happened to be the most grey, rainy and ultimately miserable day of my trip. Having initially intended to stay for a few days, after a few hours of aimlessly wandering around the small town in torrential rain, with nothing to do but duck in and out of souvenir shop after souvenir shop, I decided that Banff was so dire that I left the next day. I didn’t catch even the slightest glimpse of the glorious mountains for which it is so well known, and therefore my enduring memory of this little alpine town is miserable and wet. It’s is such a shame, but there is nothing we can do to control the weather, and it is virtually impossible to imagine what a place like that would be like when the clouds clear and the sun comes out.

On a similar note, I’ve spent the last few days in the Grenoble area of France, with the intention of some sightseeing and skiing. We spent a fantastic day in the city, heading up the historic Bastille and walking around the old town, even watching the local football team playing a match in the evening! We loved Grenoble, and everything that went with it. However, the following day was dreary, rainy and dull, but this didn’t deter us, feeling like this was a good day to head out and explore the surrounding villages. Later in the evening on returning home, we felt unusually despondent, and I could only put it down to the miserable weather. Despite having had a lovely day, full of happy banter and setting the world to rights with our words, we could no longer gaze up and marvel at the stunning mountain scenery and impressively low snow line, instead having to pick our way through muddy puddles and constantly readjust the umbrella.

Everything looks different in the rain, a little greyer and a little sadder, and you have to remind yourself that this would be the case anywhere and you mustn’t let it sway your opinion of a new place. I am certainly going to try my best to not let it obscure my enjoyment of a town or city, going in to it with an open mind and imagining myself there in sunglasses and a pair of flip-flops!

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Don’t let rainy days get in the way of your fun!

Getting away from it all and making the most of bad conditions

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Living in a well known, massively overcrowded ski resort can become trying at times, especially during the school holidays. Being a non native myself I have no grounds to complain about the influx of expats and tourists in Chamonix, however it does nothing to dampen the irritation of never-ending queues wherever you go, from ski lifts to supermarkets, an endless sea of clueless punters trying to make themselves understood and carrying their skis as if they were a transporting a small child.

Couple this with a pitiful amount of snow falling in December, and the winter season was off to a bad start, with many of the pisted areas becoming so hard packed with artificial snow that it was more like ice skating than skiing.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, once you’ve lived somewhere for a while you start to learn how to escape the crowds and find the places that remain quiet and untouched, even in the busiest periods. Having only discovered the joys of ski touring in the last few years, and the pleasure and solitude it brings, I still marvel at how just a small amount of effort uphill can bring the finest rewards. Often the reward you are seeking is that all important powder stash, or the best snow around that can’t be reached from a piste. But sometimes no matter how heard you search, the reality is that the snow is pretty awful everywhere, and the best you can hope for is a day filled with beautiful views, fine company, a good lunch (!) and most of, total avoidance of those icy, crowded pistes, resulting in a long run down with no-one else around (even if it does involve a bum slide at the end!)

Slightly challenging conditions at the end of a long day!
Slightly challenging conditions at the end of a long day!
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Ah, a whole mountain to ourselves…
It should always be fun…

New Year fireworks – a worthwhile expense?

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Without wanting to come across as a miserable party-pooper, having seen the coverage of the 2014 New Year’s Eve celebrations across the world, I can’t help but wonder if this is really the best way a nation’s money could be spent. The London displays on the Thames lasted 11 minutes and cost approximately £1.8million, a mere drop in the ocean compared to Dubai’s performance, which set a Guinness World Record for the World’s Biggest Pyrotechnics Display, at a cost of 6 million USD.

I know it’s only for one night of the year, but following several years of financial crisis and disastrous unemployment, blowing almost 2 million pounds on an 11 minute party seems a fairly extravagant way of throwing money away, as surely that money could have been put to better use?

I’m all for public displays and bringing nations and communities together, but I can’t help but wonder how it would be viewed if the Mayor of London decided that next year there will be no fireworks display, and all the money that would have been spent on it will be donated to charities. I can’t decide whether this would be well received or looked upon with scorn, as someone who simply wanted to ruin everyone’s fun. After all, how much difference would it really make to the 50,000 revellers if there were no fireworks to welcome in the new year, just a massive party instead? Would anyone notice?

That said, it has been suggested that the general public love fireworks so much that it actually makes financial sense to create a huge display, as it can enormously boost economic activity in the city. Perhaps this is true, who knows what the true economics are behind a NYE celebration?

I’d say it’s unlikely that we’ll see Boris Johnson making such a suggestion next year, and no doubt we’ll see an even bigger and more spectacular display. Or perhaps he’ll see this post and make some radical decisions… Watch this space…!

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A worthwhile expense?

Jobs for life?

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A recent pondering of mine has been considering how important it is to stay in the same job for a prolonged period of time. It strikes me that looking only as far back as one generation, people took a job following the end of their studies and generally stayed in that job or at least in that field of work, through good times and bad until retirement.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. People move from job to job at an alarming rate and will happily change careers late in to their adult lives, often to something radically different from their previously chosen path. A recent study by the Daily Mail found that as many as 1 in 3 people now remain in a job for less than 2 years. It is now not uncommon to come across people who graduated, worked their way up in a related career path, but then 10 years later chose to return to their studies and re-train as something entirely different. So it is clear that times are certainly a-changing, and moving jobs appears to be becoming much more acceptable, but is this shift in work and occupations a positive move, showing that we are becoming a more diverse and skilled workforce, or should we be harking back to our ancestors and showing more commitment when taking on a new job? Is there anything wrong with changing careers and adding new skills to a CV, or does this show a lack of commitment  and an inability to persevere with a chosen occupation?

Indeed the chances of meeting someone today who has been in the same job for 30 years is rare to the point of obsolete. It is far more likely that you will meet a 30 year old who has worked in 6 different  jobs and is already on their 3rd or 4th career. But although this is entirely different from the mindset of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations, it appears that this diversity is a quality that some employers now respect and actively seek when recruiting new staff, as it shows experience and a thirst for learning. 17 is  certainly a young age to be choosing a university course that will set you up with a career for life, and with this in mind, it hardly comes as a surprise that a huge number of graduates have changed their minds by the time they collect their certificate, and end up pursuing further education in a different direction, or embarking on a career that bears no relevance to the course they studied for 3 years.

But which path is the best to take? Or does it vary from person to person? Many prefer the security of a job for life, or at least a job for a reasonable amount of time, as with it comes the stability of a secure monthly income, plus all the social and comforting benefits that come with staying in the same job year after year. And when I see people that are happily in their 5th or 6th year doing the same job, with no plans to change, I almost envy their contentment, as I am one of the breed that suffers from itchy feet, and feels the need to move on after a couple of years, always looking for the next challenge.

Perhaps the rise in popularity of the gap year is to blame for this shift in attitudes to work. Gaining valuable life experience is becoming more and more desirable, and indeed many employers are now favouring this experience over an academic qualification. It can be said that those who go straight in to employment following university have no real life experience, having only lived as students, compared to those who may well be younger, but may also have a year of travelling, independent living and experience under their belts. The need to explore and see the world is leading to more and more workers requesting sabbaticals, and specifically taking roles which allow them to travel.

Of course no-one can be criticised for the way they choose to live their life, and equally, no-one has the right to say one way of tackling the world of work is more acceptable than another. We all change and develop as we get older, and for some this means growing with their job, perhaps progressing up through the company, or moving in to a different department. For others this may mean deciding and wondering what’s next, and feeling the need to move on. Either of these options are fine, as long as they are made with an open mind, and are chosen for the right reasons. A 9-5 working week with 25 days holiday a year isn’t for everyone, but then again nor is a life spent on the road with only a 60 litre backpack full of trusty supplies to your name. It seems that frequently changing jobs is simply what the majority of people do these days, which doesn’t necessarily make it any more sensible or recommended, but just shows that there is now a plethora of options, rather than simply having to follow the prescribed formula of making a career decision early on and sticking to it.

I say you only live once, so be sensible and give it some thought, but ultimately, ignore social pressure, make your own decisions for the right reasons, and do what you want!

Do I need to decide now?
Do I need to decide now?
Related articles

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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We have chosen our new book for the Chamonix Book Club! After much deliberation ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak was chosen. It was my turn to choose this time and I eventually decided on The Book Thief because I thought it was an original concept having the story narrated by Death, and more than anything I’m interested to see how the story is written. Having now seen the size of the book I’m a little nervous! We may possibly have to   push the prospective date back to allow everyone to read it! Stay posted to find out what we think of it, and let me know your own thoughts on the book.

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