Dear all Another trip to
Redmond, this time for one of a series of “Learning Summits” which brings together learning and development people from around the world. One of the benefits of this part of Washington is that the climate is virtually identical as that of
London, making it very easy to pack the right clothes. In February the weather was very similar, though the temperatures slightly colder (0-2C in London,-5 to -2C in
Redmond. 

At the airport I picked up the standard forms for entering the
US at check in and began to complete them. I was very surprised to see that the I94-W seemed to have been changed.  You may be thinking “Government changes form” is hardly exciting, but the I94-W is possibly the most curious I have come across (this is English understatement).  

If you come from the right country you can complete this visa waiver form and enter the
US without a visa. The form has a detachable slip which is stapled into your passport and removed when you check in to leave the country, so they have evidence you didn’t stay illegally. Don’t ever forget to have this collected as failure to do so can lead to arrest next time you try to enter- I have a friend who experienced this. The form seems to ask for the same information multiple times, but the crowning glory consists of the questions on the back where you have to tick “yes” or “no”, The right answer is always “no”. 

Question A ends “are you a drug abuser or addict?”.(tick yes or no)  Question B “Have you ever been arrested or convicted for a crime involving moral turpitude or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?” 

I have abbreviated but there’s a lot more in the full question. I wonder  which crimes are deemed not to involve moral turpitude, or how many speakers (including native English speakers) know what turpitude means. I also wonder how many potential criminals are caught out by the cunning end to the question. 

Question C in full. “Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecution associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?” 

Unless my memory plays me false they have removed a question which said something like “Are you planning to overthrow the
US government; or assassinate the President (yes or no). There is a story (possibly urban legend), that the late Peter Ustinov on reading this question, ticked “yes” and added the words “sole purpose of visit”. 

 I am not that brave (or famous). I spent some time speculating why they had removed this question. Maybe some people had lied when answering this one. How unscrupulous. 

Another gem is at the bottom of the form with a section “Public Reporting Burden”. This tells you that the time taken to process the form has been calculated as 6 minutes, comprising two minutes to understand and four to complete.  I think most people spend more than two minutes figuring out what turpitude means, and I’ve often wondered why this data is considered important. You can even write to two government agencies (addresses are there) with suggestions on how to minimise the reporting burden. Government at its leanest. 

Otherwise nondescript outward trip, except that my taxi driver from the airport was a mountainous Sikh, who would have made a great ceremonial guard, he looked so statuesque. Checked in at the Hyatt, usual meal and ready to face the next day. My driver this time was Mikhail, a cheery guy from
Chernobyl. When I talked to him he told me that after the nuclear failure he’d figured that it would be good idea to move (smart guy).  

He was very complimentary about the
US and its economic and political stability. One thing that surprised me was that his English, though serviceable, was still less than fluent after 15 years. On other trips I was taken by his brother Ivan, younger and with the same stilted English. The learning event was opened with a  speech from a professor Morgan McCall, very big in US academic circles. I may have been unlucky as Morgan had worked a lot with Sun, so it was memory lane for me as he showed the same deck of slides (even the jokes were recycled). 

The content from previous events had been really good- this one was more variable. One lowlight was a highly introverted presenter who went into overdrive, speaking at a rate that as a native speaker I was struggling to follow. I looked at the complete blank faces of my non native speaking colleagues…..¦.. The highlight of the event was for me a team game we had to play at the end. You may have seen a variation on this played with Lego. The idea is that you are given some planning time and the proviso that you have to build the tallest tower you can that will stand freely for 30 seconds. You can practice during the planning period, but all materials have to be disassembled and you have to build from scratch with 3 minutes to assemble. In this version we had  thin plastic strips  with nuts and bolts. We had to go first. Our assembly was well planned and executed, but after completion we came to see the purpose of the 30 second rule. After about 20 seconds  our tower buckled under its weight. 

It was interesting to see the other groups radically change their designs as they saw our experience. The debrief was interesting, as most people saw it as a metaphor for the way we design our real life projects, over-engineering things to the point of collapse. I think they are right, and would extend the metaphor to our HR community.   Dinner on the last night was interesting. I dined with a French colleague. Initially we joined another colleague in a bar for drinks, but went on to eat alone as we had a forthcoming event to discuss. Finding any restaurant that isn’t full to capacity in
Bellevue on Friday evening is an impossibility. In the end we settled on a South-West/Mexican restaurant called “Z Tejas” (
Texas I guess?).. Those of you who remember my chat with Nathan and the (definitely not Inuit) Eskimo some months previously will recall that the Eskimo guy was the manager of this restaurant. This leads me to
Gary’s self evident travel proverb number 1. 

• Never eat at a Mexican restaurant run by an Eskimo

Yes, I should have known. The start wasn’t great. We arrived and were told there would be a wait, and handed a small electronic paging device to take with us. (When you are paged this goes off like something out of “Close Encounters” and it buzzes, lights up and vibrates all at the same time.  A brief altercation with the bartender, as I wanted to add the drinks to the bill at the table. I was originally told this was impossible, but by surrendering a credit card and a couple of human  hostages I was allowed to do this. 

My French colleague (rather characteristically) went for real junk food- cheeseburger etc. They were rather good at this (French intuition I guess). I went for quesadillas and burritos, which were awful. Next day (Saturday) I tried to kill some time at the mall as my flight out was in the evening. There was really very little to do as all of the shops sold things I was not remotely interested in. I bought a long coffee and watched the world go by 

. I was particularly struck by a guy about seventy who came in. His ensemble of Bermuda shorts, black footless dancing tights, white sports socks and open toed sandals was I am sure very thermally effective, but I feel is still a long way from the catwalk, though if Jean-Paul Gaultier is reading this I claim copyright. On my way to lunch I passed a promotional stand for a local radio station (KUBE). I asked the lady there if I could buy a T shirt for my son. “Oh no, you have to win it” she said. “What do I have to do to win it?” I asked. “Tell us the frequency of KUBE Seattle” she said. 

 “93FM” I said with confidence. “That’s amazing” she said, “are you a listener? You sound like a Brit”. 

“Just an idea” I said, “but you can make the competition a little stiffer by covering up the one you are wearing- make it a bit harder for people who can read”.  This is the beauty of the diffident  apologetic English accent- you can say things like this and not get beaten to a pulp for being a smart guy. (When I took the T shirt home to my son he looked at it with the disdain he might have shown, had I offered him a ballet tutu to wear). 

Lunch in a bar restaurant. On walking the streets it was clear that the whole town was football mad. The local American Football team (the Seattle Seahawks) were in the final of one of the two leagues and hence one game away from the “Superbowl”. The entire town , with the exception of our sartorial pioneer (and me) were dressed in Seahawks baseball caps and replica shirts. It felt like something out of 1984.  When I got to the bar it was already packed, and clearly many of the guys in there had already drunk enough to ensure that by the kick off they would have no idea who was who (If that’s you and you are reading this,
Seattle won). 

Back to
Seattle airport to discover another security measure. In addition to taking the remainder of your I-94, you now have to go to a machine, swipe your passport, give fingerprints and have your picture taken (you have had to do this for a while on entry, now you have to prove you are the same person leaving as the one  who came in). I reflected that the Department of Homeland Security has more recent photos of me than all other people on earth put together. Must cost them a fortune in photo frames, but I hope the pictures cheer up their desks. Nice to think you might be brightening up Dick Cheney’s life. Anyway if you need a recent picture of me you know where to go. 

The flight back was the main event. It all looked so normal, we boarded on time, it was looking good, and then, on comes the captain with a cheery voice. I knew we were doomed. You will recall that the temperatures were just below freezing in
Seattle. The captain’s announcement went approximately: 

“We have a little bit of a problem”, he said. (“We are really doomed” I thought). “Unfortunately when we landed the plane was refuelled rather full”, he continued . “When the engine is switched on the fuel expands as it warms up. When the main tank is overfull it overflows into spare tanks in the wings . If these are overfull then valves open in the wing and the fuel is dumped. Unfortunately we are overfull and fuel is being dumped on the tarmac. We will have to wait until the dumping stops and the fire department clean up the mess before we can leave. Please don’t be alarmed by the many fire trucks surrounding the plane, but please leave your safety belts unfastened.”. “Great” I thought, “I’m sitting inside a bomb”. 

Anyway we sat there for several hours with an array of fire trucks blinking around us. Stressed, moi? I spent the time dreaming up ways of torturing whoever refuelled our plane.  The attendants in Club were trying to placate the frustrated passengers with drinks. Due to BA rules, cabin crew in Club can only serve soft drinks or champagne before take off. Two guys on the other side of the aisle were trying to get their compensation in champagne. Take off was over 3 hours late. By the time we had levelled off and the cabin service began it was virtually midnight.  

This led to a very interesting phenomenon. Particularly after the delay the cabin crew were trying to rescue the situation by being over attentive with food and drink etc. Normally this would be great but after midnight I really only wanted to sleep and had trouble persuading my cabin attendant that no I did not want a main course, dessert, cheese, liqueur, nor to be woken by him any more times. Eventually when I begged hard enough he agreed to cease the force feeding. Landed 4 hours late in a miserable
London, and my troubles were not over. 

For ten years now I have always used a particular cab company to and from the airport. The guy who runs it is called Paul, and we have become firm friends.  I used to use companies at random, but when I first used him he established a unique selling proposition.  

It was just a few things. He came at the agreed time, his car was clean and it worked, he wasn’t a rabid psychopath or white supremacist, didn’t have offensive body odour, didn’t try to convert me to the Baha’i faith, he didn’t ask me for an advance on the fare so he could buy the petrol to get there. It’s the little things that single you out.  My driver that day was due to be Dennis. Dennis is a lovely retired guy who hides his niceness under a grumpy exterior. I have a standing joke with him that it’s Paul’s way of letting me know I’ve upset him when Dennis gets sent. Don’t know what happened but I had him paged and no show. After an hour I gave up and trudged off to get a bus home. Arrived home at 6pm on Sunday evening (5 hours late). Sometimes it’s just not your day.