Alternatives to flying

[expat]

I must say that Monday morning's flight had the hand baggage overhead lockers filled as they should be: i.e. no travelling wardrobes stuffed in and waiting to fall on my head in the event of a bumpy landing. But this BBC comment made me wonder how many risks there are:

So if any lessons are to be drawn from the drama of United 923, one must be that the airlines and security agencies have plans in place to handle even the merest hint of a threat.

But the mere fact that those plans exist - and that they were put into operation to deal with a 59-year-old woman with a tube of hand cream - must make one wonder if the current generation will ever again be able to regard air travel as simply a quick and easy means of getting from one place to another.

So can I contract in Europe, live in the UK, and not have to do this all the time?

[AtW]

Very high levels of security is here to stay - now that it was made public that <2 liter of liquid explosives can be used to blow up plane, the cells that were not aware of this possibility will be digging into it and waiting time when its possible to smuggle it on board.

[expat]

Very high levels of security is here to stay

I agree. As I said before, I remember when you could walk straight on a plane (in fact in the 70s British Caledonian operated a service from London to Glasgow where you could walk on the plane and buy your ticket once on board). That went with the PLO and never came back. Blades went with Al Qaeda (bye Swiss Army knife) and will never come back. Carrying on luggage for a week is going and will never come back. Flying will just be more of a pig than ever, not to mention more dangerous, and more costly again with airports passing on higher security charges on one side, and governments discouraging air travel for economic and environmental reasons on the other.

I'm thinking it's time to give up the weekly commute.

[expat]

Indeed.

If they didn't know about liquid explosives before...

No one mention mercury...

Sh*t, you can't get mercury any more. My classic cameras are all running with no meter, because you can't even buy button-sized mercury batteries.

[AtW]

Well, I hope this would encourage more teleworking - there are many professions where physical presense is not necessary: it is amazing how roads can be unjammed only because they have 20-25% less traffic (like when kids dont have to go to school).

I don't know how much they pay you, but they'd have to pay me a truckload of money in order to take risk of flying every week (and in that I don't even factor terrorist risk) - I am not sure £1000 per day would convince me to do it at all.

[expat]

Well, I hope this would encourage more teleworking - there are many professions where physical presense is not necessary: it is amazing how roads can be unjammed only because they have 20-25% less traffic (like when kids dont have to go to school).

I don't know how much they pay you, but they'd have to pay me a truckload of money in order to take risk of flying every week - I am not sure £1000 per day would convince me to do it at all.

But surely with pure teleworking you can only get the Bangalore basic wage?

[AtW]

But surely with pure teleworking you can only get the Bangalore basic wage?

No I don't think so - being teleworker puts extra requirement on being very competent and understand very well what was MEANT when expressed by words with fewer meetings and chance to chat it over at the coffee machine.

There seems to be reliasation that Indian IT dev is not that good at all, what's good cheap price if you get crap that you can't sell? As my mother likes to say - we are too poor to buy cheap crap.

[expat]

No I don't think so - being teleworker puts extra requirement on being very competent and understand very well what was MEANT when expressed by words with fewer meetings and chance to chat it over at the coffee machine.

There seems to be reliasation that Indian IT dev is not that good at all, what's good cheap price if you get crap that you can't sell? As my mother likes to say - we are too poor to buy cheap crap.

Nice idea AtW. Any agents here who would like to tell me how many teleworking contracts they've got on the Siebel technical side? I can tell you how many I found when I did a search, for "telework" or "teleworking" and no other keyword.

[VectraMan]

So can I contract in Europe, live in the UK, and not have to do this all the time?

Apparently there's something called a "car", that can travel to Europe either in a big train through a tunnel that somebody has built, or on a big boat called a "ferry".

[AtW]

Siebel is supposed to be popular, can't you get job in the UK? Surely quality of life and less risk to such life should take priority over certain level of earnings?