The Jet Lag Diary

Why long-haul business trips are not as fun as they should be

“AIRLINE TRAFFIC RISES as business travelers return to the skies,” a news report said. It’s true. Despite all our pleadings on behalf of the environment, thousands of business people are once more being assigned to take long journeys for short meetings.

I’m writing this from a hotel, where I have just arrived on a business trip after a day’s flying.

Today, I am going to share some notes from my personal diary.
*
Morning: Fly from Asia to Europe.

Evening: Met by host, who takes me to a sausage stall for a snack.

My watch says midnight: I’m asleep on my feet.

But my host looks at HER watch. For her, it’s 7 pm. Time for my first gig. She throws me on stage where 300 people are waiting for me to be at my sparkling, witty best. I fail to be. No one seems to notice.
*
Later, I doze in the dressing room.

My watch says 2 am.

My host’s watch says 9 pm.

“Time for the next show,” she says. She flings me back onto the stage.

I don’t remember what happened next, but I probably said something, because an hour or so later, the audience applauded, waking me up.
*
By now I’m so tired that every time I blink, I actually fall into a deep sleep for 0.7 of a second. In this rather episodic dream I am naked in a sausage market. As I’m wheeled to the sausage-slicing machine, I wake up sweating.
*
After my third gig, my watch says 6.30 am. I look like Keith Richards warmed up. I search for somewhere to sleep. The ground is starting to look really welcoming.

My hostess says: “You can’t go to sleep NOW. You have to have an after-show drink with the organizer. It’s very important.”

So I go drink with the organizer. Did you know that a person can sit in a bar with his eyes open while having a lucid dream involving a flight attendant and a sausage-slicer? To my companions, I was perfectly normal, expect for the swaying, the mumbling and the regular bloodcurdling screams, which they were polite enough to ignore.
*
An hour later, I finally get back to the hotel and fling myself onto my bed. That’s when my alarm clock goes off. It’s morning in Asia. My body and brain revive.

So instead of sleeping, I look up “jet lag” on Google News. “Frequent Jet Lag kills Mice,” says the headline of a new study by Finland's National Institute for Health and Welfare. It doesn’t say how the mice came to have jet lag, but I assume they were some sort of rodent business travelers.
*
Anyway, the next 24 hours were an almost exact repeat of the first.

The third day was different. I FINALLY switched to European time. “Hooray: my jet lag is over,” I tell my hostess.

She reminds me that my visit is also over.

She sends me to the airport. I fly back to Asia knowing what will meet me at the other end: yes, another bout of jetlag, but this time the other way round.

Tormented rodents have scientists to worry about how they are coping with jet lag.

Tormented business travelers suffer alone.
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Some sleepy ideas:

The Pillow Wig by Joo Youn Paek
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The upright bed by Ernesto Neto
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Ad by Harry’s Bread
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Technorati Tags: jet lag,business travel

Comments

[Christyn Rana]

My brother once prayed over his food and dozed off before he could open his eyes and say bon apppetite. A new experience with a young teen all drowzy at a food outlet in broad daylight and a smack to the back of his head from his sister (me).

[TS]

I have the perfect solution for avoiding jet lag.
unfortunately it relies on a reliable method of putting people in stasis, which we do not yet poses.*

Say you need to give a speech in New York on a specific date at 17:00 (that's 5pm to you civilians).
The day before the Human Couriers turn up at your door, at 17:00 precisely they put you into stasis and transport your unconscious body to the airport and fly you to your destination. Once there, they wake you up exactly at 17:00.
While 24 hours have passed while you were moved across the world in planes, trains and auto-mobiles (not to mention lifts...), for you the trip was instantaneous.
No jet lag whatsoever.

Further more, if people are unconscious, you can pretty much treat them like luggage and stack them from floor to ceiling in the air planes... I know, I know, very much like it happens now, but you should be spared the rubber gloves.

*Some preliminary experiments I performed, involving a coconut and a big mallet, made me realise that I should leave the stasis part to other people.

[Judyjudyjudy]

It sounds to me like you have the very worst combination of events. If you fly east to west NEVER agree to evening or late night events. They will kill you. They will be at exactly the worst time for your body clock: early hours of the night through till morning.

If you fly west to east, never agree to morning events, for the same reason. It seems to me that what you did, Mr Jam, was fly east to west for evening gigs, followed by going west to east and returning to being witty in the mornings. Precisely the worst combination.

[Lift Lurker]

@TS, stasis scientist and hologram scientist are racing to develop competing solution.

Would you trust Microsoft Stasis 1.0?

Or Disney International Hologram Projector 1.0 (some bugs can cause you to look like Donald Duck in your speech, but only every few moments)

[Lift Lurker]

Actually making speech oversea through holographic projector is still very risky.

I found list of bugs from software company doing that thing. They do not tell their customers.

- Linda Blair bug - sometimes speakers head slowly rotate 360 degrees for no reason.

- Sometimes the speakers clothes are not displayed. Speaker appears clothesless while making speech.

- Erratic problem: When speaker sneezes, the pants appear to fly away.

- Synchronicity: Sometimes only the speakers head is projected - there is no body

- Floating head: Sometimes the speakers head will float around in room separate from body

- Voice modulation problem: After 10 minutes, sometime the speakers voice will sound like Darth Vader

- Hong Kong movie effect : Sometimes voice lag behind mouth movement.

- Giantism effect: For unknown reason sometimes projection will magnify 2,000%. and speaker's head is as big as the whole room. When speaker opens mouth, everyone in audience is scared of being eaten alive.

- Zombie: sometimes the speaker's eyes do not project. They will appear as empty cavities.

[rafanjr]

...this is one of the posts that talk about the perils of the aviation industry. Ruining your body clock is indeed troublesome but despite its effects, the human body is able to endure...given enough cajoling from insensitive hostess'. These are some things you can do while you are still on a jet lag... (just for the fun of it and does not have anything scientific about it)

1. Eat breakfast according to the time from the country you came from. In Nury's case He should have been eating eggs, bacon, toast,and coffee when his organizers were having their after-show cocktails.
2. Bring an animal with you and test if jetlag does kill animals... try a bird (not the migratory type since these are frequent fliers) or a fish or an alligator or any animal you think can ellude airport security.
3. Look for a coffee shop (if there is one)that do intravenous coffee contraption. Or better yet make one, buy a dextrose from a pharmacy, replace the liquid with several cups of espresso and ask a nurse to inject the needle in your wrist.
4. Date a pilot, they know what to do with a jet lag... if you are the experimenting type... try dating a migratory bird, they are of the same type as the pilot anyway.
5. Stay in the airport untill the jet lag wears-off... there are so many things you can do in airport these days... try dancing or marching in the tarmac.

[grandpa]

Uncle
I wrote a nice two-page comment about jet lag from my office computer , but "your" webmaster rejected it....... twice..
Hum
Or is s Lift Lurker censoring my comments?

[Lift Lurker]

grandpa, i did not censor it. I use to have same problem so from now on i never type directly into comment box in case the 'Post' button doesn't work.

I write in pencil first. Then i type in comment box. If submit fails, then i have backup and I can type in again. It pay to be tech savvy.

[grandpa]

@ Lift Lurker

Thanks for the tip.
I typed it in my office computer, but it is in my daytime job, on the other side of the road

I have to wait for the sun to raise to post my comments back .
Nothing is perfect, not even in Paradise.
But , on the other hand,the advantage of having two jobs , day and night allows me to travel to Asia and be work-ready , as soon as I step down the plane.

[Irene]

I love the stand up bed and the pillow wig! They should open stores selling these stuff at all major airports. And knowing how businessmen always want the latest gadgets (not always really understanding all the functions) the bed can be a hit AND you don't really need to understand so much of it's functions.

Somewhat impractical though... maybe the airline will make you pay for the seat next to you, as you'll be taking up some space all around. But hey, if overly obese people can board a flight with buying only one seat, then there's room for testing the rules' boundaries. Anyone flying soon?

[grandpa]

totally unrelated but......
who knows!

[TS]

I too hate it when the robo-censor swallows your comment just because you use a more jazzy word for bottom or bosom.

I have taken to using an old time type writer with five sheets of carbon paper under the main sheet.
With that many carbon copies you really gotta punch those key, but I take pride in the fact that I not only achieve a solid number of backups, but also that I tie up some carbon and thereby reducing my carbon footprint.
I put one copy in the basement, another on the attic and one under my bed. I wanted the remaining two copies to be stored in the garden shed, but I don't have a shed so I just put them in the garden never to be seen again. I guess they must blow away or something...
I must admit that it does kill the spontaneity a bit, but that's a small price to pay for the feeling of security when you hit that "post" button.

[Chamin]

My method of avoiding jet lag; taking morning flights after playing Mario Cart all night :-p. This works perfectly for trips between Japan and Europe(okay, so long as I am single :-p).

For the USA, just think of Airport security or immigration and you are not sleepy anymore.

[grandpa]

Uncle
You make me laugh soooooo much;
"Jet lag" ,
Do you mean that you were lagging behind a jet ?!?
"after a day’s flying."
You should have known better than to buy a ticket on "Rubber Powered Airlines"
"As I’m wheeled to the sausage-slicing machine"
This is what we can call a "wakeup call", being a man , naked in front of a sausage slicing machine.
ouch
This is not a dream , this is a nightmare
"That’s when my alarm clock goes off"
You must be out of your mind to travel with your alarm clock

[fardel]

My tips on how to avoid jet lag

- travel by elevators;
At the speed at which they move, you will have plenty time to adjust to time differences

- Buy a ticket with FAST AIRWAYS
- Take a direct flight :
In aviation slang it is called "non-stop" flight

[fardel]

My tips on how to avoid jet lag

- travel by elevators;
At the speed at which they move, you will have plenty time to adjust to time differences

- Buy a ticket with FAST AIRWAYS
- Take a direct flight :
In aviation slang it is called "non-stop" flight

- Choose a seat where you can stretch your legs
- Knock yourself out with the free hard liquors which come with your ticket
- You will just have to get rid of the hangover when you arrive
A cold shower will wake you up in no time ( in case of flight to Europe a rain shower would do the job better)

- And finally when you sleep, you are supposed to sleep , not to dream about flight attendants...
- Arrive one day early without telling anybody.
- That gives you plenty time to sleep ( with a flight attendant if she wishes)

[fardel]

- Before you choose your flight read the flight time ; the shorter time means the airplane flies faster; or that the airline has the direct route

[fardel]

sorry guys
I posted my comments in pieces
I am still missing some , which Mr Censor does not want me to post

[Minkha]

I like coming back from Asia to the West. I have no problems getting up at 6 am and the day is so much longer! But I do feel for you, Mr Jam. And all the other business travellers. And flight attendants... With my blood pressure frequent long-distance flying would kill me within a year.
I did a lot of travelling for work for about 3 years - only within Europe; but it still affected my health.
My advice to frequent flyers: drink water, avoid alcohol and caffeine when you're most tired and go for a swim when you get to your destination.

[grandpa]

- Before you choose your flight, read the flight time .
the shorter time means the airplane flies faster;
or the airline has the right to fly the direct route
CHIP AIRWAYS flies cheaper , but cannot fly directly over the polar cap like FAST AIRWAYS

[grandpa]

Hey guys and girls
After two full days and night, I found out what word censors my comments on these columns.
would it be because of aviation security people , unhappy about Uncle's comments against aviation?!?
Otherwise I do not understand
Can somebody explain ?
C
H
E
A
P

[TS]

No no no... Don't you know that you can't use THAT word here?
This side represents class, style and good taste fart-sound... Uh oh... Pardon me...

Joke aside, it's probably the most used word by spam promoting virility enhancers and other dubious products.

[Lift Lurker]

I am still missing some

Grandpa, lost some luggage again? Maybe they land on a different website?

[grandpa]

"Maybe they land on a different website?"
This cannot be.
This is the only website I am addicted to.