My
time working is spent in a lab, with subject matter experts, lab managers, and
lab technicians. The SMEs know the content, the mangers schedule the resources,
the technicians perform the test. I’m here to document the tests with a
handheld Sony and a reasonably steady hand, assuming my evening prior held an
umbrella, and after scripting, recording, and editing, produce an on-the-job
video reference guide along with a platform for international lab communication
and discussion. I’ve done some of these back in Northbrook, and I want to show
the entire team, the half dozen lab techs, two managers, and two SMEs, along
with my ULU colleague, what I’ve done, and what I expect out of them at this
morning kickoff meeting in a conference room that is less than accommodating.
I
talk for seven plus or minus two minutes and show a short snippet of something
I’ve created in the past, pausing for explanation and emphasis. My goal:
simple, pressure-less scenarios where we stage very little. My role is that of
a documenter, not videographer. I introduce myself, my role, my history, and my
future. I’m received with wide eyes and cognizant reactions, with head nods and
smiles, with understanding and eagerness. I’m dressed well, impressed with my
speech of sorts, and feeling like I owned the room. I figure I’ve just kicked
this week off to such high levels of production that people will wonder if it
was two people sent across the Pacific and not just one, even though the flight
from Chicago flies up through Wisconsin, across Canada, north of Alaska, steers
just clear of the North Pole, then slides back down the globe, comes within an
earshot of Japan, and finally comes to rest in the south of China.
This
is where my world gets shifted. I glance over to my host from UL University,
who, in the matter of seconds, deflates all momentum I ever dreamed I built.
‘Chris,
do you mind if I translate what you said?’ What?
I
literally talked at a group of twelve people sitting around a small conference
table, grinning like an idiot, for seven plus or minus two minutes, and if I
had to assign a percentage to how much, on average, was comprehended, I would
put it at seven plus or minus two percent. How arrogant. How selfish. How
naïve. How honest.
It’s
two week ago. Fall is in full bloom in Chicago, and also in Switzerland. It’s
my first time traveling to Europe. I’ve been to Hong Kong, Macau, and Penang,
Malaysia in the last twelve months, but never crossed the Atlantic. The flight
from Chicago to Zurich actually crosses the Atlantic, but up closer to Iceland.
I’m traveling for work, alone, and the nine hours on a plane are nothing
compared to the fifteen that I’ve graced six different times. A rarely
discussed but highly useful benefit of international travel is that domestic
travel is a breeze. My two weeks of travel before this flight negate the usual
time spent on planning, but my international phone equips me with everything
necessary to get from Zurich to St. Gallen, from St. Gallen to Horn, and from
Horn to my hotel, the Bad Horn Hotel. Or so I think.
I
de-board, make it through customs, and retrieve my luggage, all without
removing my headphones, keeping my recent kick of Childish Gambino flowing. I
know that a train will take me to St. Gallen, so I begin my trek through Zurich
International, following the sign of what I can only assume is a picture of an
engine car. I escalate down a few levels into a massive mall, and down one more
level to a platform. The scene feels familiar. It feels like the Metra. So I
retreat up a level to an automated kiosk that looks to be selling train
tickets. English is an option. I can’t figure out which train line to pick, but
I can search, and I find my place, purchase my ticket, and feel great. Then I
remember where I am. The train ticket comes out in one hundred percent German.
I speak no German. I escalate up, and down, and up, and down, looking for
clues, and wind up clueless. I train pulls in and de-boards, so I ask a
conductor what platform (of four) I need to be on. He says maybe three, not
sure. I walk to 3, less than confident, until I find a timetable. In German. But I
recognize ‘Zurich Flughafen’ as where I’m currently located, and I see St.
Gallen, my destination. Platform 2.
I
board and ride for an hour to St. Gallen, relatively content that I made it
this far. I know I must transfer to a train to get to Horn, and I see another
kiosk. I search, again, by destination, find Horn, purchase ticket, and walk
away. The ticket, if you couldn’t guess, is in German. And absolutely nothing
of it makes sense. The last ticket at least said ‘St. Gallen’ on it. This one
just says ‘Einzelbillett,’ which I’m pretty sure isn’t where I’m going. I also
see the word ‘bus,’ which I guess means bus. I know, I should have been a
detective. Technology-able, I use a translator app on my phone to figure out
that this is an adult ticket for a train or a bus that cost 6.80 Swiss Francs.
There is literally no more information I can glean from this ticket, so I ask
an attendant. She tells me bus, 31. I say bus 31? She says yes, 31.
I
walk outside to see easily two dozen bus route pick-ups. I walk to every one,
and not one 31. Frazzled, I pull my phone back out and check directions,
current location to Bad Horn Hotel, and it tells me to take a bus. Which bus,
doesn’t say. Just take a bus. At 11:31. Ah ha! There’s the 31. I follow a link
to the transit website. I find information that it’s bus number 21016. I don’t
think that’s a route. So I start with ‘210,’ which I saw earlier, walk to the
route, and see on the back of the sign it says ‘Horn.’ I wait ten minutes and
board, showing the bus driver my ticket to his confusion before he allows me
on. Forty minutes later I’m at my hotel and all is well.
The
point of this isn’t that I’m an awesome international travel when forced to
improvise. The point is, in Hong Kong, and in Switzerland, I just assumed
everything would be easy. I assumed everyone could speak English. I assumed
that a foreign traveler would be catered to. I assumed that I shouldn’t have to
plan ahead to get from the airport to a small country-side city 50 miles away.
Then I thought about the alternative.
What
if you were German, traveling to Chicago for the first time?
Your
grasp on the English language was enough to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you.’ You
land at O’hare, terminal 5. You follow signs that say ‘train to the city’ even
though all you’re doing is looking at a picture of a train and hoping for the
best. You have to buy a ticket to board a train, which, luckily, one runs one
direction. You take the blue line towards the city. You’re buzzing by hectic
traffic on 90/94, you’re checking out the buildings in Logan Square, all of a
sudden you’re underground. There’s no end to this train. There’s no final
destination. Looking at the map of the colored lines, you figure you should get
off somewhere in the middle. So you do, and you follow the masses to the
surface. Now you’re in the middle of the tallest buildings you’ve ever seen,
since no building in Munich can be taller than the tallest church peak. You
panic. How do you get to Cary? There’s no station in site. You pull out your
phone. You can see all the train tracks lead to something called ‘Ogilve.’ That
can’t be right. You walk to Union Station, because despite your lack of
knowledge of the English language, Union seems much more American. You try to
buy a ticket, but you don’t know what line to take. You finally ask someone, ‘Cary?’
They say you’re in the wrong building. It takes you 20 minutes just to get back
to the street. You finally buy a ticket for the Northwest Line. Now you enter
an enormous hanger of dozens of tracks, scanning the digital titles, hoping for
a clue. Trains are coming and going faster than you can process, not knowing if
it’s your train or not. More panic. You finally get the courage to ask someone,
and they brush you off because we don’t have time for you. Then, you see it! There’s
a 7 on your ticket, and a 7 up above. You finally board, hoping, as your train
departs, that you guessed correctly, and for 75 minutes you wonder, so this is Chicago?
