Work Travel

I've just started packing for a week away at a work conference next week. I had never really been away for work, until I got this job, but after 3 years of regular travel, I've learnt a thing or two about how to pack well.

My top 10 things to pack are:

1. a sleeping mask - because you never know who you'll share a room with, and it's nice to be able to go to sleep when you want, not when everyone else wants
2. your joggers - so you can get some exercise to make up for the huge amounts of artery-clogging food you're offered
3. a packet of paracetamol - headaches always seem to accompany a day of meetings
4. your own pillow - there's nothing like having the comfort of your own pillow to make up for a different bed
5. your phone charger - leaving this at home brings much heartache
6. slippers - there's nothing nicer for the end of a long day or for those early mornings when you're waiting for your turn in the shower
7. a mattress protector - sleeping on a plastic-coated mattress covered in just a sheet is not my idea of luxury
8. something to read - if you get woken up early and you can't get back to sleep, at least you have something to do without having to get out of bed
9. a headlamp or torch - to help you read without disturbing other
10. going out pj's - it's time to leave the daggy t-shirt and shorts or the fancy lingerie at home and pack decent pyjamas that you don't mind being seen in

Now I just have to follow my own advice and make sure I pack it all...

Movie Stars

Have you ever watched a movie with the kids and ended up watching the credits because they've fallen asleep all over you and you can't really be bothered carrying them all to bed just yet?

I'm amazed at how many people it takes to make a movie, and what names they come up with for their jobs. What does a best boy do? Or the key grip? I'm thinking that one has something to do with parking. Surely the second second assistant makes coffee for all the other assistants? But my favourite job is the 'graphics wrangler'. I'm not sure what they do, but I'd look forward to going to work each day with a title like that on my desk.

Have you noticed how you no longer do home duties anymore, you're a domestic engineer. And that a cleaner is now a sanitation consultant. In the last few years there seems to have been a drive to make jobs sound more important. A roo shooter out west is now called a macropod harvester, can you believe that? It's like we all need to be at the top of the heap, not the bottom.

Yet, deep down, all of us know that it's the poeple at the bottom of the workforce who do most of the work and keep society ticking over. These are the people who usually make sure we have clean workplaces, that the filing is done and that the little jobs that need attention are attended to. I'm sure it's the same in the movie trade, and these people with odd job titles are often the people who run around madly doing all the little things that enable that movie to actually end up on our big (or little) screens. Perhaps this is their way of getting some reward for their work, which makes me think I should take another second at the checkout to say thank you, or to help a hassled waitress relax with an "I don't mind".