"My bags are packed. I'm ready to go."
"Leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again."
- John Denver // Leaving on a jet plane
My trusty travelcompanion. Holder of things (or not!).
The first challenge of this new job; how the hell do you take your life and stuff it into a bag to prepare for 20 days out on the road? Not knowing when, were and how long you will be in the same place?
If there is one thing I've seen whilst living with a loadmaster, it's that you have to be prepared for everything. Add to the fact that there are also some minor differences between a man's and a woman's essentials for packing and the "first time" packing struggle is complete.
If you ever started packing for a holiday without any form of organisation in your preparations, you most likely arrived at your destination forgetting something essential like a toothbrush or deodorant. At least, I did. Many times.
Cue: the miraculous loadmaster packing list! Yes! That would be the solution!
Or, so I thought.
Once my first flights appeared on my roster I sat down and made a (what I thought was) a fool proof packing list. Neatly divided into categories varying from "essentials" to "stationary items" and "female shit" to pack. It took me 3 days and about 4 revisions to have a sense of completion. By then it would be rock solid, no way that I would ever forget anything anymore. Three days before my first trip (a whopping 30 minute flight from Maastricht to Hahn) my bags were packed, holding the complete list of items within a neat limit of 19kg sharp - leading to hilarious responses of the crew why the hell I was taking my whole bag for just a 30 minute trip and a return taxi straight back home. At least I had everything with me in case of shit hitting the fan.
On my second trip, to Tel Aviv, I forgot my crew badge. Thankfully someone was home and able to race to Liege with the damn thing. Luckily the crew that day were laughing their asses off and told me it was probably because of excitement and nerves.
After finishing my first rotation I found out that it might have been a little overkill to pack 4 white uniform shirts (short and long sleeves), 2 hoodies, 3 commando style jumpers, a shitton of casual clothing and about 20 knickers and pairs of socks. So for the second rotation, I started optimizing my bag a little. Mistakes were made at that point.
By now, the most notorious list of forgotten items for 1 trip includes:
1. Wallet
2. Watch
3. Work boots (and to make it worse, these are left somewhere in the world)
To this very day, I have no idea how I managed to lose my work boots. Yet, I always had a toothbrush, deodorant and feminine hygiene products with me - at least it's something!
Back to the drawing board; 2 months ago. My life had to re-organise itself in various aspects, so why not make another effort in revising my travel bag? The excistence of packing cubes was not an abstract, so I decided to use those from now on. To make matters even more OCD: all of the cubes are marked with the number of specific items in it.
And it works! Up untill now (aaaand, jinxed!) I have not forgotten any essential items anymore. A small victory to celebrate, but thank you packing cubes!
Comments
Post a Comment