Homesick Blues – One of the thankless duties of a globe-trotting communications manager is to make sure his crew members make it safely from ship to airport and vice-versa. That’s as far as my responsibility goes. So, for instance, if the plane happens to take a header into the Hudson River, not my bad.
The company employing me is known for its frugality. This was most evident on my most recent trip to the Pacific, when they disallowed an expense voucher for a gas-mask rental when the flight they booked for me from Lynchburg to Detroit had to veer off in Indiana to spray the winter wheat crop, and forget about reimbursement for the hat I lost when we flew under that bridge.
They are also not fond of paying for the services of a port agent. This is understandable, as a $30 cab ride to the Saipan Airport can end up costing ten times that much if the agent calls the cab for you. No discount if you borrow his cellphone and call the cab yourself. It’s the principle of the thing.
Now, in Guam and Saipan, this is not a problem. I pretty much know the lay of the land having been there so many times, so it is little trouble to make hotel reservations and arrange transportation to the launch pier. We know the right hotels and the honest cabdrivers, of which there are none in Guam. So that cuts our work in half right there.
Unfortunately, we got so dependable about it that the company tried to suggest we do the same in European ports. It only took a couple of international incidents to quickly reverse that foolish notion. None of these unfortunate events involved farm animals, daughters of Ministers of Parliament, or a combination of both…at least not to the best of our knowledge. That is our story and we are sticking to it. Suffice to say that we were fortunate that the euro was weak at the time, otherwise the bribes would have ruined us.
Now cometh the challenge of a personnel change in Japan. This can be tricky. As you may or may not know, the primary language in Japan is Japanese which, if attempted by persons unfamiliar with the vocal dexterity needed to speak it, can lead to a dislocated jaw. Especially if you accidentally insult someone with a tenth-degree black belt.
First, forget driving. Not only do the Japanese emulate the British bad habit of driving on the wrong side of the road, the tolls just from Narita Airport to Yokosuka could probably feed a family of four for a
year. Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it sure would buy a heck of a lot of rice, enough to supply you through all of Paris Hilton’s future weddings. Well, OK, maybe that is an exaggeration as
well…
Thanks to a suggestion from a helpful old salt who once prowled these waters with the US Navy, I was able to get online and reserve a spot for the incoming crew member on a shuttle bus that goes from Narita to the Yokosuka base. The catch is that there has to be room on the bus. Contractors can only reserve “space available” seats, meaning that if my operator gets to the shuttle stop and the bus is crammed with anchor-clankers clutching written orders, he is out of luck.
Then he will have to take his chances with the train. If he gets on the right train, then zip, he will be transported to Yokosuka Station, a short cab ride from the base. He could also walk from the station to the base like I did, but I wasn’t lugging 80 pounds of luggage. Heavy suitcases can take a lot of fun out of a brisk evening stroll in Japan in mid-February, especially if they haven’t shoveled the walks.
If he gets on the wrong train, well, let’s hope it doesn’t drop him off in the Hudson River. I’d never hear the end of it.
