I currently do not have access to the Internet. When I have the Internet it distracts me and I complain about it. If only I didn’t have the Internet, I tell myself, I could get so much done. Well, here I am without it, and I’m annoyed I don’t have it. So there’s no winning with me.
One of the big promises of this so called Digital Age – “and then there was the age of digital, when all men and women shared things in a cloud…” is that you can get all your work done wherever you are. Paper is antiquated. Offices are a thing of the past. And everyone is a brand that should pay for its own health insurance.
Well, the reality is, we’re not there yet. Just because you have a cool travel app on your phone doesn’t mean it won’t cost you fifty dollars every time you use it overseas. Just because your GPS always knows where it is, doesn’t mean you can always connect to the satellite. And just because I have a nice aluminum shiny computer doesn’t mean I can connect to the Internet.
Most of the time when I travel, and I have internet access, even places that openly scream “Internet Access!” it doesn’t mean it works very well. It doesn’t mean that really cool Skype call with your boss will be successful. Recently, in Switzerland, the Internet all but seemed to hate me. Every day you needed a new password. And you had to log in every time you wanted to look at something. Say you checked your email. Well the minute you put your phone away it would kick you off. And when things were busy you wouldn’t be able to get on at all. And things were always busy.
Ireland and Wales had crap for Internet. It’s a nice sentiment to think that, just because that hotel has five stars on it, that it will have all the 21st century amenities the highly connected worker needs. There are of course things you can buy and phones you can “unlock” and ways to get around such lack of connection issues, but for the average business traveler, we still have a ways to go.
