Thursday, April 04, 2013

My Story Part 159 - The Seven Year Itch

It has been seven years since I started writing this blog, I had a Geocities website that I was keeping  my blog on since 2001 and in 2006 I came over to Blogger. Here is my first post from April 1, 2006
Business Trip

March 3rd

I have been away on a business trip to our corporate headquarters' for most of the week and I was stuck in boy mode. However on the bright side, I got to fly out and back on the corporate jet. That was so neat that it almost, almost made up for being stuck in boy mode. The plane is a Gulfstream IV and it holds eight passengers. When I arrived at the private plane end of the airport, I just walk up to the plane and handed the co-pilot my bags and she checked off my name. On takeoff from Bradley field I looked down the aisle and out the cockpit window, I could watch the pilot and co-pilot and see the runway. We cruised at 30,000 ft at 497 mph, on the bulkhead of the passenger cabin there was an altimeter and ground speed and on the rear bulkhead there was also an altimeter and speed but it also had airspeed, mile to go and a map with our location.

The only thing that got me a little nervous was when the co-pilot brought out the plane manuals and started reading. I thought what is she doing that for, is there a problem? But they both seemed OK, not rushed or excited and there were no flashing lights in the cockpit. So I thought it couldn't be any major problem, probably something minor like a radio or something. At work today, someone who is a pilot said that she was probably just reading the manual learning the aircraft.

On the way back the plane was almost filled and there were a couple of VP's on board as soon as we got airborne they raided the icebox and broke out the beer and snacks They started talking about business so I had to sit there while they were talking about some contract or other. Then one of them started making small talk with me. When someone mentioned that there was six inches of snow on the ground, I said "Shit". He asked me if I had some plans for the night and I said "Yeah, I was planning on going out." My brains slip's into "Little White Lie Mode", after all I couldn't say I was going out drag bar with some tranny friends and me dressed as Diana, so I said I had a date. So he asked, "Where were we going?" Brain spins a couple times trying to get into gear, so I said, "Hartford for dinner, but they probably have a parking band so I probably get a pizza and go over to her apartment", wink, wink, nod, nod and after that he just smiled and stop asking questions. Whew!

We made great time coming back, our airspeed was 600 mph with a 100 mph tailwind, but once we got on the ground and I had to drive home, it took longer to drive home than fly back from almost Ohio. I-91 traffic was going 30 - 40 mph in the snow, the roads were very bad.
A lot has happened since then, back then I was still working as a supervisor of a test department in a manufacturing facility of a multinational corporation. I hadn't transition yet, but I was on hormone for about a year and a half. This trip came about because we had to go out to corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh and visit one of our subcontractors who was having a problem.

I was only out at work to the HR Director or so I thought, but my technicians had figured a part of the puzzle out already. I was living almost full time as Diana, the only time I wasn’t was at work and that created an interesting experience when I was out in Pittsburgh.

I went out with the Project Engineer to dinner and we were to meet up with the Engineering VP there. Well the VP and his wife were late, so we had a few drinks to past the time and I was relaxed.

Well when the VP and his wife arrived we greeted one another and I said to the wife, “Hi, I’m Dia… Don” I had just started to say Diana but I caught myself just in time. I was use to going out after work as Diana and restaurant, drinks, relaxed atmosphere = Diana. Work, tense, busy atmosphere = work. And having two rum and Cokes didn't help.

Then in 2007 they shut the factory down and then we knew why they were sending so many of the jobs out to subcontractors. (I have heard from friends who are still working for the engineering division that they are thinking about starting up a new manufacturing  facility again, it seems like they can’t make money by having the work subcontracted.)

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