The Proof, continued

Chillicothe, Ohio is pretty much the halfway point of the trip. As we head back into the Ohio countryside, I realize that the coffee was too much for me, and beg Dave to stop at the US-35 rest stop at Rio Grande. He generally waits until Wytheville, Virginia, but that is still a good three hours away. Among the folks at the rest stop, the reaction to the polka-dotted Prius is pretty consistent. Children laugh and point good-naturedly, women smile, men just shake their heads. As I climb back in the car, I ask him how Plan C was working out.

“Well, I’m blessed in that I work a 12 hour shift, four days on, three days off. So, I leave around 4 in the morning, drive all day, then work a 12 hour shift all night. When I return, I’m coming off of a 12 hour shift, drive back through the day, and can sleep at home. Then I get either two or three full days with my family. So, I can generally get home in time to read the kids to sleep (if the Dan Ryan Expressway gods allow) and don’t really disrupt things too much.

Plan A was for me to complete my Master’s degree with a decent grade, and get a fantastic job in Chicago. I met with some friends from high school while we were debating the move (I graduated from Naperville Central, just outside of Chicago) and they told me that there were a LOT of great jobs for people with my background. So, I finished at the top of my class from a competitive school, and started talking with recruiters and headhunters. It turns out, the degree I chose is highly coveted in North Carolina, but in Chicago, they had no idea what to do with it.

‘So, it’s a Masters of Information Technology and Operations Management? Are you a programmer?’ No no no – it’s like an MBA with an emphasis on analytics and business analysis instead of actuarial science and accounting. ‘Oh – so do you have five years of Hadoop and Ruby on Rails?’ No, but I can manage a team of professionals who do! I can also translate English into techspeak and back with ease! ‘Hmm. I don’t know if we have any jobs that do that here.’

Plan B is to do what I had to do after 9/11, which was to work as a manager of a pizza place and a second job to make ends meet. I worked on the ramp for American Eagle and Atlantic Coast. I worked as a delivery driver for UPS. I managed a team of tax analysts until they sent our jobs to Indonesia.

What’s funny is, at one point, I was working with Independence Air to see about having a part-time group of reservations agents in Indonesia back up our American team during overnight hours, but they didn’t really understand air travel very well, and geography is always difficult no matter where you are. We would have agents (in trials) saying that Chicago flights were full, but Detroit was ‘really close’ and you could get a ticket there. It sort of reminded me of when Calvin and Hobbes decided they were going to the Yukon. They pulled out a globe and said, ‘Heck – if it’s THAT close, we’ll be there by lunchtime!”

As we cross the numerous bridges that carry Interstate 64 across the rivers that lead into Charleston, West Virginia, and Dave punches ‘WV’ into the phone for his wife, his energy begins to flag a little. “I want to believe that this is short-term. But when I was growing up, my dad was ALWAYS traveling. And I don’t want to do that to my kids. My wife shouldn’t have to be a single parent. I feel like I’m missing something obvious – like if I had only made one more phone call, or had tied my tie a little straighter, I’d be making a 20 minute trip on the Red Line instead of a 13 hour trip across the country.

Plan C is the ‘worst scenario’ option. I accepted it heads-up. And I truly am thankful for the job, even though it doesn’t really pay enough to make this all worth it. The funny thing is, I’m working in a Command Center, monitoring system alerts and backups. This job can be completely done remotely. But, the company has recently combined all of its groups into one central location in North Carolina, and they’re refusing to let anyone work remotely. They made everyone move down here, so if they let me work from Chicago, it’d be unfair to the others. And I guess I see their point. If I had relocated and one guy was allowed to work from home across the country, I’d probably be mad too.”

The West Virginia Turnpike is truly one of the wonders of this great nation. I-77 (and I-64 for a while) wind and dance, rise and fall, as trucks strain to climb the extreme hills, and scary ‘emergency runaway truck’ ramps lead straight up in case a trucks’ brakes should fail.

“As I said, I’m lucky in so many ways. This drive is gorgeous no matter when you do it. In the afternoons, the sun shines across the trees and rock and makes it so beautiful it’s otherworldly. When I return in the mornings, the fog generally is still hanging around the mountaintops, making it look like the mountains are the top of the world, and there’s nothing above them at all.”

The Prius’ consumption meter starts to look like the mountains, as we sometimes strain up the steep grades, and sometimes spend five or ten minutes with the engine off, gliding silently downward into the steep curves and tunnels, stopping three times at toll booths to contribute two bucks toward the cost of constructing this amazing highway. David uses the cruise control most of the time, and a few cars seem to constantly pass us, only to get passed again a few moments later.

“If you want to make other drivers crazy, use your cruise control,” he laughs. “You never really notice it, but especially on these mountains, people will vary their speeds a huge amount. They think I’m being a jerk and passing them on the turns, but really, we’re been doing the same speed the entire time. THEY are the ones who keep changing their speed.”

The Big Walker Mountain tunnel starts in West Virginia and ends up in Virginia (Dave punches in “VA” to his wife) and we are ten hours into the trip, three hours from the start of a 12 hour shift, and 30 miles from a strange stretch of road that goes through the mountain town of Wytheville, Va. The price of gas drops precipitously here ($3.09 a gallon for unleaded) as two major Interstates share an east/west roadway. To the east, you travel on I-77 south and I-81 north. Going west, you’re on I-77 north and I-81 south. Getting back on highway after filling up the Prius and doing some serious stretching, I have to do a double-take on the signs to make sure we’re going the right way.

“When we drove up to Chicago, this was the only part of the trip where the kids were quiet,” David smiles. As I-77 starts back southward again, the world opens up before us. We are traveling on a narrow ledge on the last real mountain before we enter the Piedmont or foothills of North Carolina, and you get the feeling you can see forever.

Then the foothills begin in earnest, and it's up and down, up and down as Interstate 74 splits off and joins the “Andy Griffith Parkway” and US 52, which is under some serious construction as it enters Winston-Salem. We will be entering Greensboro right at 5pm.

“They moved I-85 a few years ago, over to the east side of Greensboro, which helped to relieve the legendary congestion in Greensboro, but we’re still going to have to keep our fingers crossed to make it through unscathed. This is my fourth time making this trip, and I haven’t been late yet. I generally build in an hour to 90 minutes of lead time, just in case.

When I moved our stuff up to Chicago, I loaded a 24 foot truck floor to ceiling, and the last pieces we put on were some huge, antique pieces that had belonged to my wife’s family. They were immense, and there was no way we were going to be able to move them up to some second or third floor apartment. So, her brother was going to take them back. He was waiting for me at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside of Dayton. Between problems getting the truck, and packing, I was already running a little late, but I lost all sorts of time on the highway because of an accident in one tunnel and a car fire outside the other. It took me nearly 15 hours just to get to Dayton.

Because of that experience, I’ve studied back roads and ways to get out of almost anything. My boss still worries, but I am NOT going to be late to work.”

Greensboro gets busy, but the traffic keeps moving, and we turn on the Raleigh news station to keep tabs on the traffic in the “Triangle” area. We have hit the home stretch – it’s now 5:15pm, a full 12 hours after we started our journey, stopping only twice for gas, and once for my restroom break. “You know what’s funny? My boss pointed out that the wear and tear on the car was costing much more than the $60 in gas. ‘Yes, but it’s still cheaper than flying,’ I responded. She was saying that I should just stay here.

What would I do in North Carolina? My family’s in Chicago. I’m sleeping in my car or on a friend’s couch. I have nothing here at all, except this job that I need to keep our insurance and food in the kids’ bellies. I understand her point, but isn’t it worth $60 and a little sleep to be able to spend a day with your family? The kids grow up every day. There are weeks I return home that I swear they’ve grown an inch.”

As we pull into the parking lot, I’m stiff and sore from 13 hours in the car with only three short breaks, but Dave pops out and pounds out a real text to his wife. “I’m just letting her know we made it safe and sound.”

So, yes, folks, he’s really doing it. Me, I’m heading to get a good night’s sleep and make a 90 minute journey by air back to Chicago in the morning. During my dinner and sleep, Dave will work a twelve hour shift, working in collaboration with a partner in India. When my plane takes off, he will still be at his computer, making sure that financial trades are recorded, handling any crises that may come up, and monitoring the heartbeat of one of the country’s largest and best known financial institutions.

As we shake hands, his phone chirps out an alert. He gives it a wry smile and holds it out to me. It’s a message from his wife: “You’re my hero.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “A hero rushes into burning buildings - goes to work wearing a bulletproof vest - dodges bullets to protect our American way of life. I’m just a guy going to work.”