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Consultants: Saving a business but killing your own

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As I was waiting on gate D3 in the New York LaGuardia airport, and while waiting for a colleague to get her boarding pass out, I couldn’t help but seeing the guy that you see in the picture. Ok, so far, well you’re probably thinking, well, he looks pretty normal, well dressed, sorry, let me rephrase that, is wearing a suit and tie. Now what caught my attention was when he moved to adjust his place on the 50” seat, you could see his gut just coming out… badly!

Please understand that it is not that I am super fit, I mean I like to exercise, and I would do it more if I could. Going back to my observation, immediately after thinking “oh man, that guys is pretty chubby, I thought, well, it must be from all of the crap there has to eat at the airports. I decided to observe a couple more people and see if I saw the following trend:

1. Does he look like a business man?

a. Based on the attire. I know that many people whom are business man don’t travel with a suit and tie, but those whom make express travels most often than not do.

b. Also, they could be wearing dress pants and jacket, no tie necessary.

2. Is he on a computer? Phone? Or reading the newspaper (biz section preferably?

3. Is he Overweight (chubby)?

a. Is the belly coming over the seatbelt/waist section?

i. This is what I’m calling the “flip/fold waist,” meaning the belly is folding the waist.

Five minutes after I decided to test my theory I moved to another terminal (from D3 to D1) to test on another place, you know to make sure I was exhausting my terminal knowledge – no play on words there ;). Well it turns out that as I seat down a very expressive guy (whom you see on the picture fit the exact description above… I thought nice! (Also, he was on a business call, I knew this because he was pretty loud. I said, one more and we call it a day. Well, didn’t really take too long, as I was heading to buy a bottled of water, a guys was coming off the plane, whom fitted the exact same characteristics.

As I am writing this, let me tell you that I am on seat 25F on a 3.5hr flight from NYC to DFW (which is my midpoint to my final destination of AUS), I am struggling to have my computer open because of the guy in front of me. As if the spaces on planes aren’t small enough, the guy in front of me it just totally taking over my own personal space – well, what could be, since he is just reclining his chair. Any how, needless to say, he very well fits the above three questions/criteria.

To close, and going back to the main point of this post, all of these men are either on their way or coming back from saving/solving a business problem, so they feel in a way accomplished… but I have a question, do you think they are thinking about themselves? Have they thought about the business that is their body? Sure, they are saving other people’s business, but they are killing their own, to quote Christopher Walken on Click (2006) “Fast food kills you slowly.”

With that said, I think that this is happening not because of the lack of descent options at airports, but because of the following mentality – which corporate America has maximized on:

The airport mentality:

· Enjoy a quick snack – usually donuts & pastries

· A chocolate, something quick and well sweet

· Some chips… which are honestly my second option, I just need to stop by the store and get the WSJ, or USAT, or NYT…

· I can miss my flight and I need to eat something, fast food is definitely the best option

· With not enough space on the plane, well hand food is the best option (FYI, I know we practically eat everything with our hands, but my point is just something that you can carry not cut.

· I mean, there are really no healthy options, so I need to go for nutritious

· I eat healthy when I’m at home, so since I’m traveling I can indulge a little – happens that they travel more often than they think

o Think of Doug on King of Queens

· The client is paying… so I really cant abuse you know… it has to be something moderately priced.

Thoughts?!

One last thing... who is to blame, the airport for not having more options (healthier options), or could it actually be the fact that people want to indulge because of their subconscious feeling of "I'm traveling, I'll be good when I get home."

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