Frequent Flyers Club (Your Stories) October 2024

Andy and Nick explain their extended absence from the podcast with a shocking revelation that a former guest had a job offer rescinded for appearing on the show because it was seen as 'unprofessional'! The podcast folklore grows but this can't be real, can it? 

Once we got over the sadness followed by incandescent rage - we decided to prove these haters wrong - by featuring Vice Chancellors and Pro Vice Chancellors in the next series of episodes. We literally couldn't get any more senior people to disprove this notion nonsense. 

We are also offering anonymity for those of you who want to share their stories but don't want to live in fear of not getting a really good job. How has it come to this? Upside is we might have enough content for a book! 

Tales from the Departure Lounge is a Type Nine production for The PIE www.thepienews.com

Transcript

0:01

Wow. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Wow.

Andy 0:11

Welcome to our frequent flyers club. it's supposed to be frequent, but we haven't been around for a while.

Nick 0:18

The Infrequent Flyers Club.

Andy 0:20

And there's good reason. I don't think we've released a podcast since July this year. Um, we had a bit of an incident, didn't we?

Nick 0:26

We did have an incident that we need to discuss. to explain our absence.

Andy 0:31

How do we start? We've had some amazing guests on this podcast, and we went into this, Projects together to shine a bit of humanity on our sector in particular, to share all those really amazing stories the adventures that we go on we were really honored to get honest guests on board to, to do some of that for us,

Nick 0:51

then something happened. A guest, a former guest

Andy 0:55

It transpired that it had been used against them. So they'd gone for a very senior job, at a university, got very far down the hiring process, and then. Somebody in that university, another senior person flagged the podcast episodes to the hiring panel who held it against them and said that it would came across, as unprofessional.

Nick 1:18

So our podcast was literally named as a reason that they weren't going to get hired to a very senior position. Now, Whilst I'm all for building the podcast legacy of rock and roll. This was way beyond anything I ever imagined and to be honest, it made me very sad and it made me question. If it was the right thing to do to keep making these episodes and to have them out there.

Andy 1:49

You're very balanced, Nick. I was incandescent with rage. I just couldn't believe that. That, that could happen. I don't see this or anything that we've done or anything in that episode or any other episode that justifies rescinding a job offer from somebody.

Nick 2:09

Most of our guests, describe the transformational power of study abroad and travel in particular. In the context of their lives, some of them have been very vulnerable and so honest in their sharing of experiences. But what I really like is when people are vulnerable enough to talk about mistakes we all get things a little bit wrong or, bad things happen in life, And Whoever made this decision hasn't listened to the episode, because I see it only as positive.

Andy 2:41

So anyway, we had a little think about this, didn't we, Nick? People were asking us why we hadn't made any more episodes. and so we, we've invited some, senior leaders on. blow me down and rescind my job offer, senior leaders in higher education listen to our podcast and want to come onto it.

Nick 3:00

These episodes are for the haters. We've managed to get vice chancellors and pro vice chancellors to come on the show because they love the show.

Andy 3:12

They're great episodes. And for everyone in our industry, that's interested in leadership, the journey to the top, uh, the humanity of vice chancellors. Hey, maybe even their vulnerability and their mistakes. Have a listen to these.

Nick 3:26

for the haters.

3:27

Wow.

Andy 3:28

So what's next, Nick? Cause we, we're not sure, are we about staying in this game?

Nick 3:33

I think we want to keep making episodes, but something that we found is that. Since we started making the podcast is that everybody wants to tell us their stories. They tell us some amazing travel stories, but they don't always want to come on a podcast and share it, so we've been working out how to protect people's Anonymity.

Andy 3:54

we want to collect these stories. We've loved hearing them. So we want to put them into a collection, a time capsule, And publish.

Nick 4:02

Exactly. basically if you want to share your stories with us, you can email that sickbag at talesfromthedepartylounge. com. and as Andy said, we're going to put these together and collate them somehow.

Andy 4:16

So this is your call to action. Hey, I need to write a jingle, call to action. That'd be a good one. Um, this is your call to action. Email sickbag at talesinthedeparturelounge. com with any stories. Can be your stories, or can be Stories in the third person. If you're that worried, um, often, you know, if I'm telling a story about myself, I'll pretend it's somebody else. We will keep them all anonymous, regardless of who sends them in. Uh, and we will either put them in a podcast or we might even, put them in a book.

4:47

Wow.

Andy 4:48

Was there anything else we wanted to cover?

Nick 4:50

What else have we got? Oh, let's talk about my story.

Andy 4:53

Right. Oh yeah. Before we go, um, I don't get out much anymore, but Nick he's actually got his own travel story.

Nick 5:02

Well, my wife did the Berlin marathon just a few weeks ago. We flew out to Berlin and we had a great weekend there. And the Monday night we were flying back home and it was a late flight, half past 10 and. Berlin airport's in two terminals and I booked an airport lounge because she was tired and I just thought this is going to be a nice thing to do while we wait for the plane.

Andy 5:30

Nothing to do with you and the booze. All right.

Nick 5:33

Anyway, we go through security and then we track through terminal one to terminal two And this airport lounge is all the way at the end of the building terminal two. So it was a long way Especially for someone who's got tired legs. We were having a few drinks and then we start to say, look, we've got to walk all the way back. So we start walking back, just retracing our steps through terminal two, back to terminal one, and we're chatting away And then basically we somehow managed to just walk right out of the terminal into baggage control.

Andy 6:12

What, what, what, at what point did you realize that you were, you know,

Nick 6:15

basically when I saw the baggage turnstiles, I realized that we'd taken a wrong turn, but I also knew that you can't go back to departures from there. So suddenly, we had basically about 35 minutes to find the gate. I quickly grabbed a steward and said, look, we were in departures. How do we get back there? He said, no, no, no, no. You've got to go back through security, through the whole shebang. So we literally had to sprint

Andy 6:48

Just watch, so the relaxing affair that she wanted after her marathon. Sprinting through Berlin airport.

Nick 6:55

the adrenaline just kicked in and it was a massive queue through security and we just jumped the line and made an absolute, riot in terms of we're going to miss the flight, Stressing, stressing, stressing, five minutes to go, basically get through, run to the gate. It's delayed an hour,

Andy 7:15

is.

Nick 7:17

but still to this day, I just don't know how I managed to exit an airport terminal without noticing.

Andy 7:26

yeah, that seems unusual. I guess people must need to be able to do that from time to time.

Nick 7:33

a lot of UK airports, departures and arrivals are completely separate. You don't really mix. Whereas a lot of other international terminals, you do get this thing of people getting on and off the planes in the same zones.

Andy 7:48

Hmm. well, well done for, for not missing your flight. I mean, that's the kind of level of story that we're at. So surely everyone that's listening can do better. Uh, feel free, feel free to email sickbag at sales to the punchdowns. com right now.

Nick 8:04

Hotel recommendation. The 25 hour hotel At Bikini Berlin, which is a pretty cool name and it has zoo view rooms. the hotel is above a shopping center and then looks down into Berlin zoo, if anybody knows it there, you've got the whole park there, the Tiergarten, and then. Brandenburg Gate. So it's really nice location and it's got a pretty cool restaurant on the top floor and a cocktail bar that was, yeah, wild to be honest. And then it had a sauna as well. So you could sit and look at the zoo, uh, stark bollock naked.

Andy 8:43

Well, that's only fair. The monkeys are naked.

Nick 8:45

Yeah, that's true.

Andy 8:46

I'll look it up. I'm, uh I'm off there in a couple of weeks for ISAF digital.

Nick 8:50

No, I think Berlin is one of my favourite cities. It's great.

Andy 8:54

Awesome, uh, how do we sign these off?

Nick 8:57

So Enjoy the PVCs and the VCs Safe travels.

9:00

Wow. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Sign up to my funky Frequent Flyers Club. Wow.