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What good mistakes have you seen at airports?



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 22nd, 2007, 04:38 PM posted to rec.travel.air
[email protected]
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Posts: 4
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

What good mistakes do teachers make?

As an English teacher at a California university, I often try to
encourage students to stretch themselves and "make good mistakes" in
my class so we can make new, different, and better mistakes in the
future. A good mistake, from my perspective, is a reasonable - even
predictable mistake that we can learn from and move on. For example, a
student confuses the spelling for the number 2 (two) with the
preposition (to). Homonyms give even native speakers a headache.

On the other hand, some structural problems are deeply ingrained "good
mistakes" that will take a long time and focused effort to correct and
overcome. For example, if a Korean student "forgets" to use the
articles "a", "an" or "the" on a paper, then I also consider that a
"good mistake." We often learn best by identifying good mistakes. But
to know, and not do, as the ancient sages remind us, is to not know.

But I would like to put the shoe on the other foot for this online
discussion. What good mistakes have you made or seen at airports? For
instance, I have made the "good mistake" of forgetting to bring my
tickets, and having to return home. My father missed a few flights
because of arriving too late. I have also sometimes lost track of
time, but never missed a flight. I have had, however, to dash more
than desired. Finally, I have listened too patiently to a group of
teenager travelers change seats, make noises, and prevent dozens of
folks from sleeping in their excessive excitement. (Eventually, a more
assertive former teacher confronted the adult "supervising" the
students and got them to sit down.) What good mistakes have you made
or seen?

Consider me curious.

Eric

www.compellingconversations.com

Ask more. Know more. Share more.
Create compelling conversations.

  #2  
Old July 22nd, 2007, 05:28 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Rog'
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Posts: 892
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

" wrote:
What good mistakes do teachers make?


Ummm, fatuous, inane and sophmoric posts?
...
But I would like to put the shoe on the other foot for
this online discussion. What good mistakes have you
made or seen at airports? For instance, I have made
the "good mistake" of forgetting to bring my tickets,
and having to return home. My father missed a few
flights because of arriving too late.


How is forgetting a ticket "good?" So you learned not to
forget tickets? Woo-Hoo! As for your father, I see no
merit in such self-destructive behavior. He may want to
consider therapy. IME, most travel errors result from a
lack of common sense, not something easily correctable.


  #3  
Old July 24th, 2007, 04:02 AM posted to rec.travel.air
DevilsPGD
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Posts: 904
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

In message . com
" wrote:

For instance, I have made the "good mistake" of forgetting to bring my
tickets, and having to return home.


That's not a good mistake, that's an indication of an organizational
problem.

My father missed a few flights
because of arriving too late. I have also sometimes lost track of
time, but never missed a flight.


That's also not a good mistake, it's an indication of a time management
problem.

Or maybe I'm not getting the point here?

Some of us don't need to make a mistake first to understand the correct
way to accomplish a task. If a number of steps are required to complete
a task, and I am aware of those steps in advance, I make sure that I am
appropriately prepared to complete the task for starting.

Seems to work for me.

--
If quitters never win, and winners never quit,
what fool came up with, "Quit while you're ahead"?
  #4  
Old July 24th, 2007, 01:34 PM posted to rec.travel.air
me[_5_]
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Posts: 391
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

On Jul 23, 11:02 pm, DevilsPGD wrote:
In message . com

" wrote:
For instance, I have made the "good mistake" of forgetting to bring my
tickets, and having to return home.


That's not a good mistake, that's an indication of an organizational
problem.

My father missed a few flights
because of arriving too late. I have also sometimes lost track of
time, but never missed a flight.


That's also not a good mistake, it's an indication of a time management
problem.

Or maybe I'm not getting the point here?

Some of us don't need to make a mistake first to understand the correct
way to accomplish a task. If a number of steps are required to complete
a task, and I am aware of those steps in advance, I make sure that I am
appropriately prepared to complete the task for starting.

Seems to work for me.


I don't think he represented his point well, but I also don't think
he
intended to suggest that one "needed" to learn from mistakes.
However,
there are mistakes that can "teach" alot. It is a common theme that
we learn more from our failures than successes. An old salt I knew
used to say "Experience can help you avoid stupid mistakes. Stupid
mistakes are how you gain experience". Science has often discovered
more from experiments gone really bad, or flat out done wrong.

I tried to think of some "mistakes" in this category from my
travels.
Predominately most of the "good" mistakes I make are plans that
went badly some how. Presumptions that didn't pan out, risk/reward
combinations that were false, that kind of thing. I've missed flights
for
various reasons in which I learned alot about how to deal with plans
that go badly, even if the initiating event isn't always my fault.
The
difference between dealing with a canceled flight, and a missed
flight are important but there are many similarities in the options
one has to choose from. So a "good" mistake might be a missed
flight, early in the day, when timely arrival at the destination
wasn't
critical. It's an experience which can help guide your decisions
when timely arrival is critical. It's not that we can't learn from
study,
but experience in some form always helps in learning too.

  #5  
Old July 25th, 2007, 02:22 AM posted to rec.travel.air
Rog'
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Posts: 892
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

"me" wrote:
I tried to think of some "mistakes" in this category from my travels.
Predominately most of the "good" mistakes I make are plans that
went badly some how. Presumptions that didn't pan out snip

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of my common mistakes, which I made quite a few times B4
"getting it," was to plan something within three hours of my arrival
at a destination. Invariably, something went wrong, a flight delay,
lost luggage, a long line at the car rental counter, that blew these
plans to hell.

In Rome, by the time we got to our hotel, there wasn't time to do
a tour of Nero's palace and meet friends for dinner. In London,
I booked a dinner show, but was stuck in traffic near Gatwick.
From Ft. Lauderdale, I planned to drive to Marathon, but weather
delayed our flight by five hours.

I now plan for at least three hours of "lost" time after a scheduled
arrival to account for a variety of possible problems, and will not
pre-pay activity for the day of arrival. =R=


  #6  
Old July 25th, 2007, 01:21 PM posted to rec.travel.air
me[_5_]
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Posts: 391
Default What good mistakes have you seen at airports?

On Jul 24, 9:22 pm, "Rog'" wrote:
"me" wrote:
I tried to think of some "mistakes" in this category from my travels.
Predominately most of the "good" mistakes I make are plans that
went badly some how. Presumptions that didn't pan out snip


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One of my common mistakes, which I made quite a few times B4
"getting it," was to plan something within three hours of my arrival
at a destination. Invariably, something went wrong, a flight delay,
lost luggage, a long line at the car rental counter, that blew these
plans to hell.

In Rome, by the time we got to our hotel, there wasn't time to do
a tour of Nero's palace and meet friends for dinner. In London,
I booked a dinner show, but was stuck in traffic near Gatwick.
From Ft. Lauderdale, I planned to drive to Marathon, but weather
delayed our flight by five hours.

I now plan for at least three hours of "lost" time after a scheduled
arrival to account for a variety of possible problems, and will not
pre-pay activity for the day of arrival.


This is always a tough one for me. My approach depends a bit
upon both whether it is business travel, or leisure. It can also be
a touch dependent upon where I'm arriving and how far from my
"final" destination I'm headed.

On business for morning meetings I'm likely to leave the
afternoon before and fly to a larger airport within a couple of
hours drive. I'm aiming to arrive about the dinner hour, have
a light meal, and drive to the final destination. Alternately,
for meetings pushing noon, I'll arrive late at the larger
airport, get a hotel there, and drive to the meeting in the
morning. Both of these allow some "recover" time
if plans go bad. (up to including trying to fly to the
final destination if that becomes an option). I'm even more
likely to drive to a larger airport within 2 hours or so
on the return trip so as to get more return flight options
and have more options if things start going badly in the
morning.

On leisure however I'm more likely to schedule a morning
departure with the plan of arriving early to mid-afternoon.
The concept is that it allows me some "cushion" and
gives me the chance to be there for evening activities.
I can throw in some "visiting" after my arrival if all goes well.
But as you suggest, I'm hesitant to pre-purchase theater
tickets or any such thing for that day. I even tend to
avoid prepaying for a specific train on international
travel because it can easily be +/- 3 hours that one
actually arrives. Better to be able to take the early train
if all goes well, or the later one when it all goes bad.

And all of these lessons were learned by what the
OP probably considers "good mistakes" although
more than one was probably a "bad" mistake in my
mind.

 




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