Leon from Sheffield

(This post was written in February, back when I was in the process of certification for my new job as a consultant.)

Traveling every week takes a toll on you. Some people like to break up the monotony of travel by reading, watching movies on an iPod, or playing handheld games. Every week, I prepare something to keep myself occupied while traveling. And every week, I end up leaving those things stowed in favor of conversation with my seat neighbor or shuttle driver.

Twice now I’ve “passenged” with Leon, a bespectacled, half-Polish, half-British man in his late forties or early fifties with a short, sturdy frame and a mole-esque face. Hailing from Sheffield/Jersey, Leon worked as an insurance salesman before selling his house and moving with his wife to Utah to seek better opportunity. He’s looking to establish an insurance business in Utah, but in the meantime has purchased an Express Shuttle minivan as a source of income.  Once his insurance clientele starts to expand, he’ll steadily decrease the amount of time he spends driving, eventually transitioning into a career with a six-figure residual income, letting him retire and travel.

We chatted a bit about the “Occupy” movement and the idea of the American Dream. Even though he has mainly conservative beliefs, his American friends (jokingly?) call him a socialist because of his opinion that healthcare is a human right and the American healthcare system is broken. 

He misses a lot about the UK, including the Volkswagen Polo, the next size down from the Golf (miniature golf?). To this day, he’s still upset about the time when the Ken Garff Volkswagen dealership failed to take down his name and number when he requested information on the possible future release of the Polo in America. Ken Garff uses my company’s CRM software and should know how to take down a customer’s info for future contact on an unreleased model. Tsk, tsk. I’m thinking of entering the Ken Garff VW CRM site as a ghost user and inputting Leon’s information so that a sales person will get a reminder to call when the Polo finally comes in.

Perhaps the thing he misses most about the UK is the selection of good British TV. BBC America just loops about 6 programs every day. I took his contact info so that I could e-mail him info about UK VPN accounts that will let him watch BBC online. When I asked for a TV recommendation, he mentioned Only Fools and Horses, which had a 25-year run and is now on my list of shows to try to find on Netflix.

We discussed our favorite Monty Python sketches, as well as our favorite parts of The Life of Brian. He mimics regional accents very well, and possesses a killer Scot and German impersonation. His Yoda, on the other hand, is more PeeWee Herman than Yoda.

Interesting people like Leon are the reason why I allow myself to chat with people on trips. I could get so much more work or reading done if I kept my mouth shut, but then I wouldn’t know about Leon from Sheffield.