Sarah Juniors Travel Diaries

Hear Journal,

Hello. My name is Sarah Jr., and I have been with my boss lady of an owner since she was 8/9 years old (honestly, it's been so long neither of us can remember).

I have one job. To support my emotionally challenged boss lady of an owner whenever she travels.

When it was pitched to me, it was a pretty sweet deal. I would get to see the world for free, and in return, I would have to be on hand whenever she travelled on planes, trains and any other mode of transport. Her first trip was to America, and then she would go on to live in London in June 2011.

I thought, "This will be easy. She will only really travel once every two years, maybe once every year, tops.”

Or so I thought.

In the last 15 years, I have been to over 30 countries across four continents. Some on tours, some solo. Some places were a quick day or weekend visit, and others were slow travel for a few months.

What no one told me was that flights could take over 24 hours, which meant I was working for over 24 hours straight! Why I agreed to this, I have no idea. Sure, I have no regrets, but everything I have had to do in the last 15 years travelling, I have had to figure out for myself.

There is a positive side to this whole thing, though. I have been lucky to see some amazing places.

Most of the time, however, I am stuck in my boss's lady’s bag. Don’t get me wrong; I have tried to escape on several occasions. But my boss's paranoia about losing me is insanely high. The security measures she has put in place to protect me are more than I see most people do on any given day.

For example, she has put key chains that jingle on the zipper, alerting her when someone touches the bag. She will wear the said bag across her front so that she has eyes on it at all times. She also checks on me literally every 5 seconds (okay, maybe an hour or so), but it feels like a lot to make sure she hasn’t forgotten me.

It wouldn’t matter how much I wanted to escape; it was not going to happen anytime soon.

So, during these many hours of sitting in a bag and stuck on some mode of transport, I wrote a journal about my working life—the things I saw, the people I met, the history I’ve learnt, and working through every season under the sun.

Recently, my boss said I could start sharing these stories. I actually asked for a big raise and more time off, but her counteroffer was to be allowed to share my travelling stories or nothing. You can see which one I chose.

If you think the boss lady has any time to slow down, that would be a hard no.
And let me tell you, the boss lady isn’t slowing down anytime soon.