Melissa Ripple:  

Life My life summed up in 1000 words or less? Phew! To summon it up, I work in Travel. While in college, I went to work in a travel agency. I started out working in the IRS building downtown DC. I could tell you stories! But I don't want to scare anyone. Needless to say, many of the people I talked to didn't even know where Canada was! I left that company just before the owner was indicted for illegal doings (she gave Government rates to non-government contracts) and went to work for a large, well known company Rosenbluth International. After 10 years I was tired. I was in pseudo management and unfulfilled. I quit to do Web-design at the height of it's popularity. I hated that too. Then I went to work for another agency, Uniglobe, as Operations Manager. Turns out that owner had just gotten out of jail for something to do with corporate embezzlement of their own corporate money, plus they weren't paying taxes. They had no travel agency experience. That was fun. Then a month after I started, September 11 happened. Need I say more? We sat behind our desks and played Snood. Who would fly? This is when it hit me...if this woman can do this and she is clueless, why can't I? So I grabbed my best friend and we started our own Travel Agency. Sounds easy? Ha! It was expensive, tiring (14 hour days) and hard work. In order to pay for the little things like food and electricity and of course our cell phone bill, we had to get another job. Something easy and with flexible hours. Yes, of course, Security. Yes, that is right. I was a Security Guard. At Dulles Airport. No, not TSA. We were real security. We worked the gates to the runways. Co...Expand for more