4.12.2005

Company Expenses

Part of my job is traveling throughout the country for tradeshows. Business traveling is like the gift and the curse.

The Gift:
-You get to go somewhere else for "free." Depending on the temp. where you are and where you are going, this can be a wonderful thing. Ex. I left the Metro DC area a week ago, while Noah Jr. was finalizing the blueprints on the Arc Remix, headed to sunny southern California.
-Depending on your travel budget, you may stay in a very nice hotel
-The company pays for your dinner
- Nice to be out of the office for a few days
-So many more...

The Curse:
-Sometimes constant travel just down right sucks. Late flights, lost luggage and adjusting to a new bed every week can grow tiresome very quickly.
-If their is a contingency from your company, you are pretty much stuck with them for the entire trip. Breakfast, luch and dinner with co-workers who give you a nervous tick after so much exposure to them in their "off" time
-The emails and work pile up while you are gone
-Too many more, I don't feel like mentioning

My personal experiences on business travel:

I have seen the good, bad and the "I wish I could forget" on business travel. My first trip was to San Diego. It was Dec. out here in the east, so I was highly excited about getting out there to some sunshine and warm weather. I also was looking forward to visiting some family and friends out there. The trip was one of the best business travel (BT from here on out, I am getting tired of typing all those letters.) experiences I have had. I stayed at the Wyndham hotel in downtown San Diego. My room overlooked the bay and it was a lovely sight to wake up to.

My next trip consisted of a two-city tour of North Carolina visitng two military bases for tradeshows. First was Ft. Bragg in Fayettville, then Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville. I'm not sure if it is like this outside every base, but there were nothing but tattoo parlors and pawn shops, LOL. It's an interesting sight, but when you think about it it makes sense.

The following year, I did the same trip only this time there was another town and base added to the "tour." That wasn't the worst part though. My company had gotten strict (READ: extremely cheap) on their travel policy and I was forced to share a room with my co-worker. Luckily, it was one of the guys I could stand, but damn if I didn't know so much more than I needed to about the guy. I didn't need to know that we prefered briefs to boxers nor the way he snores. But I refused to spend $200+ dollars out of my Ghandi-like pocket to get my own room. I was getting paid peanuts and refused to use the little I had on a non-recuperable business expense.

Four days and three nights. By the end of the trip, I wanted to hit the dude in his face like it was '87 and he was my little brother that kept following me after I had repeatedly told him to stop. Seriously! Every work-related story he told, he and his brother-in-law had saved the company's day. Of course, all this grand standing was due to a lovely female co-worker who was on the trip with us. What is funny though, is that he never mentioned that the only reason he got AND KEPT his job was because his brother-in-law gave him prospective information and closed his deals for him, LOL. Great guy, but the over exposure was suffocating. It was like the company was doing an experiment in human nature and we were the guinea pigs. They probably had bets that the "angry black man" within was going to surface and that his Paezan instinct was going to have manifest and he would end whacking me like Ralphie on the 'Pranos.

Then the mofo wanted to stop 5 exits away from home to get a good meal cause he thought the company owed it to him. And it had to be a sit-down restaurant. Wait and all. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for draining the company for every dollar of it's allotted per diem, but why the hell do you wait until we are almost home?

More tomorrow...

1 Comments:

At Wednesday, June 15, 2005 9:28:00 PM, Blogger kob said...

Agree with you completely on the pros/cons of travel. But share a room? Not in this life. Good luck.

 

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