I don’t have any particular reason for asking this other than that it came up in a conversation I was having with someone, and I thought it was kind of interesting.
I’ve taken a total of five in my entire life. Three during an eight-month span in 1996-1997, and then two in this past year for my current employer. And although travel isn’t really part of my normal job, I may be heading to Atlanta, Houston and Seattle in the next three weeks, as well as working on a case that may involve multiple trips to New York. So my travel days may only be beginning.
At any rate, how often do you travel for your work? For the purposes of this poll, we’re going to call “traveling” a company-sponsored trip that required at least an overnight stay somewhere other than your home.
You should probably make clear the definition of travel. I assume you mean overnight, but when I was in Bell Labs I went from Princeton to Murray Hill or Allentown pretty often.
I live 1500 miles in a straight line from where I work (I should start a poll on who has the longest commute) and I travel to work and back once every 28 days. Work itself also frequently involves travel.
In 2002, the company-wide record for “most time on the road” was established by Doris, of the QC Internal Consultants team, with a 67%.
In 2003, it was broken by yours truly, also of the QC Internal Consultants team, with a 70%. Top time spent in a single non-home location, two weeks. I got to do things like visit 6 towns in two weeks (the bosses wanted us to go home for the middle weekend but we got approved to spend it in San Francisco, yay!)
Most other jobs have been calmer, but they’ve involved things like spending 3 months abroad (we got apartments), then going home for a couple weeks of RnR and “big meeting at home office.”
Voyager, the last line of the OP specifies “overnight stays.”
My commute is approximately 5000 miles by air, although not exactly in a straight line. May not be the longest, but I’m sure it puts me in the bottom 5 or so.
I’m a traveling system implementation consultant. For the last 15 years I have traveled to client sites on a weekly basis for implementation projects. If the project is close enough, I fly out Monday morning, and home of Thursday night. If it’s farther away I fly out Sunday. Add in sales calls, and conferences, I’m traveling for business about 50 times a year. Multiplied by 15 years = ~750 times total.
I had been in the workforce for almost 20 years when I first went on a business trip to take a class in passing the Series 7 stockbroker’s exam. Kind of nice – I stayed in the Downtown Athletic Club (the firm were members because the rate for a room was far less than any downtown hotel) with the Heisman Trophy in the lobby.
When I moved into education, I started doing one or two a year, though the last (Las Vegas) was over two years ago due to budget tightening.
Figure an average of 3 plane trips a year for 20 years, throw in a dozen or so out-of-state car trips – I’d say about 75 business trips. Not all of them are overnight though – I’ve gone from Chicago to New York and back in one very long day.
The ye olden days when I was with Pacific Bell, they provided a LOT of off-site technical training. I got paid for travel time, lodging and per deim to spend weeks at a time in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. The prime spot to go for training was AT&T Labs in Lisle, but I missed out on that.
In 2005 I spent 280 nights in a hotel. In 2004, I don’t know how many nights I spent away from home because I was staying in corporate housing in Chicago, but it was probably at least 280. In 2006 & 2007, I spent probably less than 20 away from homw. This year, like last, I’ll probably spend about 75 or so nights in a hotel.
For my actual paid job, never (not even commuting; I work at home).
For Party business, a fair number of times. I’ve been on federal council for a few years, so I’ve travelled to Ottawa a number of times and Winnipeg once for that. I’ve also attended federal conventions in Winnipeg, Toronto, Quebec City, and Halifax, and provincial general councils, conventions, or other business in Saint-Jérôme, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Victoriaville, and Rimouski.
I think I’ve only traveled for business five times, most of them conferences. My old advisor, though, I’m not sure there’s any meaningful way to count. I remember one time, he had a pentagonal itinerary: Four other cities in a row before coming back home. Another time, he had a trip to Washington for three days, then back home for a single night, then back to Washington again for four more days.
What did they train you on in Lisle? When I was in Bell Labs I went to Indian Hill (across the street, pretty much) where the switching division was all the time. Lisle used to be the Western Electric pilot plant for things that were going to be made in Oklahoma City, but that was long before there was an AT&T Labs.