I just booked a flight to DC next month to travel to my company’s headquarters. The last time I took a business trip that required an overnight stay anywhere was…let me see…1997, I think. Not very frequently, obviously. I’m really excited about it because it’s a rare opportunity for me.
How about you? How often do you take business trips? Do you wish you could do it more or less often? If you’re away from family for long periods of time, how do you and they feel about it? Outside of frequency, what would you change about your business travel if you could?
Pretty much never, at this job. I wouldn’t mind the occasional trip, but most of the places other people in my workgroup go aren’t all that interesting.
Two jobs ago I got to go on some nice training and conference trips: San Francisco, L.A. (Westwood), Monterey, and, the best one: Edinburgh for almost a whole week, where all I had to do was attend a conference for a couple of hours a day. My kids were pretty young then, and my husband wasn’t much used to dealing with them alone, but all-in-all I don’t think it stressed anyone too much.
twice a month, on average. Not much fun anymore, but in September I got to go to Hawaii and stay a few extra days! Usually, being away from the children makes me cut the travel to bare minimum, so I almost never have any extra fun time in far away places.
About every three to four weeks typically. Used to enjoy it, but now, the airport hassles, time diferences, long boring ass meetings, etc—just not worth it really. Lately have been experimenting a lot with LiveMeeting and Video Conferencing. Not quite as good as being there in person in some respects–but still pretty good for the vast majority of meetings.
I know when I first started working I used to think it sounded glamorous, all that traveling. Now that I do it, not so much fun. Travel takes me away from my family, my routine (such as the gym, etc) and just makes for long days.
My travel is major peaks & valleys. I have made about 25 trips this calendar year. Most of those are about 2-3 nights each. Two years ago, I did 50 trips which were 4-5 nights each.
Just about every freaking weekend from the end of September until the middle of April. It’s a lot easier now that the wife doesn’t have to travel for her job. At least someone is home with the animals most of the time.
About 4 nights a month. sometimes more frequently. Most are to other countries and about 3x a year for a major timezone change (ambien is your friend). I am not a huge fan as it usually means I’m up by 5 or 6:00 either working or running to the airport, have tons of meetings and usually customer related dinner activities, in bed early, and then come back to a hellish week of follow up and catch up. And I miss my family.
Home life falls apart if I’m gone more that 4 or 5 nights.
I’ve been in this stinking desert (Iraq) or that stinking desert (Afghanistan) for 6-8 months every year since 2002. No, I’m not in the military. I’m a civilian who works for the Army (government employee). Sometimes it was volunteering, other times it was begging (boss, not me) because I’m good at what I do. Along the way, I’ve been in every ****stan.
Not only this stretch of time either. From 1984-1988, I was typically on the road teaching courses (explosive and ammunition related) 50% of the time. Typically in month-on, month-off rotations. From mid 1988-1995, I worked at the US Army Missile Command and was on travel (on actual TDY [Temporary Duty]) for 4-1/2 of the 7-1/2 years. Somewhere around there my wife and I split up - go figure.
1996-2001; hardly any traveling though I was living/working in Vicenza, Italy. Saw a lot of Europe though not always on business.
I virutally never do. Up until last week, though, my husband had a job where he traveled 4-5 days a week, pretty much every week. He had that job for 10 long years. It was hard at times…we put off having kids until rather late, hoping that the situation would change, but it took longer to make that happen than we expected it to. Now he’s at a job where he will travel, but a lot less frequently, and we are all happy about that. I didn’t really mind so much before the kids, since I had lived alone before we were married, but I think it was hard on his relationship with our daughter when he was only there on the weekends.
I normally spend about 10 nights away each month. Sometimes it may be a couple of long trips and sometimes it’s single nights away. We have two young children but it works out pretty well for us. My wife didn’t used to like me going away, now she gets annoyed if a trip gets canceled because she appreciates having some time to herself.
Starting on January 1st I’ll be going to a stable roster that will give me a single set of 15 nights away followed by 13 nights at home (days off.) We think we’ll cope ok with it, but we won’t really know until I’m doing it. The beauty of it will be that I won’t need to take any leave if I want a short holiday. If I want a longer holiday then I just take one set of 15 nights off and effectively get a six week break.
I probably average a 10-day trip every 40 or so days to Russia and other European countries. Next year I get to do a nice 6-month funfest on a ship somewhere in the Pacific. Earlier in my career I traveled overseas a ton. I used to love it; now I tolerate it. It’s a part of the job, and I get paid fairly well for it. Once I get that 6-month stint overwith, that may well be the last major traveling I have to do until I retire. I’m counting the days until that happens.
Up until I couldnt fly and didn’t have a baby it was at least once a month sometimes for three weeks at a time. Usually it is a week at a time. The greatest thing is to be at home and not living out of hotels.
I travel for work necessitating flight about once every three weeks. Like others have said, it used to be fun. Now? I think I’d rather go to the dentist. The only time it’s better than bearable is when I travel internationally, unless I’m going to Frankfurt or CdG in Paris, in which case you might as well just kill me.
Flying in the States has gone from merely horrible to so damned the Devil himself would rather take the bus. And can anyone on the planet PLEASE tell me why airlines now board front to back?! What, the fact that every freaking flight I’ve taken in the last two years has been delayed or cancelled inexplicably is not torture enough?
Sorry. I just got home from a flight from Boston to Philly, which was scheduled to leave at 6:30pm, but which took off FIVE HOURS LATE! I could have driven home faster. Sigh.
Because people at the front are paying more (first class, then premium economy class), and they want to be first to board with their cabin-trunk size carry-ons so that there is still room to stow them.
And I travel about 6 times a year for work, to conferences and meetings, so it still remains an interesting break from ordinary work.
First Class I get. They get to board first. No problem. I appreciate being able to board first when I fly first class. After all I am paying extra for the privilege.
I’m talking about standard Coach class. Since I usually fly American or USAir I can only speak to their practices. As you’re probably aware, passengers are called in groups. After First Class and other privileged groups are called, group 1 is then called. Group 1 used to be passengers with seats at the very back of the plane. Now group 1 are passengers with the first 4 to 8 (depending on aircraft size) rows behind first class. Group 2 are passengers with seats immediately behind group 1. Group 3 have seats behind group 2, and so on. It makes absolutely no sense. Boarding now takes forever, and drives me freaking nuts, especially when I’m in group 5, and I have to stand in the corridor near the cockpit, waiting for passengers in groups 3 and 4 to get their bags in the overhead bins, while I can clearly see that the entire back of the plane near my seat at 27F is completely empty of passengers. What’s the logic here?
