Traveling for Business: Share Your Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve traveled just three for business. One for for an overnight trip, the other two were for longer trips (two weeks in another office.)

My company is pretty good with travel. I found out on my latest trip that I could expense my laundry with the hotel. I was shocked at the expense ($30 to dryclean a dress??) but the grandboss assured me it was fine.

I also found out I could get a ride to and from home to the airport, in addition to going from the airport to the hotel and back.

I am wary about spending too much on the company dime. My last trip I stayed in a rather nice hotel that was recommended by grandboss (it was within walking distance to the office, which was nice, since I am very much Country Mouse) and the meals I got on my own (that were not catered by the office, it was a huge event and people were expected to work long hours, so both lunch and dinner were catered) I tried to stay on the cheap. In fact I walked away from one restaurant because the prices were too high for what I was getting, IMHO.

Fortunately, no horror stories of rejected expenses or being put up in a bedbug-ridden motel near the interstate with a buzzing neon sign outside my window. But then, I’ve only traveled three times in my nearly nineteen years with the company.

2

Ok, fellow travelers, we need some good stories here.

My only interesting one is the trip to a client’s distant branch office, where I was told lodging and food was all taken care of by the branch. Only to find upon landing that I was staying with the branch manager and his family.

I was prepared to duck out to a hotel, until I found out how charming their kids were. I spent a good chunk of the trip playing on a rec room floor with giggly toddlers.

That was decades ago, and I’m still stunned by what an inappropriate plan that was, and most people would have hated it. Luckily, I never matured and am a sucker for fun kids.

3

I stayed for about 6 weeks at the corporate headquarters back in the early 90s, at the start of my career when I didn’t have very much money. All of my meal expenses were to be placed on my Corporate Card they gave me. Which was an American Express. I discovered I had two options for dinner anywhere close to where I was staying that took Amex - one was too expensive for my daily food allowance, and the other was…Red Robin.

If you were ever curious how long it would take for someone to get sick of Red Robin after eating there every day, I have an answer for you: 4 days.

4

In my previous job, when I had to travel, our accounting department took care of all the travel for us. Here’s your plane ticket, here’s your itinerary, here’s all the info you need to pick up the rental car, have a nice trip. All I needed to do was show up at the right place at the right time.

I was a civilian employee who worked for the Navy. One Navy BOQ I stayed in had a beer vending machine. Convenient!

5

The best was when I worked at Lehman Brothers hong kong. I did a two week business trip to NY, put everything on the corporate AMEX card, and didn’t have to file an expense report.

ivylass - you must be new to this business travel thing. The romance wears off fast.

6

In my first post-college full time job, I was an internal auditor for a payday loan company. I spent 4 nights a week in hotels and drove anywhere from 1500-2000 miles a week. Meals and hotels were paid for. I drove a company car. I did have to turn in weekly expense reports, but everything went on the company credit card. The worst moment was when something happened to the company credit account and no cards worked one evening. My debit card had expired and I hadn’t gotten the new one and I didn’t have a card I could use. I slept in the car, and the next day things got figured out.

My next job, I was an internal auditor for an apparel company. I traveled 6-7 times a year, always completely paid for. There were driving trips (to exotic places like Lebanon, TN and Vidalia, GA) and foreign trips, mostly to Honduras, and occasionally to Guatemala or Mexico. No major stories there.

Now I’ve changed careers and I travel 1-2 times for work, almost always to conferences, rarely anyplace exciting. No good stories.

7

Some of my travel stories are documented on the Dope:

Stayed at the same hotel as John McCain during the 2008 campaign.

I was in Delaware. No, for real; it exists.

Bathed in someone’s poop.
Spent just a shade over 75% of the year 2015 in a hotel room for work.

Memories…from Lansing, KS.

I flew regularly with a desktop computer…and this was before those skinny monitors were common. We’re talking a giant, massive cube of a monitor. I checked it with my luggage. Eventually I just got a laptop.

8

I was once put up in the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan. I’ve posted about it before. Cracked glass on the pictures, bulletholes in the window, blood on the drapes, holes in the carpet, and the shower was completely covered in black mold.

That was a shitty-ass company. They went under.

9

A very drunk and not at all unattractive woman boarded the plane I was on and just plopped herself in my lap and loudly proclaimed “I found my seat! This is going to be a good ride!” The airline deplaned her - she was so smashed (I mean come on, she sat in MY lap - definite beer goggles).

We had one job in a very small town in northwest PA that was in the middle of nowhere. The town itself was a beautiful place with fresh air and a lot of scenery. Unfortunately there were only two motels and two restaurants open after 6:00 PM and there were a lot of us, so we ate at the same two places every night for over a year, and sometimes when the motels were fully booked I had to stay at a truck stop up the road (it was like a European hostel - tiny bunk bed room you shared with four others (lucky if you knew them) and a common bathroom shared by a dozen people. Cold as hell in the winter, full of mosquitoes in the summer.

This place was 2.5 hours from the nearest airport (Buffalo). Over the course of that engagement about a half dozen people people totalled their rental cars (some had to go the ER) - a mix of inexperienced people driving in lake effect snow/ice, and three deer collisions.

It took me 8-10 hours to get there from home (2 flights, long drive) so I’d occasionally stay over the weekend rather than return home and go back (guaranteed hotel room for the next week!) We’d go skeet shooting for fun because there was not much else to do. I had a huge bruise on my shoulder for months - I fired a 12 gauge about a hundred times each weekend.

10

This. I’ve been traveling for business on-and-off for 15 years. Percentage of work travel has varied over the years with different employers or different roles. Many years I’d travel 50% of the time, others once or twice a quarter. But trust me, it loses a lot of appeal very, very quickly. I’ve been to an amazing number of cities in the U.S. but can tell you very little about most of them. It’s just another airport, rental car/taxi, hotel, meeting, rental car/taxi, airport cycle for a paycheck.

Some highlights:
[ul]
[li]Business meetings in Hawaii which I turned into a long weekend and brought my wife along.[/li][li]For awhile I was spending about 20-25 nights a year in Vegas for conferences. I hate Vegas now.[/li][li]Enjoyed some of the most amazing restaurants that America has to offer - on the company dime.[/li][li]A panicked security detail who thought their American visitor (me) to Bogata had gone and got himself kidnapped. I just went for a walk outside the hotel, young enough a naive enough to not realize how terrible of an idea that was.[/li][li]Only time I encountered bed bugs and it was at the Contemporary Resort at Disney.[/li][/ul]

I’m sure I could find more interesting or funny or depressing anecdotes from my work travels. But to be honest they just blur together and pale in comparison to the suck and grind of business travel.

MeanJoe

11

Ha. I was thinking about making a trip to NYC earlier this year to pick up an award I was given and I was simultaneously recommended and warned away from this place!

12

I travel for business frequently. I don’t really have any horror stories, just the typical frequent traveller stories. But I recall one time…

I was in Chennai, India, at a five star hotel. It was said it would be “six stars” but couldn’t get permission for the heliport on the roof (the ITC Grand Chola, not a bad place but a bit labyrinthine). The thing is, most of India is a shit hole, and Chennai is one of the biggest shit holes there is. It’s dirty, traffic is chaotic, and work is an hour from the hotel on the best of days. The people are nice, but there’s really no reason any sane human being would ever want to visit Chennai for the hell of it. You’re there for work, or you’re Steve Jobs level crazy looking to find oneself, or whatever it is crazy people do.

I didn’t want to be there. My Scottish mate from South Africa didn’t want to be there. Only non-sane people want to be there, and we were sitting in the ITC Grand Chola lobby bar drinking up to our expense limits in dinner money complaining about not wanting to be there.

Let me say that we’d both been there before. Many, many times. It wasn’t an adventure to us, but a chore, a task, an unpleasant diversion from our homes in China and South Africa.

In that context it occurred to me that we really had it pretty good. Despite the major suckitude of being there, a lot of our countrymen would be envious. We had it pretty good. Aside from a pretty decent hotel, we were in a foreign country. It doesn’t matter that it’s a shit hole; the vast majority of our respective countrymen never leave their countries, or even their hometowns, and that we should appreciate the opportunity despite the filth, poverty, and general unpleasantness.

I like to think that our conversation had something to do with his acceptance of a long term assignment there some time later, and me, I try to find the good in every place I go. Nothing can be worse than Chennai (for non-military, I’d qualify), and every place has something attractive about it to outsiders.

I had good beef in Chennai, and that’s unusual in India. I had awesome Indian food. I got to control my lights with the room’s iPad. I got to work with the people in the plant, and they are intelligent, have good humor, and are hard working, and in every way a pleasure to work with.

I look forward to being sent to Podunk, should it ever happen.

13

Well, there was the time I went out of town on business, and a cow-orker started a rumor that I was in trouble for putting hookers on my expense report. She meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed except me. She got into some trouble over it, but I did my best to intervene and she got off with a warning - it really was just a stupid joke, and nobody really believed it. Fortunately, two other people at my firm who were married to other people were having an affair, and it blew up rather badly and distracted everyone from the hooker rumor.

I used to travel a lot more when I was at my last client. The arrangements were always nice, but I wound up working a ton of hours, so I was always glad to get home. Always a nice hotel to stay in, but I didn’t see much of my room.

Regards,
Shodan

14

I have a corporate credit card, but I still had to submit my receipts. Like I said, I’ve only had the opportunity to travel three times. I did get a little homesick toward the end.

15

Years ago, my brother was spending an incredible amount of time in Brazil for business. His work was very important for the company, so they allowed him to keep his frequent flyer points, plus he was allowed to return home to visit his family whenever he wanted.

He flew home nearly every weekend. He’d meet his wife and son at the airport, go to dinner, then head back for his return flight.

His frequent flyer miles eventually were used for two vacations to Hawaii.

16

I travel a lot, but rarely anyplace good. I can tell you all the great things to do in Paducah, Kentucky, or Evansville, Indiana. I drove to New Harmony, Indiana every two weeks for 4 1/2 years. Good times.

When I was fresh out of college I took a job as a fisheries biologist in the Bering Sea. I spent 3 weeks in Dutch Harbor, Alaska waiting for my ship to come in (ha!). Let me assure you, that’s 19 days too long. I was so bored I worked on a crab processing ship one night, spent a day unloading a cargo ship, and helped replace windows in crappy manufactured housing units.

On the other hand it’s the crappy places that were the most memorable. The rest just blur together.

17

Spent the day at our NYC office. Went to check-in quickly with the partner I was working for in that office, so that she could get me back into the office. I was going to pull a late night - left my bags at the office.

Credit card declined (was travelling so much that had over $10k in reimbursements outstanding).

She offers her card instead.

Scenario:
Me, 24 year old kid
Her, 40+ year old woman.
No luggage.
She is paying for the room.
I am getting a thumbs up from the bellman, and a raised eyebrow from the woman at the desk.

I am bright red as we leave with “our” keys. My new nickname is [female partner’s] boytoy.

18

Sort of.

I was working maintenance at a convention center when I saw a commotion. This woman was trying to get away from this man who was trying to keep her near while also trying to call someone on his cell phone. I went over to see what was up. It seems that the man was a cab driver (limited english) and the woman was his customer whom he had brought from the airport and he wanted paid. The woman said she was a special guest and the hosts of the event were to pay his cab fare. She just wanted to leave him and go find someone in charge who could do this but the man (remember- limited english) didnt understand and thought she was just trying to walk away without paying. He had been on the phone with 911 and trying to get the police.

I called a supervisor and security and I guess they straightened it all out.

19

I’m old enough to remember when air travel was fun. Today your choices are first class or third world – and my company won’t pay for first class.

I’ve become such a curmudgeon that I’ve arranged** for all my travel to be in my own RV. I’m senior enough to have an abundance of vacation time, and I can add driving days to the weekends of a weeklong business trip (Friday before, and Monday following). At this point, I don’t use airlines or hotels at all - even for trips to the west coast. If they ever send me to Maine, I might have to give up and fly though.

The following is a rant from me, back in 2014.

***Is the travel industry in the US “broken”? **

Or am I just expecting too much? I guess if people are still going on vacation, and the hotels and airlines are profiting it’s working well enough, but Christ-on-a-cracker it’s a pain to get anywhere now. As I’ve stated here before, I almost always manage my own damned self when traveling. I fly myself, drive myself, and frequently have my own house (RV) so I can ensure my needs are met. But work and time constraints have pushed me into the standard Airline->Rental Car->Hotel framework, and it seems worse than I remember.

A recent weeklong business trip brought the following headaches:

  1. Multiple gate changes prior to departure, resulting in scampering back and forth until the damned airline settled on one.
  2. Airline losing my seat assignment, then putting me in middle-seat steerage. And charging me extra for trying to fix it via phone.
  3. Another graphic lesson about Jean-Paul Sartre’s quotes* while dealing with personal space, reclining assholes, and crowded conditions on the plane itself.
  4. Rent car agency screwed up, refused our company’s discounts causing a delay.
  5. Hotel room not ready.
  6. Advertised Wifi too slow to be usable (unless it was 3am)
  7. Room wasn’t cleaned some days (front desk answer: “Yeah, sometimes they don’t”)
  8. In-room coffee maker broke (twice). Refused to issue another and kept giving me parts to try and fix it.
  9. Insanely loud, piercing fire alarm goes off twice. Resulting in hurried trips into the freezing parking lot, and interrupted sleep.
  10. “Complimentary” breakfast late (causing rush to morning meetings)
  11. Return flight didn’t go to the advertised terminal (DFW), resulting in another 30 minutes securing transport back to my damned car before I could go home.

*Hell is other people.

As far as I can tell, all my money flowed to the various businesses on time and uninterrupted, and all the dollars were complete and usable. I held up my end of this bargain. But absolutely no one held up theirs. Every single exchange was late, changed, missing, and/or carried unexpected charges. Not a single entity in the entire chain delivered what was advertised or agreed upon.*

As said above, I now travel exclusively in my own vehicle, with my “hotel” just behind me. I guess I’m an outlier, but something about the travel industry’s “You’re stuck with us now, and we can screw you over as we please” attitude just infuriates me.

**It’s kind of a stretch, but there are medical issues I can legitimately claim as reasons for needing “my” support system at all times. So far, the company is OK with it since my travel costs are less than half the normal trip.

20

I am self employed and while I have a corporate card for expenses, I am the one that pays for it since it is my business. I have travelled some for business (Dubai, Prague and Bangkok mostly) but normally stay in 2-3 star hotels and eat street food.