Traveling for Business: Share Your Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

A few years back I helped interview for a new VP of sales at my former employer, a small software company.

The four guys I spoke two were all Sr. Directors / Junior VPs at slightly-to-much-larger software shops, with 20-30 years of experience under their belts. All were successful, drove nice cars, yadda yadda, but it was obvious that they spent most of their careers on the road.

Each of them looked at least ten years older than their actual age - most of them looked older than my dad, a career state government employee who had 10-20 years on them.

That’s when I decided that no job is worth looking like I’m in my mid-60’s when I’m in my mid-40’s. The road is not for me.

These days, I travel for three or four days at most once per quarter, and it’s always to suburban Des Moines, or suburban Dallas, or suburban Charlotte, or Herndon VA., or some place equally mundane and boring. It’s just fine with me, since I have a toddler at home and traveling to some place truly awesome would just piss off my wife.

My most memorable trip was at the last job. One of my employees had seriously fucked something up for our second-largest client, so I got to go to the client’s HQ in suburban Cleveland with my CEO for an apology visit.

The CEO was a private pilot. Instead of driving, he flew us there in his Cirrus. It was my first flight in a small plane, and I was sitting two inches from a pilot who was very pissed off with me and very tense about getting reamed out by the customer.

Fortunately, the meeting went well. “What, that’s what happened? Shit, that happened to us a couple of years back and the plant was down for a week and we had to re-key all of our orders by hand for a month afterward. And you guys recovered in four hours? Good job!”

Needless to say, the boss was much happier with me on the way back. He even asked me if I wanted to take the stick.

“Want to fly it, Black Rabbit?”

“No.”

“Come on, take the stick…”

“I’d really rather not.”

“It’s not that hard. Just do it. Put your foot on this pedal, and…”

“Nope.”

“COME ON TAKE THE STICK!”

“Okay…”

“JESUS WHAT THE FUCK… EASE OFF THE PEDAL!!!”

“I have no idea what I’m doing. Take it back!”

“Ugh you pussy.”

Good times. The two hour flight still beat driving with him for five and half hours each way.

42

Best Business Travel Story:

Got “recruited” to do an on-site promotion for the company. I say “recruited”, because my contact at the local dealer assured me I would be selected. They promised me whatever I wanted.

I declined a rental car, as they said they would pick me up from the airport, and I wouldn’t need local transportation.

And they did. Picked me up, took me to a fantastic dinner, drove me to the dealership, let me pick a brand-new motorcycle, toss me the keys and set me loose.

Company paid for all the food, booze and gas and were thankful for the savings on the rental car!

43

Whadja pick?

44

I have a couple of worst business travel stories from a job a few years ago that required somewhat frequent trips:

I often had to drive from our northern Virginia headquarters to a client site in northern Delaware, typically a 2-hour drive if you time it right. (If you time it poorly, like I did once, it’s a 4 hour drive. I once came home on a Friday evening, perfectly hitting both the Baltimore metro rush hour and the DC beltway rush hour.) One time I was supposed to drive up there for a meeting with the client at around 11am. I got all the way to northbound 95 and discovered that Maryland State Troopers had closed **all **lanes of northbound 95 and were routing all of the interstate traffic through Historic Downtown Laurel. I called the client to tell them what was going on and that I’d be late, but when I finally arrived more than an hour late, they were rather displeased.

For another trip, I was sent to a client located in Maui. Sounds wonderful, right? It was a business trip, so I didn’t see any beaches or shopping. Business trips, even to exotic locales, can really suck if all you see is the airport and/or conference rooms. Anyway, I was scheduled to fly back home on Friday. I got to the airport on time, early Friday morning but that flight was delayed. It caused me to miss my connecting flight in Los Angeles. The airline customer service desk gave me the option of overnighting at a local hotel and catching the first flight in the morning or taking the next flight in a couple hours that happened to have a connection in Denver. I wanted to be home rather than traveling on Saturday, so I opted for the next flight with the Denver connection. That worked out to almost a 24-hour travel day (including the time zones) as I walked in my front door 23 hours after I walked into the Maui airport. Since I’m a skilled professional, I’m in the legal category of salaried-exempt which means no pay for overtime or excess travel.

45

When the other manager in our department (now gone, head is eliminated) went up for a week, my boss called me in to look over her receipts, which included steak dinners. That gets very pricey in mid-town Manhattan. I took that as a hint to eat on the cheap when I went up there. I even paid for my own wine.

46

I went to a conference in Anaheim years ago. The woman who arranged my travel explained that she put me in a Super 8 “next door” to the hotel where I’d be spending my time, because it was way cheaper.

I took a taxi from the airport to the Super 8, and found out the hotel was 4 miles away. I used a taxi to run back and forth, repeatedly, each day. It cost more than the difference between accommodations. Even a rental car would have been a better idea.

When I returned home I was pretty pissed off. The woman who made the arrangements defended herself by repeatedly showing me the map and explaining that the buildings were only “this far away” from each other (holding up her thumb and forefinger an eighth inch apart).

47

I’ve had a few memorable ones.

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I was living and working in Los Angeles, doing software development. We were contracted out to work with a company near Washington, D.C., that was pitching a proposal to the IRS. I had to fly out there, load the software from a tape to their computer system, compile the code, remove the tape, and then test the software. I was under strict orders that I could not leave the source code on the system.

I was there for about 2 days, and my part was finished. We were all under deadlines, and since our software had been blessed, I was told to vacate the lab so other vendors could come in and get their stuff working.

I told them I needed a backup of my program’s hierarchy on their target system for safekeeping. I expressly told them we had been forbidden to give them our source code, and if anything happened to the executable, I would not be able to give them a replacement without coming back and doing all the work. However, the tape drive was being used for something and they told me they would make the backup that evening.

Foolishly, I took our source code and left. That was Wednesday afternoon and I got back home in LA around midnight.

On Thursday afternoon, we received a panicked phone call. Somebody had effed-up big time, and the program directories had been wiped out. “Just restore from the backup you promised me you would make,” I said.

Yeah, right. Of course they had not made the backup.

So, I had my wife bundle the two babies into the car, bring me a suitcase with some clothes and my toiletries, and I was on a flight out of LAX late that evening for the red-eye to D.C. Had a 90 minute or so layover in Phoenix, I think it was. Of course, at midnight, the airport was a complete ghost town.

I arrived in D.C. around 5:00 AM and took the shuttle to the hotel. I checked in and took a long, hot bath. Just before 7:00 AM, my contacts picked me up at the hotel and drove me to the lab. I loaded my tape, rebuilt the software, reinstalled the software on their target machine, and tested it. Everything works.

I then told them to make two backups, and I wasn’t leaving until they had a tape, I had a tape, and we had tested both tapes.

I was back on the plane around 1:00 PM that afternoon.

Four times cross-country completely bushwhacked me!

Lesson learned: ALWAYS MAKE YOUR OWN BACKUPS!

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Went to Edinburgh, Scotland, for two weeks in late October. Was staying in Edinburgh, and the office was halfway-ish between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Left the hotel early in the morning when it was still dark. Left the office late in the evening after it had gotten dark. Saw absolutely nothing of the Scottish countryside during the workweek.

That first Friday night was Hallowe’en, and one of the guys I was working with invited me to a Hallowe’en party. That was nice.

Saturday, another one of the guys I was working with who was from Atlanta, GA, but who was living in Edinburgh for the duration of the project, suggested that we go to the castle. Spent the whole day sight-seeing the castle and parts of Edinburgh. That was nice.

Sunday, however, was a different story. I don’t remember if I woke up late and the kitchen had already closed, or if I woke up too early before the kitchen opened. I had decided I was going to go to a particular church (I had met the pastor and her husband at an earlier time), and so needed to get to the church. I was absolutely starving, but figured I could find something to eat on the street.

Wrong. At the time, nothing in Scotland was open on Sunday. Got to the church and, afterward, the pastor invited me over to their house for lunch. I knew that they were on an extremely tight budget and I very well could have eaten them out of house and home without trying, so I begged off. I was going over to the office Boss’ house around 5 that evening to watch American football, so I said I was going to go back to the hotel and sleep.

Ended up walking all over Edinburgh looking for a pub, fish-and-chips stand, or even a dumpster with something fresh in it. Couldn’t find anything.

Finally, at 3:00 PM, I called the boss and asked if I could come over early, and, oh, by the way, could I have a couple of pieces of bread? Perhaps with some meat?

So, I was in Edinburgh for 2 whole weeks, and I literally only saw the city in the daylight for about 15 hours, total.

Lesson learned: ALWAYS CARRY SNACKS ON A BUSINESS TRIP!