Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Business Travel Makes You Crazy
The leading cause of obesity, and general unhappiness in the United States has got to be business travel. There's no question in my mind that being on the road is just disastrous to one's mental and physical well-being. The physical part is obvious - you're traveling, and usually only have time to eat in crappy fast-food places. You can't miss your plane or miss your meeting, and you don't know where things are, so when you find a place that serves something resembling food, you don't want to pass it up. Of course, you could find a real restaurant, but you don't want to be one of those losers you see sitting alone at a nice restaurant. Who are those people? I suppose they're business travelers trying to be healthy. So, you eat junk food. Not good. Although, my hotel did provide free apples, one of which I will be eating soon. But I'm sure they're laced with pesticides.
As for the mental aspect, there's the lack of sleep because your sleep cycle is off. Well, at least mine is - apparently, and this comes as news to me, most other companies have their employees get in BEFORE 11 am. Who knew? So I'm forced to sleep in a strange bed, sleeping tentatively because I'm worried that the desk person didn't take the wake-up call down properly, or that my technologically-inclined brain can't figure out how to work something as simple as an alarm clock. And, then, I have to get up earlier than usual and make sure I don't get lost, and work all day, cuz I really have nothing else to do, and then return to my hotel and eat greasy food. It's just not all that fun.
Today, at least I have baseball to come "home" to. Actually, when I got back to my hotel, I really thought I was going crazy. The previous night, I figured there was a chance that if I got everything done at work, I could leave tonight, so I took everything out of my room. I didn't check out, though, and I knew I was confirmed for two nights. When I returned to my room tonight (obviously, I didn't get everything done), I went to open the door and the card didn't work. I tried again, but couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. (Those red and green lights don't help, since I'm color-blind. Maybe I should file an anti-discrimination suit.) I tried a few times, pushed on the door, checked to make sure it was the right room, and then a guy came to the door. He told me that he thought I had the wrong room. I went to ask him if he checked in tonight (to assure myself that I wasn't crazy), but he left. I tried the card in a few rooms around the area, hoping that no one else would come to the door. Finally, I went back to the front desk, where I was informed that because I had removed all of my stuff (is this really THAT unusual?), they thought I might have checked out. I was given a new room - an "upgrade" room, in fact, that is really the same room, but with more floor space for me to not use. Maybe I'll run laps or something. The point is, I'm not crazy...yet. Although all of this time in the south is starting to make me friendlier....that is kinda scary.
As for the mental aspect, there's the lack of sleep because your sleep cycle is off. Well, at least mine is - apparently, and this comes as news to me, most other companies have their employees get in BEFORE 11 am. Who knew? So I'm forced to sleep in a strange bed, sleeping tentatively because I'm worried that the desk person didn't take the wake-up call down properly, or that my technologically-inclined brain can't figure out how to work something as simple as an alarm clock. And, then, I have to get up earlier than usual and make sure I don't get lost, and work all day, cuz I really have nothing else to do, and then return to my hotel and eat greasy food. It's just not all that fun.
Today, at least I have baseball to come "home" to. Actually, when I got back to my hotel, I really thought I was going crazy. The previous night, I figured there was a chance that if I got everything done at work, I could leave tonight, so I took everything out of my room. I didn't check out, though, and I knew I was confirmed for two nights. When I returned to my room tonight (obviously, I didn't get everything done), I went to open the door and the card didn't work. I tried again, but couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. (Those red and green lights don't help, since I'm color-blind. Maybe I should file an anti-discrimination suit.) I tried a few times, pushed on the door, checked to make sure it was the right room, and then a guy came to the door. He told me that he thought I had the wrong room. I went to ask him if he checked in tonight (to assure myself that I wasn't crazy), but he left. I tried the card in a few rooms around the area, hoping that no one else would come to the door. Finally, I went back to the front desk, where I was informed that because I had removed all of my stuff (is this really THAT unusual?), they thought I might have checked out. I was given a new room - an "upgrade" room, in fact, that is really the same room, but with more floor space for me to not use. Maybe I'll run laps or something. The point is, I'm not crazy...yet. Although all of this time in the south is starting to make me friendlier....that is kinda scary.
Comments:
I agree that sleeping while on business can often be quite difficult. For me, traveling from California out east is the norm (meaning ~2x/year)...so after flying/traveling for many hours, during which I don't use much energy, I get to a strange hotel and have to try to fall asleep 2-3 hours earlier than usual. That's something I can't do normally, let alone while traveling and in a strange place, so I am generally quite tired the first day or two on travel. And on top of that, I'm not able to sleep with a nice beautiful woman...oh wait, that's just like every other night...
As for food, however, I think you're way off. Unless you're some super high powered executive (and you're not) who is working 20 hours/day, what else do you have to do after work than go eat a nice meal? I imagine it's paid for for you like it is for me, so why not go to a nice restaurant and eat well? If anything, in such a case, you should eat more healthy, because you don't have to worry about spending money for a quality meal (ie, better than McDonalds or some crap like Friday's). So in answer to your question, I'm one of those losers eating alone in the restaurant - except I'm not a loser - I'm a glamorous, cool, high powered, important traveler who's so awesome that I don't even have to pay for my own meals - it's all about the confidence, baby.
I've never had the hotel room experience you described, but last time I was in Chicago, I had somebody else walk into my room after I was already there, because they front desk accidently gave him my room after they had already given it to me.
-Dave Shear
As for food, however, I think you're way off. Unless you're some super high powered executive (and you're not) who is working 20 hours/day, what else do you have to do after work than go eat a nice meal? I imagine it's paid for for you like it is for me, so why not go to a nice restaurant and eat well? If anything, in such a case, you should eat more healthy, because you don't have to worry about spending money for a quality meal (ie, better than McDonalds or some crap like Friday's). So in answer to your question, I'm one of those losers eating alone in the restaurant - except I'm not a loser - I'm a glamorous, cool, high powered, important traveler who's so awesome that I don't even have to pay for my own meals - it's all about the confidence, baby.
I've never had the hotel room experience you described, but last time I was in Chicago, I had somebody else walk into my room after I was already there, because they front desk accidently gave him my room after they had already given it to me.
-Dave Shear
# posted by 
: October 6, 2004 at 11:42 PM
: October 6, 2004 at 11:42 PM
Business travel sucks. The last couple months I have had to get up at 3:30 AM at least one morning a week to drive or fly to somewhere. Hotels suck. Noisy. Uncomfortable beds. Never get enough sleep. Crappy TV's with remote controls that never work. And it is hard to eat well. When I have the time I'll eat at a nice restaurant. But a lot of times that is not possible. For example -- getting up at 3:30 AM. Driving for 3.5 hours in the middle of bum f-ck PA where there is nothing and I mean NOTHING around except maybe if you are lucky a run down gas station right out of a horror movie. Then meetings for 6 hours and then drive back. Not much of a chance for a healthy meal there. Or spending 10 hours trying to fly from newark to dallas because your company is too cheap to pay for a direct flight. And the weather sucks and you have delays and you are running between terminals at 3 airports. Yeah I suppose I could brown bag it or something. I suppose I could put more effort into it. But it is really friggin hard when you are exhausted and traveling all day and there is nothing around.
As for hotel miscues. I have twice had someone else walk into my room because they got the wrong room. And I have done it once myself. Scared the sh$t out of me. It was late. Opened the door. Put down my stuff and then heard something and saw some poor guy sit up and bed. Both of us crapping our pants.
Business travel can be nice. But when you are doing it on the cheap and when you are doing it much too frequently -- it sucks.
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As for hotel miscues. I have twice had someone else walk into my room because they got the wrong room. And I have done it once myself. Scared the sh$t out of me. It was late. Opened the door. Put down my stuff and then heard something and saw some poor guy sit up and bed. Both of us crapping our pants.
Business travel can be nice. But when you are doing it on the cheap and when you are doing it much too frequently -- it sucks.
# posted by : October 9, 2004 at 11:59 AM
: October 9, 2004 at 11:59 AM
