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Business Travel Sucks

rdowns

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
Been in Denver all week opening a new office (which went amazingly well). Couldn't get a flight out tonight so I'm stuck here until tomorrow. Hotel bar and restaurant are closed on the weekends as all the road warriors are gone.

Had to settle for dinner ordered from one of those services. Arrived hot but the steak tasted like cow poo.

I'm so friggin' bored.
 
You know that you have traveled too much when you get off an airplane and could swear that you are not where you want to be - it happened to me. After a while airports end up looking the same!
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
You know that you have traveled too much when you get off an airplane and could swear that you are not where you want to be - it happened to me. After a while airports end up looking the same!
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You sound like Tyler Durden. ;)

Time for a single-serving life...
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
You know that you have traveled too much when you get off an airplane and could swear that you are not where you want to be - it happened to me. After a while airports end up looking the same!
Click to expand...
Ha ha - yeah. The look-alike airports are especially disconcerting on transit stops when you can't figure out which country you are in.
 
clayj said:
GASP!

KT, I am shocked, SHOCKED that you knew about this. :eek:

And even more shocked that I didn't know about it first. ;)
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Dude.. I left my HALO at the LAN party last week.



BARUM-SHAAAA!!!!!
(it was hilarious, I demand you laugh!!):D:D:D
 
Yes it does

kiwi-in-uk said:
Ha ha - yeah. The look-alike airports are especially disconcerting on transit stops when you can't figure out which country you are in.
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You tell me. That's why I love Douglas Adams' quotes:

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, 'as pretty as an airport.'Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort.
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I actually enjoy being on the road, but sometimes I just want to get home and lay on the bed for a while. To give you an idea, on Sunday, I will be travelling with the following schedule: (I'm based in San Jose, Costa Rica)

San Jose->Miami->Philadelphia (1 week)
Philadelphia->Miami->San Jose (Saturday, back home for a night)
San Jose->Miami->Chicago->Frankfurt->Paderborn, Germany (Sunday, stay 4 days)
Paderborn->Frankfurt->Paris (weekend+4 days)
Paris->Southampton (weekend+4 days, take train to London)
London->Boston (weekend+4 days)
Boston->Miami->San Jose, Costa Rica

So, in total, I'll be gone for 5 weeks. After those trips you end up exhausted and kinda disoriented... and yes, it has happened to me that I had no clue where I was, after a similar schedule that required me to do London->San Jose, CA->Munich->Boston->Paris->Home. It was actually funny, because I actually ended up disoriented and not believing the time the clock said... interesting, and definitely unhealhty.

At least at work they give us a couple of days off to recover after these trips, so you can put your personal things back together and come back to work a little more refreshed.

(sorry for the long post, but it's 1am and I just finished packing my bags...)
 
Looking at your schedule makes me feel better. Just finished packing my bags and have almost 5 hours until my flight. Going for along drive to the foothills of the rockies to kill some time. Hope my camera battery holds up.
 
yep, it does mostly suck. The ony people that think it's glamorous are those that don't do it...
 
rdowns said:
Looking at your schedule makes me feel better. Just finished packing my bags and have almost 5 hours until my flight. Going for along drive to the foothills of the rockies to kill some time. Hope my camera battery holds up.
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I was thinking the same.

Another thought of when you have been traveling too much:

When the flight crew addresses you by first name.

Or when the hotel manager/clerk welcomes you "home".

All of these have happened to me....

I think it would be different if my travels were for pleasure at the time...
 
clayj said:
You sound like Tyler Durden. ;)

Time for a single-serving life...
Click to expand...

heh, same thing popped into my mind. this quote specifically:

"You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person? "

loved fight club.
 
iBlue said:
heh, same thing popped into my mind. this quote specifically:

"You wake up at Seatac, SFO, LAX. You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, BWI. Pacific, mountain, central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. You wake up at Air Harbor International. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person? "

loved fight club.
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That was the quote that I came across in researching the "Tyler Durden" reference.

In some ways this is the focus of my "new" life this year. I welcome that challenge. As I have said, there is a big difference when the travel is done for business and when it is done for pleasure.

I am looking forward to returning on 7 days in Iceland and London on March 1st. And maybe if things work out to turn around 14 days later to do Dublin for St. Patrick's Day. Worst case if I can get the time off from work, I will do Chicago, Boston, or NYC for the same weekend.
 
It really gets exciting with an out of country domestic flight to connect to your international flight back to the U.S., (in this case, Venezuela), then two more connections Stateside to get home, and you lose your passport. This just happened to me yesterday.
 
xsedrinam said:
It really gets exciting with an out of country domestic flight to connect to your international flight back to the U.S., (in this case, Venezuela), then two more connections Stateside to get home, and you lose your passport. This just happened to me yesterday.
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Ouch!

That is why will have copies of the "signature page" of my passport and extra copies of my photos handy. Not sure that would help, but it can't hurt.
 
I am now in Paderborn, after a very hectic last week in Philly. I wanted to check in on the thread to see what more people had posted.

The flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was actually pretty good - there were 42 people total in coach (I counted them with one of the flight attendants), in a 767. You could say it was pretty much empty, so I moved to the middle row, by myself, with 3 seats... and slept, lying down, most of the way to here.

But yeah, here I am, jet-lagged as hell, waiting for my turn to speak at a the seminar... I hope I am awake by then...
 
cantthinkofone said:
Fight Club is by far the best movie ever made in my opinion.
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I agree with you... I like to watch it every once in a while, it is really kinda of a wake-up call on the lifestyle that most of us follow these days.
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
I was thinking the same.

Another thought of when you have been traveling too much:

When the flight crew addresses you by first name.

Or when the hotel manager/clerk welcomes you "home".

All of these have happened to me....

I think it would be different if my travels were for pleasure at the time...
Click to expand...
Brought back some memories of my earlier travel life.

Yeah, getting on the flight to the states from Japan and the crew greets you and then says they will get a few extra of your favorite chocolates. And then asks if you are going to x and y because they remember.

Or the hotel in Honolulu (travel sucks! ;-)) asks if you want your same room -- and they haven't pulled you up on the computer yet. They just recognize you. Oh, and when your favorite room is already occupied, gives you keys to a few rooms including suites and says choose which one you want for the same rate.

I have not been welcomed home however. That would really be weird I think.
 
xsedrinam said:
It really gets exciting with an out of country domestic flight to connect to your international flight back to the U.S., (in this case, Venezuela), then two more connections Stateside to get home, and you lose your passport. This just happened to me yesterday.
Click to expand...
Bummer. That sux!
 
I travelled to Google on business back in September. While the Google campus was absolutely AWESOME (LOVE the heated washlet toilets and the massage chairs!!) I hated the whole business travel experience. You work long hours, and by the time you get back to your hotel you are so tired that all you want to do is just crash. You tend toward fast food since by the time you get to eat you are so famished that dirt looks appealing. I thought I would take advantage of the gym at the hotel or at Google, but either never found time or the energy after the long days. It completely screwed up my routine.

The flights back and forth across country were murder. My flight out there was three hours delayed due to smoke coming out of the engine (on 9/11 of all days) so I missed my connecting flight and ended up getting in to Salt Lake City late, spending the night there, and having to catch an early EARLY flight so I could make my 9 AM meeting the next morning (they had to fly me into San Fran instead of San Jose to get me there on time so that rush hour commute was just dandy). I took the red eye back on the following Thursday night--after another extremely long work day. I don't sleep well on planes at all--just can't get comfortable. However, I thought just MAYBE if I was absolutely exhausted it wouldn't matter. No dice. By the time I reached BWI and back to my apartment (after having to wait another 45 minutes for a shuttle bus to arrive) I was so exhausted that I could hardly think straight while typing up my report for the consulting job, which was due by that afternoon.

So, I guess the long of the short of it is.... I feel your pain, dude.
 
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