Life on the Road

It seems glamorous to many people, the idea of a multi-day road trip for business, and I can understand. Afterall, I'm doing a whirlwind tour of the east coast, including New York City and Times Square. Its fun, right?

Well...yes. It's also a lot of work and effort and exhaustion too. Isn't it interesting how travellers often tend to share the fun part of their travels? Their cool photos and 'you'll never believe what happened on my trip' moments. In part because that's what the people who didn't go on the trip want to hear about. They don't want to hear about:

• The work days that start at 7am, and finish at 11pm.
  
• Meetings that schedule up all available time.
• Meals that, while social, are essentially yet another meeting. Either its with a business contact, or it's a debrief session with the boss.
• Travel in unfamiliar territories.

Today is a good example of the typical business trip day. We had two press editor appointments, a teleconference back to the home office, two working session meals. My day started at 7am, with a phone call from a colleague, who had just landed at the airport and was making his way to a rendezvous point near Times Square. I had to simultaneously prepare for a monthly sales meeting (without any of my usual in-the-office information available), and prepare a briefing session for my colleague so he could be the most useful. The teleconference involved the use of three separate cell phones, thanks to spotty coverage and technical difficulties. For the record, having a conference call huddled around a cell phone on speakerphone is not pleasant. Then, off to see the press guy at a restaurant.

Did I mention it's 22 degrees in New York today? Walking is darned cold.

We get to a very crowded restaurant for our meeting and find that the person we're meeting is stuck on a late train coming from Philadelphia. He'll be there, but late. When he gets there, we have lunch, then demo our tools in the restaurant. Remember, this is New York, half a block from the theater district on Broadway: the restaurant is full like a rock festival - people jostling everywhere. Its in this mayhem that I must keep my composure and deliver a complex demo of new technology while still communicating my points crisply and with impact. Three hours later, when this meeting is completed, we head straight to the next meeting.

The next meeting requires that we walk through Times Square and locate an office building that no one in our party has ever been to. Meanwhile, take advantage of this space between meetings to call home and see how things are. And how are they? Not bad, but not great, either. I can hear the testiness in C's voice clearly. We find find the office, after some miscues, and arrive on time, but a little harried. Quick -- regain composure!

This press meeting takes place in a conference room. Better than the earlier demo; more relaxed and at-ease. But, by now, we've done the presentation six times in four days. We're starting to get a little rough around the edges, having said all the points so many times, are we repeating ourselves? Three hours later, after pouring out a passionate performance for the second time in one day, we're done.

Except we're not done. Next on the agenda is dinner with the editors to whom we just presented. Dinner is all about business opportunities to get our story portrayed in this particular publication. The food is great. Spirits are high. It's almost 9pm and we're still finishing dessert. Fourteen hours of high energy output and still not a quiet moment to think or even enjoy our surroundings.

We arrive back at the hotel at 10pm. Exhausted. Wishing to be done. Fifteen continuous high-energy hours has drained me. But now is the only chance I have to connect with my family at home. This is the part I live for. Except they're missing me and a bit upset I'm not there. Except they want to talk to me about problems they need me to fix. I want to tell them I love them. They have other things they want to talk about.

We business travellers try to put the challenges off to the side. We tend to just bring home the highlights. Once we've overcome the travel challenges, we wish not to dwell on them. Maybe that's why those who stay at home sometimes think the trips are more fun than they really are... because we the travellers don't talk about the hard parts.