business travel

A letter from my first week home this year

by Steve Brock on February 22, 2013

There's a reason the words travel and travail share the same root..

Dear Travel,

You and I, we’re not doing so well.

I think we’ve been spending too much time with each other.

I used to look forward to being with you. We’d go everywhere together.

Now, after the first week so far in this year that I haven’t had to be on the road, I find I rather like it. Sorry, Travel, but you kind of wear on me. No matter where I go, you’re always there. And you always want more.

I know your moods and your little idiosyncrasies. Like how there’s no perfect way to arrive at an airport. I’m always either waiting or running, or so it seems. Or how you lull me into a sense of complacency and then pull the rug out by canceling a flight or giving me wrong directions. That’s a nice one.

But oh too familiar.

We used to have fun together! But I can’t recall the last time I laughed on a trip. Let’s face it. The spark is gone. The ol’ magic just isn’t there.

I think we should be seeing other people.

No, we can still be friends. We can, maybe, still see each other. Sometime. Just not like everyday. Not now at least.

You go hang out with some other folks. How about all those college grads who think you’re the greatest thing since the wheel or Instagram? All they talk about is you. Spend time with them. Let them get to know you as I do. Introduce them to the wear and tear of constant business trips. Then we’ll see how enamored they are with your exotic ways and your “we could go anywhere!” attitude.

For me, I just need some distance. Yes, I know that’s your specialty. You’ve been singing me that tune for far too long. I’m talking emotional distance here, not miles. I just need to spend some time with this other friend, Home.

I’ll let you know how it goes. And who knows, we might even take a few short jaunts together into town or around the neighborhood. I know you want more, but that’s all I can give you now. I need my space, so don’t push me, OK?

What? You’ve heard me talk like this before? And I always come running back? Don’t get too cocky, Travel. We’ve not spent this much concentrated time together for a long while. Enough is enough.

So you go your way (you always do) and I’ll not go any way or anywhere. I’ll just hang. Spend time in one place. Get to know my own furniture and family for a change.

Maybe I’ll call you.

Or more likely, a week or two from now, you’ll call me.

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Boiling frogs and business travel

by Steve Brock on June 21, 2012

Business travel is a rather odd sort of business, especially when it comes to hotels.

If you ever look closely at the pricing and services offered at various hotels, you’ll realize that the typical rules of economics don’t seem to apply. Or rather, they do but in ways that raise an eyebrow or two. Or at least mine. The left one to be precise.

Here’s my question: Why is it that I can stay at a budget or mid-priced hotel for under $100 in many markets (more in big cities) and get a free newspaper, free hot breakfast, free Internet access, free parking and oftentimes free local (and with some, even long distance) calls?

Yet if I pay twice that amount or more at a “nicer” hotel, I am charged at least $15/day for parking or use of their wifi. Local calls can cost $5 and that same anachronistic newspaper I can get for $.50 outside costs me anywhere from $2 to $5 to have it laid out in front of my room door.

In other words, with hotels catering to business travelers, the more you pay for your room, the less you get.

I understand the why of this: business travelers are usually on expense accounts and will pay these additional charges because they can. I’m in marketing, so I get issues of price discrimination, market segmentation and the whole psychology and make-up of the business travel culture. But the whole system seems a bit suspect to me.

The funny thing about it is that I usually don’t notice it. I’ve become like the proverbial frog in the pot of water. You know, the urban legend-like story that if you want to boil a frog (which itself begs the question of why you would want to do that), you need to place the amphibian into cool water and heat it slowly. If you just drop it in already boiling water, it will just jump out.

Turns out that none of that is true. But let’s not let reality get in the way of a good metaphor. The point is that I’m so accustomed to the way business travel works that I just buy into it.

Or I used to.

Lately, I find I don’t like playing this game any more. Recently, I’ve become aware of how many “games” I play, from hotels to airline’s mileage programs to the way rental cars try to scare you into buying insurance you likely don’t need (since your regular car insurance may already cover you in a rental).

All these little cross-sells, up-sells, surcharges (let’s not even start on airlines’ added fees) and special taxes not only add up, but they take away from the meaningful aspects of travel.

How about you? Ever notice how many things you pay for, especially on a trip, that don’t add value to your experience but are just ways for companies to make more money at your expense?

Hop out of that pot.

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Prairie dogs and business travel

by Steve Brock on June 12, 2012

Though you can barely see the second rainbow here from this photo taken not in Colorado but Yellowstone, it gives you some idea of a double rainbow

Business travel sometimes feels like all business. You go through the routine and nothing outside of the task at hand registers.

Other times, you can’t help but notice some of the more unusual occurrences on your trip. Take my business trip to Colorado last week for example.

I land in Denver through such turbulence that I feel like the inhabitant of a snow globe. I get to the rental car office outside the airport and suddenly the manager starts screaming at people to get inside and move away from the windows. All transactions stop as collectively we watch a small tornado pass through the parking lot fifty feet in front of us.

I’ve never seen a twister in person before, much less one this close. Apparently neither has anyone else judging from the excited chatter that follows, hands swirling in spiral reenactments, voices raised a few decibels higher than normal describing the objects flung effortlessly around in the twenty-foot-wide point of the funnel.

I find my rental car (fortunately parked in a different lot) and depart thinking I’ve had my fill of unusual weather for one trip. Within an hour of that phenomenon, however, as I drive south I encounter the following:

  • multiple lightening strikes to the east, not the zig-zaggy patterns that appear high up and work their way to earth like a PowerPoint slide transition, but quick straight lines of white flashing all at once like a neon burst against a charcoal background;
  • cloud patterns and colors that seem more like CGI effects than acts of nature;
  • wind that wants to drive my small car sideways as much as I want to will it forward;
  • rain that falls gently at first then comes down in drops the size of marbles;
  • hail that matches then exceeds the volume and size of the rain and pounds the car’s roof with a rhythmic intensity that seems almost melodic (though I find out the next day that in some areas the hail reached three inches in diameter and piled up in drifts two feet high);
  • and to top it all off, in the midst of all of this, a double rainbow (you have to say the words “double rainbow” with awe like the guy in the popular YouTube video for full effect).

None of this was on my itinerary or meeting agenda. But I find in such dramatic situations, I have no choice but to pay attention. What starts as mere curiosity becomes enthrallment. I am a spectator in the theater of the sky, a performance I did not sign up for, but now I cannot resist. I am witness to it, but also a participant, part of the disruptive weather that surrounds me.

At one point, as I am driving through a more remote stretch of highway amidst the thin vertical bars of brilliant light erupting to my left, I notice on the right side of the road a lone prairie dog. It stands up as only prairie dogs, curious squirrels and small children at a circus or parade can do on its hind legs straining for the sky; watching, giving witness to the magnificence before and around it.

“Amen,” I think as I drive on.

 *******

Normally, I too easily become jaded, especially on business trips where practiced precision drives my decisions and movements. But experiences like this remind me that there is more to life than work, more to travel than just getting someplace else.

This may all sound rather dramatic or possibly, over-the-top if you weren’t there. That’s the point. That’s what made this business trip something much more: Being there to experience the wildness and wonder of it all.

But don’t take my word for it.

Just ask the prairie dog.

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Media, marketing and meaningful travel – Part 2

by Steve Brock October 3, 2011

The alternative to a media fast as a means of dealing with all the products and ads that come your way is to do a reverse fast where you pay even more attention to what you normally ignore, especially on a business trip.

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Meaningful travel and the value of lowly places

by Steve Brock June 13, 2011

Restrooms and bathrooms can be surprising locations for meaningful travel, but they serve well to facilitate relationships and foster creativity. Seriously…

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A curious trip

by Steve Brock May 25, 2011

What do you do when you discover something like an ant crawling around the inside of your airplane window? I wonder…

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A long way back

by Steve Brock March 18, 2011

Business travel tends to be all business. But sometimes just noticing the actions of others can completely change your own perspective…and make both your trip and your life more meaningful.

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