who travels for work?

[arabianequine]

Do you like traveling? I hate driving myself long distances then staying in hotels by myself it is scary. At least it will be in the daylight....it is even scarier driving alone at when dark.

I will be leaving to Oregon tomorrow and will be a bit of a drive 6 hours.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Traveling? I travel from the house to the farm, right outside my front door, and the best part about it, I dont even have to get dressed, made up or anything to show up for work everyday!
I do sympathize with your fright of traveling alone and staying alone, I would probably have that same dread. Why not take one of your chickens along for the ride? I use to have to commute in my job, and I would pack up a few of the little peeps and take them with me, kept me entertained. Corporate use to spin their head when I would show up with chicks in tow, but how could they not love baby chickens? Always was a great way of breaking ice for those long boring meetings and making new chicken friends. People were allowed to bring their dogs to work, so I would bring my chickens!

Be safe in your travels!

 

[welsummerchicks]

My advice would probably not include bringing chickens to a corporate meeting. As a general rule, Corporate america is not going to change or be changed, and they don't want to see or hear about your home life or pets, even if they act polite when you trot them out. It's really about work and about nothing else. If I was your boss, most likely, I would have fired you or had it put in your HR report. Humorless? Perhaps, but my boss would have made out a report on ME if I did not keep my people in line. Similar to hour long smoking breaks and bringing alcohol to work.

I have from time to time had a job that involved travel, but generally driving was discouraged by management. They usually prefer employees fly unless they have a local-regional sales job where of course they have to drive from one customer to the other.

Sometimes it was fun, sometimes not. Going to Mexico for business, some of my friends were robbed. Being in a country that is falling apart where gunfire is the accompaniment to an election, not so much.

If it's for business, I try very hard not to go anywhere or do anything else except the business meeting, eat and sleep. A visit to a museum can easily turn out something like the script of 'After Hours'. If the customers you are meeting are high rollers you have to act like a high roller and entertain them somewhere nice. IF they are not, you have to play along.

It's boring to take the same trip to the same place over and over. I did get to go to a lot of nice places though. In some cases they made us fly in and out on weekends to save money so we had a rental car and a day or day and a half to sightsee, shop and eat out. That was fun.

I never have any fear of driving alone or staying in a hotel alone for any purpose. But I would generally be staying in a very nice hotel near an airport and driving on big expressways or interstates, which while those are not guaranteed safe, I think they are safer.

If going into public places, such as for a large convention or a fair or entertainment, do not carry a purse. Put your essentials in a pouch that goes under your clothing. Most hotels have a safe, some have them in each room. Put your valuables in a safe. Do not lock them in your car.

If you rent a car, rent the cheapest, most undesirable car they have. Don't get a car with anything attractive inside such as a nice sound system.

When you go out in public, remove your jewelry. Don't give the impression of being affluent. Dress down a little bit. People look at shoes, accessories and jewelry to gauge who you are and how much money you have. Don't look affluent.

Do not carry a ton of credit cards, cash cards. Buy traveler's checks or carry only one credit card with a guarantee and protection on it. Copy the credit card Help phone # in another place so you can call them immediately if you are robbed. If you get traveler's checks copy the numbers in to another place and keep ahold of them in case you need to call and report them stolen. If you act quickly you may not lose one single red cent.

Lock all your car doors as soon as you get in, if you leave your car to go in to a restauarant, park and lock your car in your view and keep an eye on it. Check the back seat before getting in. Stay with your car at gas stations and keep an eye on it when you go into pay. Best to keep it positioned so you can see all 4 wheels when you go in to pay. Safest is to pay with a credit card at the pump and stay with the car.

Never stop to help anyone when you are driving alone, even for an animal. You can make up for it another time when someone is with you. If you are in an accident, consider that it could be a deliberate attempt to steal your car and money. Stay in the car, windows up and doors locked. Only roll the window down enough to speak to the person and then roll it up. Consider any time you are at a standstill to be 'vulnerable' time. Do not be fooled by people who are 'friendly', 'lost' or 'in trouble'. If someone does appear to be making an attempt to jack your car, head for a police station. Never try to 'intervene' or 'help' when you are alone, if you choose to do so, recognize it is at your own peril.

Some guys hit me once and this was before I had some training in what to do. I got out of the car to see the damage (NEVER DO THAT). To my amazement, the guys in the car suddenly turned into cash dispensers. They started throwing money out the car as they rolled up the windows.

What had happened, was that my friend's dog, an Akita-Pyrenees cross, had hopped out the window and was standing in the road, wagging his tail slowly, with his great block of a head down. They thought he was going to kill them. He was huge.

I collected enough cash to pay for about ten bent bumpers. Nice night. Don't EVER, LOL.

Keep the chain lock on at all times in the hotel. Inquire at the front desk when it is staffed and what security exists around the hotel. Prefer hotels that have night security and have a wall or fence around the parking lot or again are in nice neighborhoods. Room service is often preferable to a late night semi-lost sojourn in a strange town.

It's a very, very good idea to know the city you're headed to and to study up on maps so you know to avoid the more dangerous parts of town. With google and earth it's pretty easy to get a look at your location and sort it out.

 

[angels4]

I have travelled for work for the past 5 years. I used to LOVE to travel, I used to take a month off every year and rail/backpack through Europe. Now I HATE to travel. Don't get me wrong, I've seen ALOT of great places, but my company insists we travel on weekends which is all well and good but sometimes I fly home on Saturday, do some laundry, and fly back out again on Sunday (and no I am not a flight attendent). And I recieve no compensation. I get paid my regular salary.

I tried a year ago to not travel so much and my senior manager asked why

I told her about the chickens, my garden, and my hives her response was that she had dogs and sometimes she had to have plan A, B and C in place to make sure they were taken care of (Plan A and B were family and friends, Plan C was paying someone to tend to the animals and garden)

Excuse me but you already don't pay me enough and now I need to PAY someone to tend to my commitments.....I DON'T THINK SO!

One of my biggest complaints though was my company claimed that they only ever made me travel when there wasn't anything for me to do in my own market. That is a false statement because there were NUMEROUS times that I would be travelled out and would find that a co-worker had been travelled into my market. Why have two people travel, keep me in my own market and send the co-worker where you sent me?

This past month I haven't had to travel out of state or to Canada for work as I was needed in my home state, I documented the amout of time I was in the car and on some days I had to leave as early as 5am to get to work by 8am or 9am then at the end of the day another 2-3 hours sitting in traffic just trying to get home at the end of the month my commute on average was about 30 hours

Just imagine all I can get done with an extra 30hrs. That day I called my boss and gave notice. I have to fulfill my September schedule....which includes TONS of travel, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Welsummerchicks gave some great advice and I have just a couple to add:
1. When checking into your hotel, don't allow them to put you in a room on the first floor.

2. When driving in an unfamiliar city (this should be done at home as well) DO NOT under any circumstances drive around with your purse setting next to you in the passenger seat, always place it on the floor behind the drivers seat.

 

[arabianequine]

I made it here and thank you for all the advice although did not see it till now....but I did have some weirdo trying to get me to respond in portland at them at the light they were on foot a man carrying plastic bags with his shopping stuff in it....I just kept going. I did not even look at him. Anyways my doors lock when I start rolling which is nice too.

I do have one of my wiener babies with me. I am just getting my license here. Not actually working but still they sent me here. They paid for me to come so I can work cause it is faster but more expensive but I guess worth it to them so I can start working faster.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I don't put my purse on the floor in the back, it's too visible there. A person can break the back window just as well as the front passenger window.

I put my purse on the floor between my legs and my seat. I don't always do it, only when traveling.

I think the person who complained about unreasonable travel demanded by work is echoeing the experience of a great many people. In my case, I was expected to get a call Sunday night, and be on a plane to China at 3 or 4 am the next morning. No one that even had just a canary could do it. You'd be gone for 3 or 4 weeks with a few hour's notice. You would be home for about 2 weeks, then go for 3 or 4 weeks again.

That was referred to as 'the same as the job description at hiring', a job that had '0-25 percent travel'.

But what they did, is they didn't include the travel time to and from China when they calculated that. And they didn't include in their calculations, the fact that we were basically forced to work on all the home projects at the same time.

The schedule there would basically be, working on the Chinese project from about 7 am to 6 pm or longer, and then spending at least eight hours after that, working on all the work that was still waiting at home. We were expected to work on both the Chinese project and our regular work. It wound up working about nineteen hours a day.

When I wasn't traveling, I worked about 16 hours a day. I went to one job interview, where they had cots set up in the aisle between offices. I asked about them and the guy just boomed, 'I OWN YOU'.

People often say 'I wish I had a high paying job like that'. Maybe you don't really. Those people pay and pay and pay for that paycheck. Divorces, angry kids, you can't do anything else, that company OWNS you, and you don't have a single ounce of mental energy for anyone, when you come home.

There are 'nice' corporate jobs out there, but basically, the way these companies got through the recession without reducing profits is, they let go a lot of people and work everyone else about twice as hard to make up for it. This has actually happened several times in the last few years - 2003 it also happened. I would say it's going to happen every time the economy slips. It's the new corporate management style.

I think it's really important to find something you really love doing and have a passion for, that still supports you financially so you aren't dependent on anyone. One, because whether you work for someone or yourself, you'll be doing a lot of hours!

 

[arabianequine]

home yesterday evening....well I guess it was worth the drive but they gave my work away but I will be ready for next time now since while my license is being processed I can work in oregon.