trip

UGH!!!

I have a business trip coming up on Wednesday. I hate business trips. This is the first business trip I've taken in like 2 years. I avoid them like the plague. I am sooooo dreading this trip. I don't mind the flight. I don;t mind the hotel, I don't even mind crappy airport coffee. What I hate is the social aspects of the business trips. Oh, and I hate New Jersey, too.

On business trips, you have to pretend that you're really interested in how you clients crappy sports team is doing. You have to pretend that you actually know how much better their prospects for a championship is this year, and how great that is. Yeah, this is definitely their year, I know it!! Can we maybe talk about business sometime today?? After the, you talk about the weather. This is most inane, since my client is in New Jersey and I am in California. I mean, is it really all that remarkable that the weather is so nice in California? It just is, deal with it, or fucking move. After the weather chat you talk about how wonderful the lunch was (oh, I LOVE miracle whip sandwiches!). And then, you graciously let them take you to dinner for even MORE inane California weather talk. I can't fucking wait!!!

That's the client side, then there is the coworker side.

I'm going to be trapped on a 5-1/2 hour flight with them, on the way there. It's 6-1/2 hours on the way back. True, you work with them for 8 hours, and that's like a 2-1/2 hour reprieve. But I don't normally sit 5 inches from their face, and I certainly don't normally have to fight with them over who really owns the armrest. (I do, I'm fatter, deal with it.)

And so the clock is unrelentingly counting down the days, minutes and seconds until I have to cram myself on the flying bus (coach for us consultants!!) and pretend, for two days, that I'm excited about their stupid and doomed project. And I can't wait to pretend like I am really grateful for their constructive criticism of the work I've done for the last 12 weeks.