I've recently been offered a position that will pay considerably more than my current job. The amount is enough that it could/should significantly shorten the years between now and ER. The downside is that it involves about 50% travel. I am only asked to travel about 5% now and, while it is tolerable, I can imagine that 50% gets old fast.
Do any of you travel for work this much? Do you find it intolerable? How do you cope?
TIA
emi,
During my career of 33 years, I worked in engineering for 3 mega-corps. I often had jobs requiring travel -- some up to 50% of the time.
It gets very tiresome. The thought of staying in another hotel room or eating yet another bad meal out (even on someone else's dime), often at some ungodly hour, just doesn't interest me.
Now that I'm retired, I actually prefer to go camping than staying in a hotel room. At least I know who has previously been sleeping in my sleeping bag.
Travel has gotten steadily worse over the years...with the headaches of TSA inspections, the hassle of always being mindful of things you no longer can carry aboard with you, the added travel time to arrive early for flights, the infestations of bed bugs (in hotels of all calibers!
), the seemingly always-full flights are just a few of the things I don't miss.
And, as others have mentioned, your own time just evaporates when you are in a travel job. I've often had to stay 3 weeks straight at some podunk location. Once I drove out-of-state to a customer's site for what I thought was a one-day trip (so I had no bag packed)-- only to be told by the security guard upon arrival that I'd be staying for at least 3 days.
Also, due to travel delays, I've often arrived home a day or two later than planned.
I used to say that I was 'working' 24 hours a day when I was on the road -- simply because, in my off hours, I could not be home doing the things I wanted to do with the people I wanted do them with. And it was not uncommon to be expected to work extra hours, go to meetings, etc. on my evenings away, as the company knew I didn't have anything else to do.
As someone else mentioned, gaining weight is a big possibility. It's often difficult to find healthy options and reasonable portions when on the road. If I was staying in one location for a while -- usually my first stop was at a grocery store to buy things like fruit -- just so I could have some to eat, as many restaurants just don't offer it.
Another possibility is over-drinking. I ran into far too many road warriors who basically entertained themselves by sitting in the hotel bar every evening.
On the flip side, I'm one who likes a lot of stimulation. So I enjoyed going to all kinds of locations and interacting with a lot of different people and working on all types of projects. It's something I still miss.
I like to travel and I do that frequently now that I'm retired. But company travel hardly compares with leisure travel. Company travel => I was told where to go, for how long, which parking lot I had to park in at the airport, what flights I could take, what to do when I was there, plus someone reviewed my travel expenses to make sure I stayed at approved hotels and didn't over-spend on meals, etc. etc. Leisure travel => I do what I want, when I want, with whom I want
My mega-corps let me keep the frequent flyer miles and the hotel points that we earned. Trouble is, there are many black-out dates and planes are so full these days that it is often difficult to find a frequent flyer seat (although you can definitely
buy a seat on the same flight).
I even tried to be more efficient with my time. I'd go to the laundromat on my last night out-of-town, just so I could bring home a suitcase full of clean clothes and have to not spend my few precious hours at home running the washer and dryer.
Technology has made business travel a bit more tolerable. Having access to the internet, being able to make low or no-cost long distance calls to friends and family on cell phones, being able to listen to music that you like on your iPod (versus being a small town with only 2 radio options: country music and Christian radio), and having GPS to help guide you to your destination are a few that I can think of.
Bottom-line, I just found business travel to be very tiring and very unappreciated by the folks back at the main office.
YMMV
omni