Monday, December 15, 2014

Frequent flyer report 2014

I hate ignoring the blogosphere, but every time I see a light at the end of the work-life tunnel a contractor adds some extra segments to the tunnel.  I never remember being this busy ever.  I love having stuff to do, but I freaking hate being busy.  I don’t want to complain, but I feel a complaint-post creeping up my back.  I’ll try to stomp it down. 

I’m doing some year-end accounting for all the travel I’ve done this year to make sure I didn’t miss any expenses I can put on this year’s budget.  Business travel is different than I remember my academic travels to be.  In academia I would talk to the department’s coordinator to schedule travel, then book and track every last receipt along the way.  Then submit a long report and get money back.  On the corporate side, I buy all travel (plane, hotel, car) with my corporate card, pay for everything along the way with the card, then go online at the end of the month and say what the travel was all for (no receipts).  Going online to check the statement is also when I put in miles (like to the airport) or out-of-pocket expenses to get reimbursed for.  This means I have to have notes on every last expense and all the locales I've been to lately.  And this means I can start counting my trips.

As I’m reviewing all of this, I realized it would be interesting to put up some numbers about this past year.  So here we go:

Total number of cities I’ve been in for more than a night*: 36 (I thought it was fewer cities)
Number of countries that represents**: 10
Number of airports: 26
Number of cities that had repeat visits within the same year: 16
Number of cities for vacation: 8 (wow, I slacked off this year)
Number of cities with both vacation and work travel overlap: 3
Number of work cities classified as conference travel: 4
Number of cities for upcoming academic transition and past interviews: 7
Number of academic-related trips: 13
Total number of trips***: 70

*Major metros count as one city.  ie, not counting Queens and Brooklyn, or Los Angeles and Santa Monica as two separate cities.
**The USA is included in this count, as are separate countries that are part of the United Kingdom
***Rounded.  I can’t remember every last road trip.  Road trip counted if city is more than 2 hours away

My summer was quite light on the travel, but things blew up after the summer was over.  There were a couple months where I slept more in hotels and flights that my comfy bed.  Though, I’m really glad because I’ve reached super-high status in all my frequent flyer clubs.  I’ve been getting upgraded on personal flights to first class nonstop while also getting access to all the lounges and free meals.  Even though I’m experiencing the meals in a daze where even my watch hands have trouble catching up.  I’ll be going to my spouse’s family in a couple weeks for the holiday.  Visiting family feels more like work than work does, so I’m trying to arrange some R&R (instead of R&D) for January.  But if nothing else, I know that I’ll be taking two months off before the move to my new university.  I can’t wait. 


One kind of weird thing about all of this travel is that I don’t feel extra busy because the work is pretty cut-and-dry, I just feel taxed because I can’t sleep the way I want.  Business class has fold-down seating, but it’s still not my bed with my blankets and the smell of my fabric softener.  This travel is simply a time-sink, I don’t really feel stressed because of it.  I talked to an old mentee and she asked about the traveling and she beamed because she said she likes to travel.  My comment was something like, “traveling to Cancun with your friends is different from traveling by yourself to random destinations for testing”.  Knowing which terminals in airports throughout the world have the best restrooms and food is information I prefer to erase.

5 comments:

  1. That is a ridiculous amount of travel. Don't you have subordinates you can send in your place?

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    Replies
    1. I do have subordinates, but the micromanager in me likes to go to every study. Especially since my boss regularly calls me to ask about studies immediately afterward. Being there gives real-time feedback. I trust my workers, but I really feel I need to be there.

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  2. Wow, that is so much travel!

    It is a very very good idea to take a couple of months off before you begin your academic career. I now wish i had done that.

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  3. I'm worried about having to travel a lot away from family. Is it okay to ask for reduced travel before starting a job?

    ReplyDelete