Sunday, November 9, 2014

Here or There

Would you rather...

1 - Be on an airplane to catch a meeting in Des Moines, or

2 - Park yourself in the basement of a local pediatric office for 10 hours?   

I guess it all depends on who you are.

My husband says I don't understand how stressful business travel is; that I glorify the fact that he travels instead of grasp the frustration of commonplace happenings such as airline delays and wasted time waiting around, hotel debacles, restaurants that don't offer decent vegetarian options, and so on.  And therefore when he complains about one thing or another, he knows sometimes his words fall on deaf ears, which he finds to be an added annoyance.

Maybe it's a 50+ woman thing, or the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom, or the reality that I spend long days at a desk in a windowless environment, but being a business traveler sounds utopian to me.  

I can hear my husband cringe at these words.  "WHAT???" He would ask, in desperation, convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that I have lost my mind.  He would say I would never feel that way if I actually had to do it.  I'm wondering if my female friend(s) who travel regularly for business may actually agree with him.

Coincidentally to my writing this blog, we had dinner last night with a handful of David's friends from work, all of whom are decades younger and travel regularly.  David told them how I think his traveling sounds "great," and they all had a good laugh. One of the guys chimed in that his wife thinks he's lucky to travel too, despite his horror stories.  He added that there's no way other business travelers in any airport are happy with the situation either, based upon what he sees as angry commuters everywhere he looks.

I'm sure it is maddening a lot of the time, and I'm not intentionally minimizing it. It's just that what I find maddening at times is a routine that offers the same scenery day in and day out, with very little travel anywhere, other than to and from my workplace for a whopping 5 minutes each way.  Additionally, my mom's move from Philly to Cherry Hill has further reduced the time I travel on roads other than Rts. 70 and 73.  Now I rarely have to cross the bridge to get my weekly fix of city chaos, which I've always found highly entertaining.  

I know I'm very lucky to have the conveniences I do - a short ride to work, the ability to come home at lunchtime to walk Shea Doggy, a mom who's just a few minutes away, etc., but there's a whole world out there, and my exploration of it is quite limited these days.  
     
"To never have to contemplate a commute to work, to know you will always sleep at home every night, to never have to worry about bed bugs in hotels or a toilet overflowing and then having to call maintenance ... sounds like nirvana to me," said David, when we had our weekend recap. 

So I'm really curious. Is how we perceive situations male or female driven, age-related, or is it that the grass is always greener...


2 comments:

  1. I'm with you Judy. The thought of traveling to someplace far away, anywhere, and staying at a hotel with maid service and sleeping in a big comfortable bed all alone and not having to worry about what to make for dinner and what time everyone will be home for dinner sounds quite appealing!

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  2. I hate to say it, but it is probably a "grass is always greener" situation. I bet if David were to change jobs and have a job where he sat at a desk (without windows, like you) every day, and had a 5-minute drive to work, he would probably get a little melancholy for his old travel days after a certain period of time. Just as if you were to all of a sudden find yourself with a job where you traveled on a regular basis and found you did not have time to get your regular routine things done as you used to, etc. You would miss your old situation in life. It is just the way we are all wired, I think. That's my two cents:) Celestine

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