Traveling for Work

I stopped enjoying traveling for work a long time ago.   In retrospect, how can anyone top flying in a Vietnam era helicopter with the door open watching parrots fly over the South American jungle? To those that are set in their daily routines the idea of going someplace and getting paid for it is enticing.  It is a chance to stay in nice hotels and visit different places all on the dime of another.  I suppose it was once that way for myself but now it feels like a dreadful chore I can't wait to get over.   There is a difference between traveling when you can be yourself, free to go when and where you want and the cold realities of business travel.  Traveling as part of a job leaves little time for personal pleasures and has a goal of simply accomplishing a task.  There is also a great difference between traveling with a friend or a lover with whom you can share a memory and traveling by yourself.   For me, solitary travel when you are not destined to meet a friend on the other end always feels a little lonely.

I remember the first big trip I took to Europe as a young man.  I traveled around with my back pack making friends in various spots and had an eventual plan to meet my parents in London.  I reached London early and after spending a couple of nights in a youth hostel with a Rastafarian band fresh from Jamaica who had an ample supply of the green stuff, decided I would head back home a little early.  I left my parents a note at their hotel telling them I left early and also informing my Mom I had learned something about myself.

My Mom's mind immediately began to wander and became terrified that when she saw me again I would tell her that I had learned I was gay.  No... actually I just wanted to tell her that traveling alone was lonely and I wished that I had brought along a travel friend.

Periodically I have to venture to Atlanta, Georgia to attend meetings with my contemporaries.  Our supervisor always tries his best to give us nice accommodation and each visit it has been at a different hotel.  On my most recent trip it was the Westin Hotel in downtown Atlanta.  When I arrived at the hotel a coworker of mine had just recently registered.  She is younger than I am and much better looking.  When she checked in she was informed that the hotel would provide her accommodation in the special workout room.  Apparently there is actually exercise equipment in the room including a treadmill.  When it was my turn to check in I was informed that there were no king sized bedrooms left and I was asked if I would take a queen size.  No problem I thought, after all it is just me.  When I arrived at my room I discovered that it was not just a queen sized bedroom, it was apparently made for disabled people. The bathroom was so huge you could have navigated three wheel chairs in there.  All around the room there were bars on the walls to stabilize ones self.  I suddenly began to wonder in the eyes of the hotel clerk, was she the healthy fit woman while I was categorized as the disabled?  I wondered if in their eyes my disability was physical or worse, mental.   Damn, how did they know?

Initially I was disappointed when I looked at my room number because I thought it was the fourth floor.  I soon realized upon entering the elevator it was in fact the 49th floor.  The view was amazing.  I don't think I have ever slept in a bed so high in my life.  At night I opened all the curtains on the floor to ceiling windows and when I turned out the lights, felt like I entered a magical world.  Looking out at the city lights and headlights on cars traveling below was strangely mesmerizing.

Shortly after arriving I received an email on my cellular telephone in an account I rarely use.  It was odd, a name and an identification, Secret Service Vice President Protective Detail. The email was short and asked me to call him and gave a number.

At first I assumed it was another Nigerian scam but the caveats bellow about coming from a US Government account seemed strangely correct.  "What in the hell?" I thought.  My first reaction was to set it aside but I kept thinking about it.  Who the hell was this guy and why was he writing me?  Wild scenarios started to play through my mind.  I didn't want to call him from my own number, after all, he must not have it since he sent an email.  So with the help of Skype I called the guy up.

"Hello." A male's voice answered the phone.

"Is this Keith Davis of the US Secret Service Vice President's Detail?"

"Yes."

"How do I know you are who you say you are?"

"Umm.."  There was an odd silence.  "I don't know.  Is this about the email?"

"Yes."  I replied.  I had this vision of a giant electronic map of the world tracing my Skype call with bouncing lines from continent to continent.  I wondered how long I had left before they reached my computer.

"Oh, I got the names reversed.  I was actually supposed to send it to someone else."

"No problem," I replied. "it just seemed odd."

Whew! I thought maybe they had discovered how much I loathed Dick Cheney but that was one VP ago.

Traveling alone for me is lonely.  I suppose it can be meditative yet I often find myself in an odd countdown until I can go home.  Its as if I am a prisoner counting the days of my sentence.  I have honed my technique of coping.  When I arrive I unpack my bag and place the items in a drawer.  Then each day as I use things it goes back in the suitcase.  Somehow it is satisfying to know that as the underwear disappears, my trip is closer to ending.

This particular trip had a goal.  It was a class to enhance my ability to critically think.  Being an analyst by trade my mind is my big tool and of course my first nature is to critically think how unnecessary this class is to me.  That said, I do try to approach things with an open mind and a positive attitude so I resolved to being open and to listen to the instructor.  Well at least for ten minutes.

While the goal was to teach me to critically think on issues concerning my job the result was that I found myself critically thinking about myself.  I tend to be a rather cynical person and it was only during this workshop that I realized that the very nature of being an analyst is cynicism.  We are taught from the very beginning to question everything. I think this is one reason why I get so frustrated with people that don't question, that don't think.


Perhaps I have always had a cynical quality to my character but my career has most certainly made me more so.  The problem is I constantly feel that I am being pulled in another direction.  There is something deep inside of me that wants to trust people and find good in them yet I am always taught to doubt.  While this quality keeps me from getting involved with Nigerian money scams I constantly feel like I am ignoring those with good intentions.   Cynicism while an essential quality for an analyst, is also a dangerous quality in a society.  The other day I was reading about the protests on Wall Street and around the country against the monied corporate interests that are controlling our society and holding our government and our nation hostage.  While there are likely few of us that would disagree in the power and influence these entities hold, over the past thirty years we have been taught by our leadership to be cynical.  We blame everything on everyone and then pronounce the futility of the entire situation.  We shelter ourselves in our lives and live a creed that we are powerless to change anything so we should just accept it.  Right now on Wall Street there is a group of people that refuse to accept that reality.

Futility is an ultimate result of cynicism yet in my profession cynicism is an essential tool.  Without it I couldn't function yet I know in my heart I must never let it take control of my life.  If I do, I will become the angry old man yelling at children and telling them to "Get off my lawn!" 

The work shop taught us to examine and understand our own bias and then find ways to overcome it or at the very least, work around it.  Gradually I have learned that while cynicism and doubt leads me down an essential path toward a conclusion eventually I will reach a bridge.  As I face the bridge I have two choices, the first is to decide that it is too weak and it can't be crossed.  In that case, I must stay in my cynical and questioning state.  The second choice is to cross the bridge.  When I do, the path on the other side will lead me to new conclusions. 

I always have to cross the bridge because if I don't cynicism will consume me.  The analyst inside me must always remind me that somewhere on the other side of the bridge there is a solution to every problem.

I don't know if it is a weakness or a strength but often I find myself confronting every situation in life as such. I am never able to simply accept a conclusion, I always endeavor to find an answer.  Sometimes it can torment my mind and make me depressed when no solution becomes apparent.  Sometimes others don't understand why I try so hard to find one asking, "why can't you just accept?"

Jobs have an enormous impact on our lives.  They define who we are and how we see the world.  We spend so much of our lives doing them it could be no other way.  The question then becomes, does our job define us or do we define our jobs?  Can I be a doubting, cynical and sometimes sarcastic person while at the same time being hopeful and finding beauty and positive things all around me?  I hope I can.  If I fail, I think I might lose a piece of myself.

In the working world trips can take us far from home.  They can occupy our time and influence our perspectives.  The one wonderful thing hidden within the loneliness is always the joy of returning home again.