Glamorous.

Travelling for work is not glamorous. It might sound like it should be, staying in nice hotels, going to exotic locations, seeing the sights. Unfortunately though, most of the time, the hotels can be variable, the locations not so exotic, and you see more of the inside of a conference room than any sights there may be.

I remember the first time I went overseas for work.... it was about 3 1/2 years ago, and I was very excited. This was back when I still thought that travelling for work was going to be fun. This trip put paid to that idea. It was only to NZ, but still, it is technically overseas...

It started with a 4 hour plane trip. This part was fun. I like flying. Once I got to Auckland airport I was greeted by the colleague who was coming with me. He was drunk. He's since been fired, but that's another story. A 3 hour drive to our destination was one of the most painful experiences of my life so far. I honestly wanted to open the door and shove this man out while I was still driving at 100km/h. I restrained myself, and we made it to the hotel ok. None of the people we were meeting there were surprised when we arrived at 7pm and I got room service rather than seeing them (and my car-friend) for dinner. By this stage I was already lonely. The sheen was wearing off.

The following day I went and set up our stand for the expo... that was why I'd come (we won the award for best stand. I rock). I went for a lovely walk in the sunshine, and I headed back to the hotel for dinner. Some other people had arrived for the expo, and we had a fun dinner. Things were looking up.

That night at midnight, I was awoken from a very deep sleep to one of the most difficult phone calls I've ever received, that started one of the most difficult periods of my life. I was hysterical and in tears. I calmed down, checked out of the hotel, got in the car, drove the 3 hours back to the airport and by 5.30am was on a plane back to Melbourne. I didn't sleep on the plane, and when I got to Melbourne airport I hopped back in my car and drove the 2 1/2 hours home. Peak hour traffic's a bitch. Sometimes, you just don't need sleep.

I'm not sure if this experience has scarred me, or whether it's just that travelling for work really is crap. I worry when the phone rings, especially if I come out of a session and i've got 4 missed calls. I worry that something's happened, when in reality it's just more work. Now that all my travelling is within the state, really it generally just involves a great deal of driving. Often I can spend as long getting somewhere as I do there. And it's so frequent. I'm away for at least one, often two or three nights every few weeks at the moment. And the people I'm seeing are, as a general rule, not my friends. If I'm going to be away from home in strange places, I'd at least like to be doing it with friends. Unfortunately not.

I'm writing this from a hotel room somewhere far away. Could you tell?