Effective Business Travel

My younger co-workers are trying to kill me. This is an account of one fine day during a recent trip to our east coast offices.

I got up yesterday at 5:30 am eastern to go work out at the hotel gym. That's 3:30 a.m. my time. I had been up the night before until 11:30. So I worked out, came back to my room, ordered room service for breakfast, got ready, and headed to the office. I endured a grueling day of drudgery and left the office at 5:00 or so. One of our local cohorts invited all of us over to her place for a home-cooked meal. This was nice. She even made stuff without meat for me. I thought, "Cool. After this, I can go back to my room, watch Lost and Alias, relax & crash early". The only part of this business trip I had looked forward to was a couple good nights of sound sleep since the recent birth of my son.

Well, what I didn't know was that my co-workers - the ones with the keys to the rental car - had planned to go straight from the dinner to this bar (Ed O'Tool's or something like that contrived to sound like a cozy Irish pub). They had planned a little birthday celebration for this bartender gal they have befriended at the Hilton where they have taken up a second residence (they travel A LOT and drink A LOT while doing so). I was now officially a party hostage.

By the time we got to the bar, I was already ready to cash it in for the night, but noooo -- this bartender friend of theirs hadn't even gotten off work at the Hilton yet and it was almost 10:00. So we waited. And waited. Finally she showed up and it was apparent it wasn't going to be a "happy birthday, let's have a quick drink, see you tomorrow" session. The gal arrives: mid 40s; kind of heavy, bad teeth; she has had a hard life. She gives us all hugs. Big, annoying, unwanted, I-don't-really-know-you hugs. She told us of her deep sea fishing experience during which she was topless and hauled in a 50 lb tuna. I got the impression that my road warrior co-workers are this gal's best friends. This is really sad because they are, after all, business travelers and live thousands of miles away. The best part was that during the seemingly 20 minute uncomfortable and more-or-less awkward hug, her yellow bleached hair smelled exactly like a pink urinal cake.

As I mentioned earlier, the bar was an Irish pub-themed joint. I would have welcomed a little penny whistle, squeeze box, and fiddle trio singing traditional Irish folk music while everyone swayed, swilling pints of good Irish stout, singing words that sound like "yo ho ho" and "derry o' darlin' Maggie McCreary" or something. Instead, it played terrible thumping club music and there were balding business guys hanging around drinking scotch.

As in any bar at any given point in time, there was the one chick who seems to kind of be with one guy, but as she drinks becomes more ambiguous in her relationship with him. She goes out and dances suggestively with the same saucy hip rolling motion song after song, arms in the air while she looks down coyly at her feet. Occasionally someone can be heard yelling "WOOOO!" One by one, the balding business guys get up their nerve and figure "what the heck -- I'm on the road and maybe just maybe I'll get lucky with the local bar tease". She merely frustrates them and always goes back to the guy she came with and eventually leaves with, but not before grinding on him in the entryway of the, uh, "pub".

The military guys were really enjoying the show before they shipped out to try & avoid becoming roadside bomb casualties in Iraq. The balding business guys went back to their rooms for some self abuse and helmet polishing.

Got back to the room around midnight:15 and back at it again the following a.m.
I don't think I drank this much (or as often anyway) even in college.
I gotta rent my own car next time.