What makes a really, really BAD business trip?
Multiple Choice:
1. The airline loses your luggage and you have to wear the same suit for three days straight.
2. The client is high maintenance and constantly making demands on you.
3. You get stuck traveling with a crazy-ass co-worker.
We get ready to leave and she asks me if I have a preference about driving. I tell her that I don't mind driving if she wants me to and she says, "Good, because I don't like to drive someone else's car." (It was a RENTAL.)
So I drive all the way to Nashville - three hours. It was OK. (It's a pretty easy drive.) I hate riding in a car with someone I hardly know and feeling like you have to make conversation. But we did OK. We talked about people at work and our past jobs. I learn that she's 26 years old and still lives at home with her mom.
We got to Nashville and checked into the hotel. We went upstairs to check our emails but had some trouble with the internet service at the hotel. The rooms are nice though - huge suites. I say to her, "This is bigger than my first apartment!" And she says, "Well I haven't had a first apartment yet." Oh yeah.
We walked over to Broadway and had dinner at a brewery in the shadow of the Titan's stadium. At dinner I tell her the story of how I met Big Daddy. She says, "Oh, I could never make a move on someone, even if I already knew they liked me." I asked her if she had a boyfriend. She says, "I haven't had a boyfriend since high school." Youch. About halfway through dinner she rushes off to the bathroom, comes back and tells me she's sick. So we leave and go back to the hotel.
Once there, she asks me do I want to come to her room to watch TV? Which I thought was a little weird. I said, "Well, you know I've got to make these follow up calls to the media." And she says, "Is it OK if I come in there? I'll be quiet." Never in my years of business travel have I had someone ask to come hang out in my hotel room with me. Especially someone with diarrhea. It was very weird.
So she sat across the desk from me doing crossword puzzles and running off to the bathroom (MY BATHROOM!) periodically. Between calls, she would tell me how much she just wants her mom when she's sick. I ask if she wants me to go down to the gift shop in the lobby and get her some Imodiem or something. She says that she really just wants to call her mom and ask her to come over to Nashville and take care of her!! So I practically insist. "Come on, I'm a mom," I say. "I can handle this." Not really something I ever imagined saying TO A CO-WORKER.
So she says, "OK, but what are you going to buy? I can't swallow pills." Wha...? Then she decides to just come with me because she doesn't want to be left alone upstairs in the room.
Do you want to go back to that multiple choice question now?
