Tuesday September 22, 8:05 PM
There’s this myth that work travel is fun.
When I used to work for the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, they treated it as a perk that was only grudgingly allowed – to the extent that tagging personal days onto work travel was considered “too much fun,” and subsequently banned! But like many others, I’ve learned over the years that traveling as part of your job is mostly a long hard slog, that puts a strain on your family, jeopardizes your physical and mental health, and kills your social life stone dead.
Yet I still do it.
Why?!
It’s a question I ask myself rather too often these days it seems.
So faced with four days of yet more grueling travel this week, I thought I’d share the experience with my loyal 2020 Science readers, in the hope of finding some answers – the blog equivalent of the psychiatrist’s couch I guess.
I leave tomorrow, and don’t get back until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Between now and then, I’ll be posting brief but regular updates on the highs and the lows of the trip. Hopefully it’ll either help me rationalize this crazy lifestyle, or encourage me to knock it on the head once and for all. I’d like to think it will also be an entertaining journey for all you readers out there. But I suspect that, deep down, I’m just doing this to spread the pain around – why suffer alone when you can share it?
I’ll fill you in on the details of where I’m heading and what I’m doing as I go along. But just to tantalize you, this is a trip that will involve family tensions, tortuous flights, sleepless nights, stunning scenery, and possibly even some obscure male bonding rituals.
More of that later though. Right now, I need to get prepped for the first leg of the journey – and remind myself where exactly it is I’m going, and what I’m supposed to be doing…
Follow the whole “On The Road” saga at http://2020science.org/category/on-the-road-again/
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
In the interests of balance, perhaps a post one day from your wife or kids???!!!!
I fear that would be unprintable!
But fun for the rest of us! But also seriously it would be really interesting, fair, fun and ‘authentic’ if you are doing an ‘and now this is me’ type thing (remember Mike Yarwood?)
Authentic is big here at the moment.
OK, I will give up on that one!