It’s not all glamorous, fun and first class travel like you see on the adverts. In fact I don’t think it ever was or ever will be. The ads make it look like time travel you’re at the airport then you’re in the hotel in the country you need to be and everything is wonderful……. For the last 5 months I have been working 1 week a month away from home. My week away, starts before I leave. I remind everyone that I will be working out of our other office. The work I do while away differs to my everyday work and includes giving and receiving training, meetings, projects etc.
Then I look at what needs to be done before I leave and what needs to be packed for the week? From books I want to read, a cross-stitch, to books for the exam I’m studying for, treats I take for my team. I have to make sure I don’t go over the allowance if I’m flying with 2 different airlines.
I always travel on a Sunday as it takes most of the day I leave my house at 6.30am arrive in the country at 4pm their time. The Saturday is spent relaxing, food shopping, ironing and packing. On the Sunday when I used to get trains I would be on the first train to London from there it would be both a bus and train or two underground trains to the airport depending on engineering works (this would take approximately 2½ hours). On my last trip I’m took the car so I left ½ hour later, it only took 1 hour 20 minutes and I was still there earlier than going by train.
Airports - these are interesting places especially In the UK for an international flight check in is 3 hours before the flight leaves and where the airport is busy it can take anything from 45 minutes to just over an hour on a good day to get through check in and security (this is after you have practically undressed and unpacked your hand luggage and repacked it again).
You then have about 2 hours to kill before your flight, this is when I start to relax, (before I get to the airport I’m always worried I’ll miss the flight) and so I go and grab some breakfast (as I’m not a shopper). As I sit and relax, I people watch and write, prep ideas for stories and plots, I catch up on some reading, tweet, chat on Facebook etc.
The flight usually takes just under 3 hours and when I get to the Airport at the other end I have a driver waiting for me with a card with a name on it, unless it’s my usual driver (as I call him) who picks me up and drops me off the most.
I stay in one of the best hotels and they put up with me, so far out of the 5 trips I’ve caused a blackout in my room, broke the bath plug and aircon (couldn’t get it to switch off). But after my 1st trip it was like going home, the staff are brilliant and look after me, even the waiters tells me to turn my laptop off and relax when I’m eating if I’m working late in the restaurant at dinner time.
A member of the team I work with picks me up in the morning and drops me off at night, and a couple of the locals who see me regularly waiting to be picked up stop and say hello and talk to me now.
I pretty much do a full working week as I leave the office on a Friday to come home around 3pm. My working day starts at 8am and finishes at 5pm and then my time is my own but what do you do in a strange country on your own when travelling? Being a woman and travelling alone I’m always security conscious, more so than I probably have to be, but it gives my family peace of mind when I’m travelling that I don’t wander from the hotel on my own unless I’m with friends from work.
Thanks to skype I get to speak to my Husband everyday so don’t end up with extortionate phone bills if I couldn’t speak to him every day I would go insane he is my rock and safety net. I’m also very lucky, as I’ve made some great friends in my other office so we go out, have dinner and catch up at least 2 or 3 out of the 5 nights I’m working away. The nights I’m on my own can be boring as hell and I’d probably go insane if I had to spend every night on my own even though I’ve packed enough books to read, Nintendo games to play and cross stitching to do for 2 weeks. I don’t have this problem at home and I think it’s because when you work away from home it is lonely and tiring as you never sleep as well when you’re not in your own bed and even though there is only an hour’s time difference it takes a few days to get used to (like when the clocks go back).
When I get back to the UK and I wasn’t getting home until 11pm if I was lucky with the trains (taking approx 3 hours to get home from the airport) but now with the car 1½ hours.
So could I travel with work all the time? I think if I needed to 1 week away a month I could do, especially with the company I work for, as I’ve made some great friends, but if I had to do more than a week that would be hard as I’m too much of a homebody and miss my family too much. As much as I love working in our other office as I’m with my team and friends I miss home I miss having my husband to cuddle up to at night, when I’m in a bed that can sleep 6, I miss my cat meeting me at the door when I come home and waking me up at 2am to be fed.
This is when I think of people in the Services who get deployed to war torn countries and how hard it must be for them to be away from their families and friends no comfy hotel room an being away for a minimum of 6 months and then I think my job’s not so bad I can live with a little boredom.
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