THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
My girlfriend leaves for a business trip shortly. It will be her first. I, as the voice of experience, have lots of advice to offer. See I HAVE been on a business trip before. It was to Kansas City and it was very exciting.
Given then, that I am a seasoned business traveler, I thought the rest of you might appreciate the wisdom I have to offer on this topic. It was a very educational trip and I am happy to share the lessons I learned.
First, I learned that Kansas really is flatter than a pancake. My boss told me this as we were driving from the airport to the hotel. Apparently someone did a study on this. Other friends, actual former residents of Kansas, have since confirmed this as fact. So my first bit of wisdom is this: pay attention and you'll pick up some fun facts about the place you are visiting.
Next wisdom: do not be surprised by your rental car. I don't care what the reservation was for or who made it, the rental companies will get it wrong, because they don't care either. In our case, they got things so wrong we ended up with an Aztec. Curiously enough Aztecs have popped up in conversation at school several times recently. Specifically, several different professors and one visiting speaker have, independent of each other, all referred to them as examples of terrible design failures. Having ridden in one, I understand why. So - lesson two - avoid Aztecs if possible and do not be surprised if it is not possible.
Third, you get your own room. This was awesome, although the learning process was a bit embarrassing. My boss got his key and I started to follow him. Two of us, two beds in a room, it was an easy mistake to make. You have to realize I was pretty fresh out of college. When college students go on a trip, anyone with less than six people in a room is either being spoiled by Mommy and Daddy or they're not using their floor space properly. Coming from that tradition, two people in a two bed room was a luxury. My boss, however, was not from that tradition, at least not recently. He was a little weirded out, just a little, and explained that I got my own room. The girl behind the counter was amused. Lesson three: do not apply a college mentality to a business trip, they're different worlds.
Finally, if possible, choose Double Tree. They give you a chocolate chip cookie when you check in. Glorious. I got my own room AND a cookie. It was a good trip (well besides the Aztec).
Here's hoping my girlfriend gets as much out of her trip as I got from mine.
1 comment:
Coincidently, I just heard about the Aztec as a design failure this week. I was listening to a talk on the ten best and ten worst cars by someone from GM. The Aztec was, of course, one of the worst. What is interesting about the Aztec though is that it started out as a concept car with pretty good reviews. I saw a photo of the concept car, and it looked sort of like a sporty sedan. Unfortunately, when it came time to design the production model, it was essentially designed by committee and GM management mandated that it had to be built on an existing mini-van chassis to cut costs. The result is what we see on the road. Apparently, you can't find anyone at GM who claims to have designed the Aztec.
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