One Month on the Road

Today, I leave my office for a month-long trip. As something different, I have decided to write about my activities during that time. Some events would be interesting to a person wondering what the speaker circuit is like. Other people might find it interesting to hear how a consultant keeps up with their other commitments when they’re on the road. If a person was interested in becoming a consultant, some of this would give them an idea what it’s like.

One Month Travelling
I should admit I won’t quite be gone for a month. It’s just a 27 days – 3 days shy of a month. In my early career as a junior consultant, it was common to be sent on the road for a month at a time. One of the companies I worked for had a system where you started by travelling one month at a time. You would work your way up to be able to come home every two weeks, instead, once you became more senior. For this trip, no-one is forcing me to go away for a month. Normally, I find that being away from my office for a month is too long. Too much mail and other such things get backed-up on me and, when I return, it takes awhile to catch-up on that. More than that, I just don’t like to be gone for that long, leaving behind home and loved ones. It’s rare that I take trips this long.

However, I had been invited to speak at four conferences, this Fall. I ended up accepting two of them. It turns out that they are one week after another and, in addition, they occur right before a scheduled two-week visit to my customer in Europe. The timing worked-out to attend both conferences and it’s not practical to come back to my office, in-between, as it’s too far to make sense.

The Customer
When I am coming to a new project or making a schedule with a customer, I will tell them up-front about any vacation or conferences I’m planning to take time off for. It’s rare for me to take a vacation that requires pre-planning and paying up-front months in advance, so I often ask what time might work best for the project schedule. For conferences, I might work into the evenings and on weekends to keep-up with the customer’s schedule if it’s a busy time for them.

However, in the case of this trip, it happens to fall during a quiet time on our project. Thus, unless something comes up unexpectedly on the project, the customer I and agree it’s not worth trying to make up any lost time. Additionally, since I’m working on a European project but am on US Eastern time, I’m done by Noon. Thus, I won’t miss any work, today, as the first part of my journey starts later in the day.

My Office
These days, most things are done electronically. Most people e-mail me. Even my phone’s voice mail goes into an e-mail. It’s easy to keep-up with that. Few things come in the mail and those that do can usually be put-off until I return. Plus, I know when my business insurance is due and I wouldn’t leave the office if something like that was going to expire while I was gone. But even those things done electronically don’t all come with me. Critical systems, such as my billing system, remain behind my firewall. Thus, when invoices are due while I’m gone, I have to create them ahead of time. Other than that, all other accounting waits for me until I return, where I will do the entire month of accounting at one time.

The Modes of Transport
This is something of a “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” trip, if you’re a fan of that movie. I’ve got two round-trip plane tickets, will take the high-speed train for some part of the trip, cabs for a few bits, and will probably actually walk for a bit, as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if I take a bus, tram or subway, as well. In fact, I’m sure that I will.

In any case, I’ll hop on a plane late this afternoon. As I mentioned before, this is convenient since I won’t have to miss any project time.

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/