Business Travel

After a few days of solo business travel, I understand why Willy Loman went astray.

I was out of town representing my employer's wares at a conference for a few days and I confess that I quickly became bored and lonesome as hell. For some reason, having nothing to do in a hotel room feels worse than having nothing to do in my apartment. It's no coincidence that strip clubs were prominently advertised in the hotel's what-to-do-in-town magazine. That's fine for those who are into pneumatic breasts and waxed butt cracks. But for me, all I had for diversion was basic cable and a bag of Zapp's crawtators. At least Semi-Pro came on.

Perhaps successful business travelers have a talent for making friends quickly. I am not able to hang out with strangers or strike up conversations out of thin air. In the exhibition hall, I had stuff to talk about, but after five I had no idea how to connect with anyone. The young researchers at the conference were very social, but I didn't know any of them and then, I'm not young and I'm definitely not a researcher.