(no subject)
My first business trip went well, I guess. Chicago, obviously, is not in the Southwest Airlines/Love Field fly zone, so we had to stop in Kansas City on our way up and St. Louis on our way back. They were only 10-20 minute stops, and we weren't required to deboard the plane, but it very much reminded me of Greyhound.
The flight left at 6:15am so I was at the airport around 4:30, and then got to cool my heels for an hour. I got caught at the security checkpoint because while I put my liquids (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, Blistex) in 3 oz bottles) into a 1 qt zip lock bag I did not remove said bag from my luggage before I ran it through their screener. I got to wait (off to the side) while a TSA agent poked through all of the compartments and ensured that my Ziploc was the only bottle/jar in the bag and thus I wasn't trying to bring flammable or bomb materials on board. *sigh* Apparently you need to put the Ziploc in the same bin as your shoes...oh, yeah...when you remove all metal from your person, you also have to take off your shoes before going through the check point so their screener can check them too...Yay fun. The flight was uneventful. Except that without trying I managed to pick the row right in front of the wing seats, which have an emergency exit, and the stewardess has a speech about the requirements of sitting in the wing seats, describing the door release process, and advising them not to open the doors if they see fire, smoke, or swirling debris outside the window. So I spend the first 5 minutes of the flight convinced that the engine was going to catch fire! And when we stopped in Kansas City I got to hear the speech again... Oh the joy.
Midway airport is large. It's not DFW, but it was far bigger than Love. We took a cab to the office, which was an interesting experience. Most of my driving pet peeves were represented by the cabbies in Chicago, and the fare was ridiculously high. Just insane! 1.6 miles cost us $18...granted there were two of us in the cab, but still!! When we got in, I headed over to speak to my Chicago counterpart and learn her system. Seems she was expecting someone completely wet behind the ears, and when I started commenting on my own experiences she was far more comfortable. We commiserated about Chinese New Year, and the myriad other Chinese holidays that prevent the factories from completing orders or shipping orders on time. When lunch time hit, I was summoned into a Pow-Wow power lunch meeting. I got a chicken salad sandwich (the worst I've EVER had - chicken salad on a nutty-pumpernickel bread with diced apples and dried cranberries) where we discussed the future of the subsidiary. Sadly people kept asking us questions about duties or departments that had nothing to do with Purchasing, at least not in our business structure. The next day we were going to have the credit department rep and the VP who could answer more questions, but my poor boss kept deflecting questions that he wasn't able to answer. On a couple occasions he even bounced questions to me! Tell you what, I'm still not used to being the go to girl.
Monday night we just hit the hotel and crashed. Although there was a moment of fun when we checked in. The rooms were paid for with the corporate account. Boss gave the clerk the wrong name, so they couldn't find his room, so I provided the correct name. Then they get his room all ironed out, and he signs for it, and is all set to go upstairs...and I pipe in, "And my room?" "There's only one room under that name." Uh. No. So I dig out my paperwork that I wisely printed the night before, and point out the secondary reservation. No muss, no fuss, he finds the # and gives me my room, but for just a moment there I found myself thinking "I'm too tired for this...I'll sleep on your lobby couch if need be".
We ended up doing a lot of walking. When we realized how expensive the cab fare was (and couldn't see the point in renting a car only to sit in traffic for 1.4 miles, and then pay for parking), we decided it would be better to walk to the office from the hotel on Tuesday. I wore good comfy shoes, and walked the 1.4 miles, although the map we had was not the greatest. Around 2 on Tuesday, Nancy (my counterpart) and I determined that we'd run out of things to teach/learn. My boss and I had a mini-pow wow to discuss topics that might not have come up, but were pretty much done with our tasks by 5. We ended up getting dinner on the company Tuesday night, so the Woodard vip drove all four of us to the restaurant. Sadly, my VP and my boss are both rather athletic, and decided it would be better to walk from the restaurant to the hotel rather than getting the vip to drive us over. So...more hoofin'. En route, the guys decided it would be a good idea to go to the Hancock building, and investigate the Signature room (95th floor, offers an amazing view of Chicago and lake Michigan). So they decide that after freshening up at the hotel they'd go for a cocktail...Since I'm a team player, AND interested in increasing my visibility in the company, it seemed like a good idea to go...but my feet made me regret that decision. I started developing blisters on the balls of my feet. Guess my "comfy shoes" weren't as comfy as I thought they'd be. The next morning, I gimped about like a woman with broken feet. Short stuttered steps, silent whimpers, and stopping to rest a lot. Fortunately my feet healed up relatively quickly. I still have a bit of discomfort walking on a bare footed, but I can walk normally, and socks provide enough padding that I don't even notice anymore. Still, it was an amazing view, and I did get to chatting with the VP about places we'd lived. All told I had 3 drinks Tuesday evening. One before dinner, one for dessert, and one at the Signature room. I blame the alcohol for making me unusually chatty. I don't usually drink more than one glass, and only that once in a blue moon. Still, it did prevent me from noticing how bad my feet were until my shower that night...so it isn't all bad.
My boss was able to get us on an earlier flight on Wednesday, so I managed to get home around 6pm instead of 9pm, and was able to spend some quality time with my fiancé. That was worthy, even if walking (and driving!) were agony. At Love Field, I got stuck waiting for the mass of people to vacate the plane before I could escape, and my boss waited for me to catch up. And even walked me out to my car (well, his was parked very close, but he didn't need to wait), we discussed reimbursments and plans for the duties I've newly acquired. Nancy gave me her home phone #s in case I had questions after she left (she's on vacation from the 23rd - 27th, and her last day in the office is the 30th). All in all, it wasn't a bad trip. I would have preferred a later flight Monday, or going Tues-Thurs instead of Mon-Wed...I'm WAY behind on projects at work, but I'm catching up fairly quick. I'm also more than a little freaked out about taking over the subsidiary's imports as Nancy performed so many duties that I've never touched upon (we either didn't feel they were necessary tasks, or we had a whole separate dept to handle them). I'm going to be spending the next week trying to figure out what I need to do vs. what someone else needs to do vs what isn't really necessary... Ah, the fun of it all. At least no one has asked me to write up a summary of my trip, and I will be getting reimbursed for the miles, tolls I paid to go on the trip, and I'm getting paid 4.5 hours of overtime for the travel time. That doesn't suck. Wedding is almost paid off...this might put me over the top!