The sad, sad life of a business traveler
Dec. 17th, 2009 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayfurrI travel a lot. For work. I'm not overawed by the 'glamorous lifestyle' of lots and lots of air travel and getting to stay in business-class hotels. Some people think it must be all neat and stuff, having a king bed that someone else comes along and makes up each morning, having the occasional jacuzzi bath in one's room, having an indoor pool downstairs (albeit usually a small one), having the evening 'manager's reception' waiting in the lobby when you go back to the hotel each day, and so on.
It's okay, I guess. I must enjoy it because I've been doing it since 1998.
But to be honest, it's not that big a deal. In this economy, for example, hotels have cut a lot of frills: a lot of the major chains no longer put hand cream in the rooms and instead have it available on demand at the front desk. Not a big deal from my perspective; I don't have chronically dry skin. But you occasionally hear angry fellow travelers complaining about it.
And that 'manager's reception' that chains like Embassy Suites and Homewood Suites brag about? Well, these days it usually consists of a giant bag of Costco pretzels dumped out into a big bowl and maybe some chips and salsa. And, oh yeah, a couple bottles of cheap supermarket wine and some light beer on tap. Or if there's actual hot food, it's likely to be one large chafing dish of some random hot entree (again, probably warmed up in the back but produced by the local food service company). Not usually anything to go "ooh" over. And since I don't eat meat any more (and my cholesterol and blood pressure levels thank me for it), I usually can't eat anything they set out anyway.
But a couple nights ago, as I stopped by the 'reception area' in the 'lodge' of my Homewood Suites in Arlington, Massachusetts, to refill my Nalgene bottle with coffee for the morning reboot, I happened to peek into the big shiny food-service chafing dish that the evening's hot entree was lurking in, and ... came about as close as I've come since I started the vegetarian diet in July to breaking down and eating meat.
The chafing dish contained about a dozen, maybe more, CHEESEBURGERS. Just your regular, run-of-the-mill dollar-menu cheeseburgers: bun, patty, CHEESE. Condiments were nearby if you wanted them, but what I couldn't take my eyes off was all the melted CHEESE. In true steam-table/heat-lamp fashion, the cheese had already begun to do that melty thing, oozing out from under the bun. I used to LIVE on bagfuls of cheap dollar-menu style cheeseburgers like that, and if I could get them from a convenience store where they'd been sitting, foil-wrapped under a heat lamp all day, SO MUCH THE BETTER.
I mean, that's what they eat in Heaven. Pure nutrition.
And that sort of thinking is why I'd worked my way up to 235 pounds (though I'm down to 182 now). Just because you're traveling for work and on an expense account doesn't mean that you always go eat cordon bleu food and drink fine wine at nice restaurants, you know? Sometimes you leave the office at 9 pm and you just want COMFORT FOOD. And to my reptilian hindbrain, there's nothing more comforting than something that's been sitting, cheese melting slowly and oozing viscously out from under the top bun, under a heat lamp ALLLLLLLLL DAY.
With some effort, I replaced the lid on the chafing dish and tiptoed slowly away. Dinner for me was something nice and healthy back in my kitchen-equipped room. I can not has cheezburger.
It's okay, I guess. I must enjoy it because I've been doing it since 1998.
But to be honest, it's not that big a deal. In this economy, for example, hotels have cut a lot of frills: a lot of the major chains no longer put hand cream in the rooms and instead have it available on demand at the front desk. Not a big deal from my perspective; I don't have chronically dry skin. But you occasionally hear angry fellow travelers complaining about it.
And that 'manager's reception' that chains like Embassy Suites and Homewood Suites brag about? Well, these days it usually consists of a giant bag of Costco pretzels dumped out into a big bowl and maybe some chips and salsa. And, oh yeah, a couple bottles of cheap supermarket wine and some light beer on tap. Or if there's actual hot food, it's likely to be one large chafing dish of some random hot entree (again, probably warmed up in the back but produced by the local food service company). Not usually anything to go "ooh" over. And since I don't eat meat any more (and my cholesterol and blood pressure levels thank me for it), I usually can't eat anything they set out anyway.
But a couple nights ago, as I stopped by the 'reception area' in the 'lodge' of my Homewood Suites in Arlington, Massachusetts, to refill my Nalgene bottle with coffee for the morning reboot, I happened to peek into the big shiny food-service chafing dish that the evening's hot entree was lurking in, and ... came about as close as I've come since I started the vegetarian diet in July to breaking down and eating meat.
The chafing dish contained about a dozen, maybe more, CHEESEBURGERS. Just your regular, run-of-the-mill dollar-menu cheeseburgers: bun, patty, CHEESE. Condiments were nearby if you wanted them, but what I couldn't take my eyes off was all the melted CHEESE. In true steam-table/heat-lamp fashion, the cheese had already begun to do that melty thing, oozing out from under the bun. I used to LIVE on bagfuls of cheap dollar-menu style cheeseburgers like that, and if I could get them from a convenience store where they'd been sitting, foil-wrapped under a heat lamp all day, SO MUCH THE BETTER.
I mean, that's what they eat in Heaven. Pure nutrition.
And that sort of thinking is why I'd worked my way up to 235 pounds (though I'm down to 182 now). Just because you're traveling for work and on an expense account doesn't mean that you always go eat cordon bleu food and drink fine wine at nice restaurants, you know? Sometimes you leave the office at 9 pm and you just want COMFORT FOOD. And to my reptilian hindbrain, there's nothing more comforting than something that's been sitting, cheese melting slowly and oozing viscously out from under the top bun, under a heat lamp ALLLLLLLLL DAY.
With some effort, I replaced the lid on the chafing dish and tiptoed slowly away. Dinner for me was something nice and healthy back in my kitchen-equipped room. I can not has cheezburger.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 04:08 pm (UTC)I suppose a sufficiently generous expense policy makes up for that somewhat, but in my experience those disappeared around 2001. These days it's a $35/day max (sometimes $25) and they don't reimburse lunch, since you'd have to get lunch even if you were at the office, right? And you are "strongly encouraged" to pick a motel with breakfast included.
Getting a room with a kitchenette is a great idea, but if there aren't any of those on the approved list for your destination, sorry!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 05:29 pm (UTC)However, I often stay at a place a bit further away from the customer if it means I can get a full kitchen or I can get a room with at least a fridge and microwave. I can eat better, and cheaper, if I do my own grocery shopping. And for what it's worth, my room at the Homewood Suites in Arlington is $106 per night for a room with a full kitchen and king-sized bed and hide-a-bed and two flat-screen TVs and free breakfast and free internet... and the room at the Back Bay Hilton where I had no fridge, no microwave, no free internet, one TV that actually didn't work all that well, no free breakfast, etcetera, was over $200. Just silly to stay there, in my opinion, but for some reason staying at high-rise downtown hotels which provide relatively few amenities seems to have a certain weird cachet for some people.
As far as expensing lunch, I'm allowed to. There's a total per diem we should try to stay under but that we can go a bit over if we're in an expensive city. And we don't get pushed at all to stay in a place with free breakfast, but it's certainly something I seek out. The main 'push' is that if a customer says they have a corporate rate at a specific hotel and to stay there, then that's where we're staying. This sometimes means staying in ... interesting... places, to put it diplomatically.