Traveling’s Not Hell, But Coming Home Can Be
March 16th, 2007 (9:40am) Anne Zelenka 7 CommentsTweet This
I rather like business travel in moderation, and I’m not the only working mother who feels that way. I get a break from the three year old’s whining, from endless carpooling, and from my messy house. I get to meet some of my favorite people face to face, which always brings new energy and inspiration to my work. However, I despise coming home from a business trip, even though I’m always thrilled to see my husband and kids again.
Business Week Working Parents blogger Anne Tergesen returned from her most recent trip to chaos:
My flight landed early (!!) and I got in a taxi. Still feeling sick, I was so happy to get home. When I opened the door, it was uncharacteristically quiet. The kids were at the neighbor’s. The cats barely glanced my way. I was thinking about taking a nap…. Until I looked around. There was cat vomit on the living room rug. The cat litter – well, lets just say no one had paid much attention to it in the three days since I’d last been there. Toys were strewn everywhere. The beds were unmade. Mail was piled up. The message light on the answering machine was blinking. The Internet connection wasn’t working. There was no food in the refrigerator. When our nanny returned with the kids, she told me my husband had forgotten to check over the homework. One of the teachers had mentioned something about a problem.
Whether you’ve got kids or not, a spouse or roommate or not… sometimes the hardest thing about taking a business trip is when it ends. Unless you’re a real road warrior, it’s almost impossible not to get behind in your regular work while you travel. It’s tiring to fight your way through airport security lines, cram your bag into the overhead space, and stay in fleabag hotels. You might be jetlagged or maybe bloated from too much airport food. If you’re like me, you may have overdone the caffeine during the day and the partying at night on the trip. It’s a recipe for a crash on return.
I made a rule for myself that helps a little: I don’t schedule any meetings or telecons or major deadlines for the day after I return from a trip, because I know I’m going to be doing laundry, handling email, offloading my husband by doing more childcare, and otherwise trying to recover. That won’t work for everyone, because it’s not always possible to clear off an entire day from the schedule, especially if you’ve just been out due to travel. For me, though, it’s not optional — I just can’t function if I don’t arrange my work life that way.
If you are a regular business traveler, how do you deal with re-entry pain?
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I don’t travel for business anymore, but when I did I always dreaded going from the always clean, well kept hotels to whatever state I’d left my apartment in, esp if I was going to be gone awhile and had focused on work vs tidying up things.
The best thing I ever did? When I knew I was going on a long trip I told the woman who cleaned a bunch of the condos in my building that I’d like her to clean it while I was away… Carpets too. Didn’t care when she did it, just that it was sometime during my trip.
It was the *best* feeling to walk into a spotless condo…. After two weeks on the road it was awesome.
The table manners of my teenagers seem even more offensive after a week of adult dining and room service.
That’s good advice, Rick. It is really hard to come back to a mess after being in a neat and clean hotel room for a few days. When my hub goes out of town I try to clean up the house before he returns–that also gives me something to do in the last few hours when I’m nearing the breaking point from being the only one handling the kids.
Neil, my kids aren’t teenagers yet but one is close enough that I can imagine what it must be like. I have much more trouble dealing with my youngest’s whining after I’ve been away from it for a few days.
You know, it’s not a big deal for me when I come home from a business trip. My wife is the one that ends up being backed up if I’m gone for more than a day or two. Then again, she has a more traditional stay-at-home mom role.
I could not agree more! I hate getting back after even a few days away. Mainly because I am a fussy sod who cannot rest until jobs are done. My fiancee, bless her, is not like me ;-) Hence when I arrive home, I have at least an hours work ahead to get the house back in a state I am comfortable with.
Well, I agree with the comment that it’s best to have your cleaner come in the day before you return – if you’ve got one. Never rely on partners suddenly doing stuff they have never done before! My kids have left home now so when I’ve been away for work it’s only the usual ‘partner stuff’ that has not been done (washing machine loaded etc) – unfortunatey when he was trying to resolve this by being ‘good’ I found that my whites had been washed with his darks and I was not happy…. At all! Never again…