For the first time in my working life, this morning I had to book travel for myself. Odd timing, but while I was away on vacation, my boss announced that all of us out of town team members were to travel to Florida for a summit to meet everyone in person. There is more to it really, we are meeting one of our partners as well. Kind of exciting, it’s the partner I worked with the most in my last role. So since I’ve been back at work the past couple of days I’ve gone through the emotions of it. Resisting the thought of traveling at all, “How can I get out of this”? But I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen so I started to look at the internal booking process. When I asked a question, my boss stopped me, “We’ll talk about it more in our team meeting tomorrow”.
So today was the day I was going to complete the booking. It was actually an extremely fun process for me. I went to a website that is provided by my company (my last role definitely did not provide anything this fancy) and started by checking the boxes and entering in the to and from information. I took my time looking at the flight connections, contemplated which departing times would work best. Once I finally landed on the ideal flight times for myself I clicked next. Now I was on to the rental car, that was the easiest part. Enterprise or Hertz. It doesn’t matter, I just clicked the cheapest option and moved on. Now the hotel, each choice popped up with the ability to click to enlarge for pictures. At first, I had chosen a 5 mile radius to where we have to go for our meeting and I picked my favorite hotel option closest to that location. I almost clicked accept, but then I hesitated and thought, “Well my flight leaves early on Friday morning, maybe I want to make sure I’m closer to the airport”. So I clicked the back arrow, and now the hotel choices have changed. They are a little less fancy, but I find a decent one in the slightly higher price range. I also know myself and the 7:30am flight time is more important than the fanciest hotel room, so I’m confident in my decision to stay closer to the airport.
I finalize my choices without a need for a credit card from me for the first time. It’s the first time in my life, in my career, that I’ve gone through this process and the company seemingly acts like its nothing. Years ago, I won a trip at my last company. I was able to choose to visit a branch amywhere in the US because of an award I was given. The Shining Star it was called. So I chose to use the flight to go visit my mother, even though I had been to that part of the world 1,000 times. I knew she’d be happy with my choice.
Anyway, I booked the flight and the car and the hotel and it seemed like I won a prize. My boss called me and he said, “Well the area you chose is kind of dangerous, are you sure you don’t want to change it”? I didn’t of course. He just let me know to not go wandering outside at night. Did I make the wrong choice after all? I’m not sure. I think I’m happy with it. The point is I made all these decisions on my own. From the flight times, to where I’m connecting. To the rental car provider, to the hotel I’m staying. I’m so grateful because it’s a two day trip I’m taking thats being paid for by my company. How cool is that?! I wonder if I’ll get to do more traveling on them.
Its been a pretty long time since I’ve traveled on my own, and typically when I travel I’m going to meet up with at least one familiar face while I’m there. But all of the people at my company are pretty much strangers to me, we’ve never met in person. A couple weeks ago was my first time on a plane in three years. Again, thank God for that trip. But once I booked everything I started to get a little bit excited. I have a whole night to explore somewhere by myself, two nights really. I can go thrift shopping, go see a beach. I can go out to eat, maybe see a movie. It’s a very rare occurrence for me to be by myself, with no responsibilities but work. I think its been about 16 years (minus a couple hospital stints, maybe a couple birthday trips).
So for the first time in a long time I’m excited to have a little adventure of my own. To worry about myself, obviously work through the nerves of meeting new people. To explore an unfamiliar area alone, to decide how I spend my time. I have a feeling I’ll be doing much more of this so maybe it’s good to get my practice in on the company’s dime.
The Girl Without A Face 