Brendan Gates

My flight to Fort Lauderdale left Eugene at about noon on Monday. After a short layover in Salt Lake City, I landed in FLL at just around midnight. I met up with a colleague that flew in from St. Louis, and the next morning we drove our rented Kia Rondo to the Microsoft building. The meeting lasted 6 hours. That night we had dinner with an old friend of my colleague, which was unexpectedly pleasant. On Wednesday I got up at 4:30am, or 1:30am according to my internal clock, to catch a cab back to the airport. By noon on Wednesday I was back in Eugene.

So to recap, in 48 hours I spent two nights in a hotel, had a 6 hour business meeting, ate a delicious seafood dinner (plus some really crappy airport lunches), and flew 4600 miles.

Seasoned business travelers might scoff at my trip as nothing different from what they do every week, but seasoned business traveler I am not. That was a long 48 hours. Previous business trips of mine were not nearly as hectic as this one, and those weren’t so bad. But the frenzied pace of this trip is not something I would want to repeat. I think now I have a better understanding of why my dad never seemed to enjoy the business trips he went on when I was growing up.

Despite my negative tone, the trip was definitely worth it. And not just because of the Bang Bang Shrimp from the Bonefish Grill. It was a very productive meeting. Just one of those productive meetings that had to happen in person.