Moody Monday: Work Travel 60

Unless something unexpected happens, I have taken my last work trip. I can remember back in the early 1980's my boss flew to San Francisco for the National Association of Home Builders Annual Meeting, and I was so envious.  I wanted a position that included work travel. That was one of the drivers for me going onto University, the biggest different between his job and my job, was higher education.  So I worked on it.  A few years later, I did my first work trip, self-funded to a training event in Phoenix.  When I finished law school, and started in a legal service program, I was sent - on very short notice - to New Orleans for three days of training on the case management software.  It was a good trip.  Then the next year to a conference on consumer law.  About that time I realized that if I was speaking at a conference the office would pay my travel, and I started looking for a couple of conferences a year to speak at.  That got me noticed and I picked up a consulting contract to do training for AARP. That brought two to six trips a year. And that work got me noticed by the ABA, and when a job opened up I was encouraged to apply.  

My first 8 years at the ABA I had a travel budget that I could spend on anything related to my work.  It didn't matter if I was speaking or observing, I could go.  I mourned the loss of the travel budget, but usually had money to travel.  A couple of years we had "use-it-or-lose-it" money that needed to be spent on something relevant to the work, and extra travel was an easy way to use some of it. 

I have enjoyed that part of the work.  Only a couple of times did the amount of travel bother me. Then along came COVID and I went from almost too much travel, to none. It has been nice to be back at it. 

Don't get me wrong. It has been work.  I have had a lot of long days, leaving for the airport before dawn, getting home late at night.  Only once did I get stuck overnight in the airport and not make it home until the crack of dawn the next day. I have had a few delayed bags, only one of those caused a panic and it did show up.  

Now travel will be what I want to do.  When I want to do it.  I might do some consulting work, if I do it will likely include some travel.