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Business Trips and Corporate Indecision

Original Air Date: January 2, 2024

Why is it so common for companies to not really understand basic travel logistics?

Why are things so chaotic?

Let’s dive into business trips and corporate indecision.

 

Aaron: Hello everyone!  I’m Aaron. It’s me, hi, i’m the problem it’s me.

Today our topic is about business trips. We are going to talk about business trips that don’t happen versus the ones that finally do, with a little side of corporate chaos.

Our guest today is Cecil, a veteran of the IT industry in the United States.  Cecil, I have a couple of questions for you.  You’ve been in the industry for 12 years now?

 

Cecil, Corporate Shenanigans Consultant: Yeah. It has been 12 years at this point. Good job. I didn’t even remember at first.

 

Aaron: Great.  Congratulations on the storied career.  So here are my two questions for you.   I’ve heard these stories over the years from you and from others people

How many times have your companies, your employers, told you that you were about to go out of country or out of state for the job, but it never actually happened? Tell me a little bit about that.

 

Cecil: I think the most important ones that anyone can really relate to are the ones where you get told you’re gonna get sent out of country, because that’s a much bigger deal [1] than, you know, local travel.

So, for me personally that’s happened, I want to say twice now, where I’ve been asked/told that I’d be going on a trip to a different country outside of the United States.  For both trips in the end, it ended up not happening

If I may go off on a little story real quick…so, anyone who has had to obtain a passport, particularly here in the United States…it’s a little bit of a process as one would expect to prepare for international travel. And I was not only asked to get a passport while I was on vacation; I was also outside of my home region. [2]

I live in the Midwest and, my vacation, I was taking time down in the South, down in Texas.

I laughed a little bit after the fact at this whole thing. Because when I went to get all the paperwork ready, I got everything ready when I was down in Texas and passport photos [3] and everything, I went to the office there in El Paso to get things taken care of.

The guy at the counter was so confused and admittedly, I was too at this point in time. He told me that, basically, if you’re applying for a passport outside of your home region, that you need two forms of government ID. So there’s your state-issued ID/driver’s license, that’s acceptable. I had that.  A passport, which I’m trying to get currently, so I don’t have that. Or a military-issued ID, which I didn’t have because I’m not in the military.

He basically said well there’s, there’s nothing we can do at this point. I’m sorry you’ll have to apply for one when you get home.

 

Aaron: Man, I remember that!  I remember you were forced to apply for a passport while on vacation.

 

Cecil: Yep!  It was a lot of buildup. [4] It ended up being like a month and a half, I think, if I remember right, once I actually got my passport, of:

”Okay you might go. Okay you’re not going to go. Oh you might. Oh you’re not. You might. Okay we’re just going to send one person, and it’s not you”

That was how all that came to an end, finally.

 

Aaron: That chaos, that back-and-forth [6], drives me absolutely crazy.

 

Cecil: It’s hard to plan things not only for work, but, just, your life.  Because if you’re going to go somewhere for 2 weeks plus, that’s a significant amount of time you have to account for, right?

 

Aaron: And that was for going to Saudi Arabia, potentially.  It never happened, but potentially that’s what it was supposed to be: a trip to Saudi Arabia.  However, even something much closer to home was still just fraught with frustration. When your company wanted to send you to Canada, that seemed impossible.

 

Cecil: It was.  That one, we had the added bonus of COVID to consider as well, so I think that also partially led to some of the back-and-forth. Because at the time there were still unclear restrictions between Canada and the United States, which I understand it was a, I’d like to say once in a lifetime, [laughs] but I guess you never know right?