Another week, another trip. I flew to St. Louis early Monday morning. I met our regional leader and sales VP out there to conduct manager training for the St. Louis area managers. It went well. Our regional leader has decided that we should conduct the same training for our other managers as well, so in October I'll be headed to Indiana and Ohio. I've been at LandAm since April of last year, but there are still many managers in my region I haven't met. Most of last year I spent dealing with all of our layoffs and other strategic initiatives, and it just wasn't right to spend the money to travel. I'm now able to get out of the office more, and it's great to finally meet all of these people I've only spoken to on the phone.
Even though I really do enjoy getting out and meeting everyone, the downside is the days are usually 15-18 hours long, with very little downtime. On this trip, I was up at 4:30 Monday morning, on the road by 5:30. I landed in St. Louis at 10:30 and was at the office by 11:00. I was early, so I caught up on voice mail and e-mail, took a tour of the office, and then decided to grab some lunch. Being the obsessed crafter that I am, I found a scrapbook store on Google, set my GPS, and headed out. That GPS was crap. I ended up in some subdivision, no store in sight. Time running out, I grabbed a sandwich and headed back to the office. We had our meeting all afternoon and then went directly from there to dinner.
When I found out that dinner was going to be at a Japanese place, I was a little nervous. I'm a picky eater, and any kind of Asian food is off limits. I was assured they had "regular" food there, so I thought if it's not for me, I'll stop somewhere afterwards so at least I get a dinner.
I didn't have to worry about that. The dinner was fantastic. They prepared everything right there at the table, so it was a lot of fun to watch them and talk with them. We all had a good time, and it was just what we needed at the end of such a long day.
Never having been to St. Louis before, I had hoped to get out and explore a little bit. That didn't happen. I got to my hotel room at 8:00 their time, 9:00 Michigan time. After being up at 4:30, traveling, presenting, and then having that huge dinner, I could not keep my eyes open. I did have to log on and get through some e-mails, which thankfully didn't take too long. But I was pooped. So, no Arch for me. And that's okay, because our training went well, and I was able to spend time with my new Missouri/Kansas friends. Traveling for work seems glamorous to some people, but the reality is, is it's exhausting. I'm just thankful that my flights were all pretty much on time and that we had good weather. Good flights and good weather make all the difference.
What I didn't get to see.....
What I did get to see.......
Not as glamorous as the arch, but it'll do.
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