Mark got sent on a business trip to London this week, leaving last Saturday and returning late yesterday afternoon. Yes, you heard that right: he arrived back barely in time for dinner on the day before Thanksgiving. (In defense of his normally quite family-friendly workplace: the boss who set up the meeting is German and forgot about the holiday, and of course the folks in the UK didn't catch it either.)
At first we thought we wouldn't be able to drive back to spend Thanksgiving with our families at all, but then we worked out that we could drive down early and he could fly out from where we were staying. So that turned out okay. I picked him up from the airport last night, a two-hour round trip driving down from my in-laws' place.
On the way back he told me about the meeting. I listened to the tale. Let's see: a meeting in London with people from two different companies and four different countries, at which he had to match wits with another engineer, under the watchful gaze of both their bosses, and maybe some lawyers, hashing out issues both technical and patent-related while preserving good relations between two companies and with nothing to eat (said Mark) but "lunch brought in." English "lunch brought in."
I tried to imagine myself being in his place at such a meeting and thought: that has so many nightmares written all over it I wouldn't even know where to begin. You would think that there would be some "cool! Meeting in London!" aspect, but I am inclined to think that would make it even worse, as I would be constantly tempted to stand up and go in search of a pub or a museum rather than stay in the room eating bread triangles with cold cuts on them and trying not to screw up too badly.
So today I am thankful that Mark does the "job" thing so that I don't have to.
At first we thought we wouldn't be able to drive back to spend Thanksgiving with our families at all, but then we worked out that we could drive down early and he could fly out from where we were staying. So that turned out okay. I picked him up from the airport last night, a two-hour round trip driving down from my in-laws' place.
On the way back he told me about the meeting. I listened to the tale. Let's see: a meeting in London with people from two different companies and four different countries, at which he had to match wits with another engineer, under the watchful gaze of both their bosses, and maybe some lawyers, hashing out issues both technical and patent-related while preserving good relations between two companies and with nothing to eat (said Mark) but "lunch brought in." English "lunch brought in."
I tried to imagine myself being in his place at such a meeting and thought: that has so many nightmares written all over it I wouldn't even know where to begin. You would think that there would be some "cool! Meeting in London!" aspect, but I am inclined to think that would make it even worse, as I would be constantly tempted to stand up and go in search of a pub or a museum rather than stay in the room eating bread triangles with cold cuts on them and trying not to screw up too badly.
So today I am thankful that Mark does the "job" thing so that I don't have to.
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