Well, I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading this thread, but I'm having fun writing it, so I'll keep at it for now. This past week was pretty dull (aside for being 2-for-3 on police presence at my chosen hotels), so instead of boring you with it, I'm going to "flash back" to one of my more memorable business trips.
It was late on a Monday night in February, 2004 -- almost exactly a year ago to the day, as a matter of fact. I'd been on my team for about three months. As I mentioned in my last entry, my then-boyfriend (now fiance) was on the same team. We had not told anyone that we were dating, mostly because I didn't want my new teammates to see me as "his girlfriend." I wanted them to get to know me for what I could do first.
On that particular night, my boyfriend and I were hanging out at his apartment, watching TV and getting some work done, when his home phone rang. It was our manager, calling about a customer issue that required an onsite visit. The customer was having problems with a specific product; my fiance knows a little about this particular product, but everyone knows it is one of my specialties, and he mentioned that to my manager. So my manager said, "Yeah, I've been trying to get in touch with her. Do you have any idea where she is?" Of course, my boyfriend knew perfectly well that I was sitting right next to him, but he mumbled some story about me being at lacrosse practice (like anyone is at a sports practice at 10 pm!).
When he hung up and told me what was going on, I immediately logged in to check my email. Sure enough, my manager had emailed me an hour or so before about taking this trip. She had also tried calling my cell phone, but at the time, my charger had just died. I had a new one on order, but for the time being, I couldn't charge my cell phone.
This presented a problem. I was eager to call my manager back right away and tell her I could go on the trip, but I couldn't use my cell phone, and I was nervous about using my boyfriend's phone because I thought she might have caller ID. I considered going back to my own apartment, which was only about 10 minutes away, but laziness won out, and I called her back from my boyfriend's phone.
If she did have caller ID, she didn't say anything when I called. She just asked, "So, how do you feel about North Dakota?" It turns out the customer was in Fargo. I could not be happier -- I'd never been to North Dakota! So she gave the trip to me, and I logged in to weather.com, where I discovered that it was about -20 degrees Fahrenheit in Fargo at that time. Now, I grew up in the Northeast, where it does get fairly cold, but it rarely drops below about +20 degrees. I had no concept of what -20 degrees would even feel like! I packed a couple of warm sweaters and two winter coats and headed off to Fargo the next morning.
The first thing I learned about Fargo is that it is the best place to go if you want to steal a car. Like most rental car agencies, the Avis at Fargo airport left the keys in the ignition of my car. (In fact, they started the car for me and left the heat running full blast. It was so toasty when I got in that I had to roll down a window!) But unlike most rental car agencies, the Avis at Fargo airport does not check your rental contract when you leave the lot. There is no security at the lot exit at all -- you just drive off, hopefully with the car you're supposed to have! So if you ever need a new car, just fly into Fargo, go to the rental car lot, and look for a running car!
Also, it is so cold in Fargo that about 5-10 minutes before someone is planning on leaving a place, they usually go out to their car and start it, so it warms up. So when you go to restaurants or malls, you'll see lots of cars in the parking lot, keys in the ignition, with no driver in sight. It is a bit unnerving for someone from a big city.
The second thing I learned about Fargo is that it is really frickin' cold. I decided to bypass the standard car warm-up when I went to leave the customer site the first night -- my big-city intuition would not allow me to leave my keys in the car ignition, and besides, my hotel was just a few blocks away from the customer, so I figured I could make it even in a cold car. But by the time I reached my hotel, my hands were so cold that I could barely hold the pen to sign my check-in slip. Yes, they had completely frozen up in, literally, about three minutes outdoors.
As for the onsite visit itself, it was incredibly hectic, but also a lot of fun. We worked very long hours, usually getting to the site around 8 am and not leaving till 11 pm or midnight. But we did break away for lunch and dinner, which gave me a chance to get to know the two guys I was working with a little better. Just talking with them and working long hours with them gave me a good taste of what Fargo is all about. I was amazed at how much they loved it. They never even considered moving somewhere else -- they thought Fargo was the greatest place on earth! And yes, they really do talk like the people in the movie, you betcha!
Finally, on the third day, we got all the problems sorted out. The customer was thrilled, and as much as I had enjoyed my time in Fargo, I was happy to be going home so I could get some sleep. I headed off to the airport. AA doesn't go to Fargo, so I was flying on Northwest, where I have zero status. In fact, I had just joined WorldPerks at the check-in kiosk for my outbound flight. To my surprise, when I checked in for my return flight, the check-in kiosk spit out two boarding passes (I was connecting through Minneapolis) with FIRST printed on them. I was confused. I was certain I had purchased coach tickets. That FIRST couldn't mean first class, right?
As I sat at the gate pondering this, two of the customers walked up to me. They were big manager-types from a different branch, and they were in town for some meetings with their colleagues in Fargo; I had met them while I was onsite earlier. When we went to board the flight, it turned out that I was indeed in first class. (I still don't know why. The only thing I can think of is that I was flying on a full Y ticket, and maybe NW gives complimentary upgrades on those?) That made me rather uncomfortable, because the big managers were in coach! I tried to explain that I had no idea how I ended up in first class, and I certainly hadn't paid for it, but they just laughed and said I did a great job fixing their problems, so I deserved it. I didn't complain after that. It certainly made the ride home a little more comfortable.
Oh yeah, one more thing. Back in Dallas, my boyfriend had been walking past our manager's office on my first day in Fargo, when she asked him to come in for a minute. All she said was, "I do have caller ID." In other words, she knew I had called her from his apartment, and she had figured out that we were dating. They both laughed about it. You might remember from my last entry that my manager is married to another employee at our company, so she was totally cool about everything. She was the first person on our team to find out. Over the next month or so, we told a couple more of our closer friends, but some of our teammates didn't find out until just a few months ago, when we were making plans to move out to California together. (That made it kinda obvious.)
Anyway, that was one of my first business trips, but it remains one of my favorites. Still, I'm not looking for any trips back to Fargo this February. It's just too darn cold.