Literally a mandate to spend more on travel?

I wouldn't exactly say mandate to spend more. The spend is just a collateral effect. Cutbacks went too far, hence a correction.

As it started... Duplicate, please delete

You gotta spend money to make money, right?

^

One would think. IBM is notoriously good at keeping costs down while making money. Their global services org are mostly work from home guys. While we are getting there, some engineers on my team (namely me) still fly every week for work...then again there is some difference in quality of service ;) :D

Disclaimer: our company is a TINY fraction of IBM's size. We're still mainly focused on the top line which really keeps things interesting. We can afford to spend in order to seize opportunities when some of our (larger and public) competitors are focused on cost-cutting.

Life as an entrepreneur, I guess.

Yep, or life as a private company. Mccains is another good example. They are a private business. You should see how they treat their workers (e.g. very well) and how they spend their money (let's just say they don't fly commercial.) They are very much focused on the top line...

Sometimes it's better to not work in a publicly traded company as all are focused on "shareholder" value. Ugh. :(

Personally, I get excitement no matter of cabin when the engines spool up and i'm thrown back into my chair. TOGA's are also fun and extreme turbulence (especially while under the influence). :D

I would like to believe that :) but the long and indirect chain of cause and effect makes it hard to be certain you're not making better profit in spite of increased travel.

It's not just IGS, many (maybe most) of their developers in the software labs work from home. And those work at home guys seem to be the most productive.

Sometimes??

I'd be really surprised if you've ever experienced extreme turbulence. I don't think you'd consider it to be fun.

No disagreement. Most enterprise services division of large tech companies aren't there coding software, but rather we support different technologies, either in reactive support (firefighting) or proactive support (best practice knowledge transfer). In both cases, having someone onsite is much better (relationship with the customer, the ability to physically grab someone, seeing the whites in peoples' eyes) etc. That's a main service differentiator between IBM and us/other companies. We price it accordingly though. :)

I've had less than a handful. But when coffee/wine ends up all over the pod and the pilot yells over the speakers for all FA's to take their seat NOW (never have heard a pilot sound angry/maybe a little scared). I thought we were going to make the news, but let's just say the FA's had a really hard time getting into their seats. Scary as hell during the event, but afterwards, liquor was flowing to all pax in J, much of it being consumed by me...

That sounds more like moderate, or possibly severe, turbulence, but not extreme. Extreme turbulence is very rare.

Extreme turbulence: Turbulence in which the aircraft is violently tossed about and is practically impossible to control. It may cause structural damage.