Road Warriors

I’m not a real road warrior – I have one international client and I get to go to a topic locale for a week or two at a time about every other month. But still I deal with planes, airports, parking, customs, hotels, dining alone, over-packing, tracking receipts and expenses, and calling home every night.

I work with some real road warriors – the ones who spend more time on the road than at home. And I met a couple while I was stranded at the airport on this trip. She was young, bubbly, and yet once she started talking about the road you could see the fatigue. She spent two years at one locale – living there full time. Then she was home for a few months. Then she was at another locale for a year. Then home for a month. She has no boyfriend/husband/significant other. She doesn’t even have a cat. How can she? She misses these things. She loves her work – she hates living out of hotel rooms and eating alone.

He was older, middle-aged or perhaps a bit older than that. His assignments weren’t long, but they were frequent. He likes his work. He hates hotels. He loves to cook but never does because he never has any food in the fridge – how can you keep food in the fridge when you are always on the road? He’s proud of his company’s rules about international and cross-country travel – always first class. Still, he has the fatigue too.

And I realized something after we parted company. I had talked to strangers. Willingly. And I enjoyed it.

Normally I hate strangers. I hate that people I don’t know start talking to me and interrupt whatever I am doing. I’m a curmudgeon. Now I’m starting the road warrior personality shift – so many nights alone for dinner, and at your hotel. It’s lonely. Strangers wanting to chat you up seems less intrusive and more welcome. The company isn’t horrible.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t complain about the obnoxious drunk guy next to me on the plane – sure he was obnoxious, but I just gave him more verbal grief than he gave me and kept putting him in his place. It was simultaneously mildly amusing and annoying. Then when they booted his drunk ass from the plane I realized I was relieved – I enjoyed having my quiet again.

And then at dinner I didn’t discourage the waiter from chatting me up excessively, even though I had a book. He was amusing. It was more enjoyable than the alternative.

I wonder how many road warriors become the ‘chat-up-a-stranger’ type and how many stay walled off. It almost seems inevitable.