5. Working on the Road

Working from the road presents a different set of challenges than those presented when working from home. The most obvious is, of course, the lack of familiarity with the surroundings, which in itself can be a big barrier to productivity.

Broadly speaking, there are two main categories of Out of Office workers who travel: those who experience this work style regularly and those who experience it infrequently. Both groups face similar challenges, but some additional challenges are experienced by those who are not regularly on the road. For them, the unfamiliar surroundings, the lack of access to equipment and accessories, and the overall disconnect with their usual routine can all form challenges that distract from being productive. For others, a chance to break the usual routine and work from different surroundings can actually encourage them to be more productive. Regardless of which group the Out of Office worker finds themselves in, they will face some challenges they are not used to.

There is nothing more frustrating than leaving home without a power cord for your device. Why do you think there are so many vendors at airports selling them, often at greatly inflated prices? They know you have to have power, they know you need it now, so, within reason, you are willing to pay whatever they ask.

How many phone chargers, cables, or external battery packs are sold at airports around the world every day? Southwest Airlines, a carrier based in the United States, reports finding more than 10,000 items a month left behind on their planes. That is just one carrier and just one country.

Leaving an essential piece of equipment at home is bad enough, but leaving it on the plane can be even worse. If the item is a power cord, it is fairly easy to replace, but leaving a phone, tablet, or laptop behind could be catastrophic.

If nothing else, the loss of a device leads to delays in travel and hampers the individual’s ability to remain in contact. Of course, there are pay phones in airports, but how many of us actually remember phone numbers these days? If you had to phone a client or even your business office without the contact book in your phone, would you be able to?

Leaving a computer behind could severely affect a small business owner or solopreneur, especially if they don’t back up the data stored on it regularly. A global survey conducted by EVault in 2012 found that 22 percent of employees had company data stored on one more personal devices, but 78 percent of businesses didn’t have a mobile data recovery plan in place.

That is a lot of sensitive, potentially damaging, and at the very least operationally significant information that could be lost, stolen, or misappropriated. For a solopreneur, the loss could signal the end of their business, if the data on the lost device included customer contact information, work in progress, and other business-critical information. Replacing the device might be out of their immediate financial reach, so they are in effect paralyzed.

The nightmare of losing all of my business data is one reason why I still use a desktop computer and cloud backup services such as Dropbox. If I lose my laptop, there would be financial implications and of course a huge nuisance factor, but there is nothing on it that isn’t also stored in two other places, and provided I replace the device, there’s nothing that can’t be accessed again quickly. The same goes for my phone, which is backed up regularly so that I don’t lose my contact information.

These are simple steps, and although there are costs associated with them, these costs are worth paying given that the potential loss could be the entire business.

Having reached a destination, finding locations to work can be an intimidating (or at least very frustrating) experience. When in your own neighborhood, you acquire a certain familiarity with the places that provide you with the right facilities for working in. Whether those are coffee shops, hotels, cafes, or bookstores, when you are traveling, especially to somewhere you are unfamiliar with, finding those comfortable spots to work and be productive from can be a challenge.

In major cities in the U.S., it is fairly easy to find locations of chain brands such as Starbucks. In fact, I am convinced that part of their popularity is the familiarity that they provide travelers with. The Marriott Hotel chain has this built in to their branding. All the hotels look the same and the hotel-provided equipment such as ironing boards and irons are always in the same place. Doing this means that Marriott can offer a repeatable experience to their guests, and their guests have one less thing to think about while they are traveling.

Even traveling overseas this is true. I have often resorted to U.S. chain restaurants when traveling in Asia and Europe simply because I have some level of expectation of what I will find on the menu, and I don’t have to think too hard about what I am going to eat. That might seem slightly xenophobic, but it is more about comfort than not wanting to experience the local cuisine—which I often do. After being on a plane for 14 hours, trying to figure out what to eat is the last thing I want to do.

These familiar signposts are a boon to the infrequent traveler. Knowing that a particular chain provides free Wi-Fi, a certain meal or beverage, a type of bed, or even a particular favorite sandwich gives them an oasis-type appeal that cannot be overstated. It is precisely for that reason the infrequent traveler can be best advised to seek them out when on a trip. Unless the trip is for pleasure, you have more than enough to think about in terms of conducting the business you are traveling for, so why stress yourself out trying to find a good restaurant, hotel, or free Wi-Fi. Go with what you know so you can get the job done and relax.

Perhaps the most basic of requirements when traveling is access to funds. Whether traveling domestically or overseas, you have to be able to pay for your hotel, cabs or a rental car, meals, and everything else. Although cash might have been king once, only the most questionable of hotels accepts cash these days. Everything is plastic and must be backed up with a photo ID. So what happens when you are traveling and suddenly find that the funds you thought you had access to aren’t available?

Jacque Miller, a clinical outreach specialist with Sober Living, had just that experience:

I had traveled to Prescott, Arizona to call on a number of clients and had checked into my hotel the evening before, got up, went to a couple of appts, and decided to grab a bite to eat before going to my next appt. I ran into In & Out Burger to grab a cheeseburger and drink, and when they swiped the card it was declined. I had them try it again, thinking surely it was a mistake. It was declined again and so I paid cash, ate, and left. I did not have my personal debit or credit card with me and my big concern was that when I checked out from the hotel I would not have any money to pay for it. I called the credit card company and they said my card had been comprised and that it was blocked and they would not unblock it but they would send me a new card in 7–10 days.

Of course that wasn’t going to help me much. Luckily the hotel had already run the charges when I checked in, and I was only in town for one more day, so I made it with what cash I had on me. So it all worked out.

I was traveling with my boss and the same thing happened to his credit card, and I ended up having to put all of his travel expenses on my card and, of course, that meant it all went on my expense account too.

An incident like this is hard to plan for. Jacque managed to work around it, but what if the hotel hadn’t run the charges? What if she were facing other expenses? How do you work around that type of situation?

I have found myself in a very similar situation, away from home, funds unavailable, for exactly the same reason as Jacque. My solution was to phone home and to have money sent by wire transfer via Western Union. The fees were minimal and the transfer only took a few hours. I was then able to pay the cash onto a personal card and cover my expenses that way.

The key to these situations is to not panic, which is of course easier said than done when you find yourself in a strange city, without access to money, and you have no personal contacts locally. Whether it’s not having access to funds or finding that your time is swallowed up in ways you hadn’t imagined, when you arrive at your destination there is always a solution or at the very least an amusing story to be gained from the experience.

Robert Pearce, CTO of Rideshare, tells a very funny story of deciding to work on vacation while his family went out to dinner:

Throughout my European trip, I had struggled with finding a balance between time spent working versus time spent enjoying the scenery. I would try to wake up early to work, work while in the car/train, and work in the evenings. However, as everyone with their own business knows, work schedules tend to fly out the window and are replaced with around-the-clock work hours. The best decision I made was during a gorgeous evening in Radda in Chianti (Chianti region), Italy. I had decided that I had not accomplished much during this day and was going to have to stay in for the evening while my family went to dinner. What “type” of dinner they were attending was something else entirely.

I was aroused from my mid-work somnambulism by the sound of drumming. There were the drums at first, but these were soon followed by shouts, the clang of metal on metal, and knights in armor passing my window. You know that moment where you are convinced you’ve slipped through a crack in time and have travelled to another era? My curiosity more than aroused, I threw the windows wide open and bore witness to a gang of jesters, hawkers, owlers (like hawkers, but with owls), swordsmen, knights, and musicians. I left my computer behind (I had just travelled through time, obviously; work no longer mattered) and followed this parade of Italian antiquity through the streets until we came upon the town’s centre square, which was populated by tables full of people, jars of wine, platters of food, and, of course, my family. The dinner which they were attending turned out to be the 500th anniversary of a victorious battle with a neighboring town, and all locals and visitors were invited to the festivities.

We drank, enjoyed the festivities, learned Italian curse words, and made many friends. Never have I ever been so thankful to be swept through time.

Not exactly a common experience, but one of the things you will learn about working from the road is to never underestimate the potential for a seemingly ordinary journey to turn into something quite different and very distracting.

Carolyn Pearson, Founder of Maiden Voyage, a UK-based global network for women travelers, shared a very different experience with me, but before sharing the story I also want to share how traveling and working from the road led to a whole new career for Carolyn and how she was inspired to found Maiden Voyage.

At the time, Carolyn worked for Independent Television (ITV), a British television production company. They were looking for a new software vendor, and so she traveled to Los Angeles to meet with some prospective providers. Because her meetings were at the beginning of the week, she decided to travel early and experience Los Angeles over the weekend prior to the meetings. She enjoys traveling so the thought of being a tourist for a couple of days was very appealing. She had booked her hotel next door to the software vendor’s offices, in downtown Los Angeles. Like many large cities, the business district was deserted on Friday night and for the weekend.

While she managed to catch a cab and see some of the more interesting parts of Los Angeles, each evening she was restricted to her hotel and their offerings for food. In her words:

Friday night and Saturday night I was stuck in the hotel, eating hotel food, with just a couple of business men hanging around. It was just really boring. I thought, “My God, if there had been another woman that I could have met up with, you know, and gone off and done something with, it would have been fantastic.”

The experience got Carolyn thinking: She talked the idea through with a few contacts and when she got positive feedback on the idea she decided to put together a prototype of what would become Maiden Voyage. Having put the prototype together, she found a software company willing to develop the actual site.

It was hardly on the Web any time at all before a magazine contacted her and wanted to run a feature article on her new network. From that article, The New York Times included it in a feature that led to a TV interview with CNN. That triggered a global response from women travelers.

One of Carolyn’s early decisions about the network was that she would call everyone who signed up for the service to make sure they were in fact a woman. This turned out to be a challenging decision once the network took off. Carolyn found herself calling Uganda, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Yemen, Japan, United States, and other countries, all from her kitchen.

After five years, it has grown into a full-time job that includes offering training courses to hotels on how to better adapt their offerings to women guests. The site offers advice, guidance, and networking opportunities to women travelers and is growing rapidly. All of this grown from Carolyn’s experiences as a woman traveler who wanted to get more from her trips.

Oh, and Carolyn’s story from the road?

I was staying in London, the day before my interview with CNN, and so I contacted the concierge in the hotel and asked if they could organize someone to give me a blow dry the next morning. I just trusted that he would find a proper hairdresser.

The hotel had upgraded me to their penthouse, which was on its own floor with no other rooms around. I got up the next morning and there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, there was a Rastafarian guy with a sports bag. I thought, “Should I be really letting this guy in, he could have a hammer or anything in that bag.”

Anyway, he started to dry my hair and I thought I would quiz him on his hairdressing. He didn’t seem very comfortable with hair, which worried me. I asked him where he had been working recently and he replied, “Oh, I’ve been away for a while,” so then I thought he’s been in prison!

He took 40 minutes to dry my hair and it turned out looking like straw. I had no time to do anything about it and had to go to the studio and do the interview with CNN with my hair looking like that. To top it all off he charged me 90 pounds (approx. U.S. $150).

Definitely a tale of caution: Relying on hotel concierge services doesn’t always pay off. Being a woman traveling alone brings its own set of hazards—certainly more so than men traveling alone. Maiden Voyage hopes to provide education for women, among other things, to assist women in getting the best possible experience from their travels.

Carolyn’s story shows that even the most experienced travelers can run into situations that they were not prepared for, but again really shows that just rolling with the situation is often the best way (if not the only way) to cope.

In this figure, you can see how the smartphone application Foursquare provides recommendations for places to eat near your current location. These happen to be recommendations for places near my home, and included in the recommendations is a list of my friends who use that app that have been to those locations. This additional information can greatly assist the traveler visiting a new city. If people you know have been there and you like similar things, then maybe the place is going to provide you with a good experience, even if you aren’t familiar with it.

The smartphone is also providing travelers with alternatives to basic services such as cabs. Services such as Uber provide travelers with private cars with a driver (see Figure 5.2). Of course, these can be more expensive than traditional cabs, but the experience is of a much higher quality, and when the streets seem deserted of cabs, the Uber service is an extremely reliable alternative.

Uber uses the GPS location of your phone to pinpoint where you are, allowing you to select a point on the map that you want to be picked up at. It can be your current location or another location. You can also tell the service when you need the car and, of course, your destination. Although only available in major cities at the moment, the list of cities the service operates in is growing rapidly. Now, rather than standing on a sidewalk competing with other travelers for a cab, you can remain comfortably sitting in a coffee shop, bar, restaurant, or your hotel and simply order up your car. As they say, it’s the little things. In fact, making life easier while on the road is something that the smartphone excels at.

Airline apps allow you to check in before you arrive at the airport, select your seat, and generate your boarding card so that you no longer need the paper version (you simply scan your phone at the gate). They can also provide updates to your flight status and advise you of gate changes and delays.

In fact, it is hard to think of another device that has changed the travel experience more than the smartphone. Not only is it used to keep the owner connected to their business world, it makes light work of previously onerous tasks and can be used for entertainment and for staying in touch with home and office via video. Some people have even been known to use it for making phone calls!

Other smartphone applications allow you to perform tasks such as scanning business cards directly into your contacts, scan receipts so that they can be added to expense reports, edit documents, and access cloud-based storage.

I have used my smartphone to view, edit, and sign and send contracts for new business while waiting for a plane at the airport, something that I would have previously had to wait until I returned to my office to do. Being faster, more responsive, and more organized has a very positive impact on relationships with clients and co-workers alike.

Of course, the entertainment aspect of the smartphone shouldn’t be overlooked either. Whether playing games, watching movies or TV shows, or reading a book, the traveler is offered a myriad of entertainment possibilities. No longer is the traveler limited to whatever entertainment they can find at their destination: They can now take their own entertainment with them. Some applications even allow you to access your DVR at home and watch shows you have recorded there from your smartphone or tablet.

One more feature of the smartphone that is indispensable and that gives it a distinct advantage over being present in an office is the off switch. Whether forced to turn it off during takeoff and landing, or simply choosing to turn it off for some self-imposed quiet time, the ability to control when you are available is perhaps one of the biggest luxuries of working from the road.

Eating healthily or at the very least not abandoning good eating completely was a challenge also mentioned by many. From pretzels on the plane to dessert in the hotel room, or even just the vending machine in the hallway, the temptations for the traveler are seemingly endless.

When I first started to travel on business, I found myself like a kid in a candy store. The meals, the endless possibilities for indulgence seemed just too good to be true. Of course, in a way they were. Although my company footed the bill for my meals, my body soon started to foot the bill for my indulgence.

A lot of hotels provide in-house gyms, so it would seem the excuse not to work out is removed; of course, if you are flying to a location in this era of checked baggage fees, many people opt to only take carry-on, which comes with the challenge of packing only the essentials. That pair of running shoes and a set or two of workout gear can only be packed at the cost of other clothing items. So the excuse remains, “I’d workout but I don’t have room for my gear.”

In reality, there are many ways it is possible to maintain a workout schedule while on the road without having to pack additional clothing. Websites such as Nerd Fitness (www.nerdfitness.com), Body Ripped (www.bodyripped.net), and various other online publications from The New York Times, Men’s Health, and Real Simple, to Shape and Self offer hotel room workouts using nothing but your own body weight. Don’t forget YouTube either. Workout videos aimed specifically at the traveler staying in a hotel abound there. So the only equipment you need is the furniture in your room and the only workout gear you need to wear is your underwear. Problem solved.

For those who feel the need for workout equipment but don’t have the time to hit the gym in the hotel or don’t have access to one, equipment from companies such as TRX Training (www.trxtraining.com) allow you to take the gym with you. Providing a low profile for easy packing, this type of equipment is best used under instruction as a beginner, but once the basics are learned it can be used anywhere that has a door and some floor space (I wouldn’t recommend trying it in the airplane bathroom, though!).

The smallest workout equipment that you can carry is probably a workout DVD, from P90X to TV tie-ins such as The Biggest Loser, the type, style, and intensity of workouts available on DVD are almost bewildering. I can’t imagine there not being a workout DVD that fits your style, and after all you are probably carrying a device with you that is capable of video playback, even if you have to transfer the contents of the DVD to it. Have you run out of excuses yet?

That really is what we provide ourselves—excuses. We might frame them as obstacles, but really they are excuses. This comes back to the core essentials of the type of personality that is best suited to the Out of Office work style—one of which is undoubtedly self-discipline. If you can find reasons not to look after your health, you are likely to be able to find excuses not to complete other tasks. This has nothing to do with being lazy or being a slacker. This is more about not having the level of self-awareness and self-monitoring to recognize those moments when you are making choices that aren’t going to result in the best of outcomes.

Eating while on the road can present more of a challenge for those with particular dietary needs. Donna Ledbetter shared her experiences of trying to find vegan food while traveling:

I was on travel for a conference in Colorado and got violently ill. I am vegan and had very few food choices available. I believe that eating the same food day in and day out was what caused me stomach trouble. In the end, I wound up spending a lot of my own money throughout the week getting cabs to and from restaurants with food I could eat. After that experience, I vowed to do what I could to help other people like me not to have to endure getting sick like I did because of limited food choices. So I started a travel website and podcast focused on travel for vegans. Working on the road inspired me to start a new business. It’s just getting off the ground (no pun intended), but more people are finding useful information about vegan travel every day.

Like Carolyn, Donna’s experiences have led not only to her having a better coping strategy while on the road, she has created a business from it, which definitely indicates that there is both a lot to be gained from working from the road and that many of us have shared experiences that we can all learn from.

I avoid gluten in my diet as well as carbonated drinks of any kind. This isn’t particularly difficult to do when traveling, but when I first moved to that way of eating I would often forget and order a diet coke or similar beverage because I was in a strange place, perhaps eating out with clients, and that was what everyone else was ordering, so it just seemed natural. Part of the problem with staying healthy on the road is the sense of dislocation: What comes naturally at home can be easily forgotten in the midst of finding your way around a strange town or when distracted by other people.

It is all part of the challenge of the Out of Office work style faced by those working away from familiar surroundings. Even if it is a location that you travel to regularly, it still isn’t home. For some that is actually a bonus, giving them much needed time away from the normal routine and providing the opportunity for fresh perspectives, but for many others it is disconcerting and a distraction that can lead to broken habits and comfort eating (raises hand guiltily). It can take a conscious effort to ensure that the distractions are kept to a minimum, just as they are at home, although the distractions when traveling can involve a whole different set of distractions than those provided at home.

—Unknown

The rewards for traveling for business come in many forms: the tangible and the intangible, from hotel and airline reward programs to new experiences. The business traveler is a type of worker that has a set of rewards available to them that is incomparable to other types of workers.

I don’t travel frequently enough with the same carrier to earn sufficient miles to get any real rewards. I tend to buy the best ticket that gets me to my destination. However, I recently traveled with my girlfriend, who travels globally and frequently and has achieved the top status with her airline of choice. From the express security lane at the airport to the use of the plush lounge and the upgraded seats, the whole experience was definitely better and it cost her nothing other than loyalty to one specific brand.

The same was true when we reached our destination. She has a similar status with a hotel chain: We got a room on a higher floor, access to a concierge lounge with free breakfast and beverages, free newspapers, and more.

All of this added to the enjoyment of the trip. For those who travel frequently, these are just some of the benefits they realize.

Of course, airlines also offer free flights to their loyal customers in return for “cashing in” the points they have earned, and hotels offer free nights. It has been noted that lately these are becoming harder to achieve as both airlines and hotels have started to increase the number of points required to achieve these types of rewards. “No such thing as a free lunch” comes rapidly to mind when I read stories of how much the cost of these “free” rewards has increased, placing them out of the reach of all but the most frequent of travelers. That said, it is still a reward worth having, and if your business sees you traveling a lot, you are probably looking for any and all rewards.

Most business travelers I know tell me the same thing: It sounds glamorous to be visiting lots of different cities, whether domestically or internationally, but often that means they only see the airport, the inside of a taxi or rental car, and their hotel room. If they manage half a day in their destination city, they consider themselves lucky—and of course the travel takes them away from home and in many cases loved ones. A free hotel room doesn’t seem much of a reward when balanced against that for many people.

The ultimate reward for business travelers is perhaps the odd occasion when they can have a family member or friend travel with them. Some companies frown upon this, whereas others embrace it, provided that it is accounted for in the right way.

I’m lucky that my girlfriend’s company falls into the second category. They have no problem with me tagging along on her trips as long as I pay my own airfare and food costs. Although we don’t get much time together on these trips—she is there to work after all—I get to see great places and we are at least together at night, which makes the trip better for her and for me.

When negotiating salary and benefits with a company, elements like this are often overlooked by employees. I would say that these types of benefits can easily make up for not realizing the salary figure you were looking for.

A company I worked for actually paid for one vacation a year for each member of the senior management team. This was to encourage them to take their vacation days and to come back recharged and energized. It was a generous benefit and something that definitely added to employee loyalty as well as achieving the goal of ensuring that the executives actually took time off.

It is important to look for rewards from sources outside of just the travel and tourism industry. Of course, we are used to them offering rewards, but many other service providers also offer travelers rewards. Hotels often have agreements with local businesses to offer guests discounts on services, and local restaurants will often offer discounted meals on weekdays during the early evening.

If you can be flexible with your schedule, it is possible to get rewarded for your travel from a variety of places that you might not have thought of. If you are going to have some free time in your destination city, it is worth researching what attractions might interest you and what discounts are offered for visitors. Places such as New York City, for example, have many discounted offers for the attractions there, whether using the New York CityPASS or one of the various coupon books, it’s possible to find a deal on many of the tourist destinations in the city.

Websites such as Restaurant.com offer discounted meals at restaurants in major cities across the United States. Although your company will probably be paying the bill for your meals, who doesn’t like earning a reward or two? And saving the company some money can only look good on your expense report.

The traveling Out of Office worker has a series of hurdles to negotiate to achieve the same level of productivity as their in-office counterparts: They also have opportunities that aren’t presented to their counterparts in the same way.

Technology allows us to communicate with a range of people that was unthinkable just a few decades ago, but for all of the video conferencing, email, and social networks, most business people I speak to agree that meeting someone face-to-face is the most rewarding and the method that most often leads to new business, additional business, or just the cementing of existing relationships.

Those traveling Out of Office workers might seem to have a great life, and as we have seen in this chapter there are definitely some benefits and rewards to their travels. They also perform a function that is hard to replicate from within the bounds of an office environment. With the packed schedules that everyone in business operates on, having a customer come to your office for a meeting is not only impractical in many cases, in most it is just not something that can happen.

When I was traveling for a previous company, we were pitching for a huge new contract. At the time the company was small and relatively unheard of, and we were up against some very big names in the industry. However, what separated us from the other bidders was that the CEO, CTO, and myself all attended the pitch meeting in person. We had traveled from across the globe to attend the meeting. None of the other companies sent representatives, choosing instead to make their pitches via teleconferencing, video-conferencing, or other technology-based presentation methods.

We got the business. I was informed later that one of the deciding factors was that the executives making the decision were convinced because we were in the room with them, they were able to look us in the eye and shake our hands.

Sometimes, for all our technology and advances in communication, it comes down to a solid handshake and meeting a person eye-to-eye to convince them to do business.