Road Wearier

The current big work assignment has me operating out of my company's local reservation call center. Turns out there are two, one here, one in Tampa (about 70 miles apart). Today was one of the big milestone dates in the project, so the exec and team in charge of the project decided it was important enough to justify a trip over to Tampa, rather than video-conferencing as is the norm.

So, after our 9-9:30 meeting, we piled in cars and caravaned over. I had the foresight to pack my PowerBook, so I was able to do work while someone else did the driving. Good thing, too, as a large truck had jackknifed in the median and was blocking one westbound lane. It took us over 20 minutes to go the last 2 miles before the wreck, and we arrived in Tampa 45 minutes later than planned. We did the 1-hour presentation, loaded back in the cars, and (after a brief Wendy's stop) headed back to Orlando to do the presentation over again.

I'll admit, the trip back was less productive work-wise but more productive me-wise. I wrote a couple of emails, did some address book maintenance, messed around in Quicken, and worked on mixing a CD. But I feel like I did nothing productive at all today. I mean, two hours of "driving" a PowerPoint presentation (<PAGE DOWN>, wait, <PAGE DOWN>, wait, <PAGE DOWN>...), and over three hours on the road, doesn't leave much worktime left in the average day.

The comical part was everyone saying how much better it will be when Florida's high-speed train gets built. That would still strand us 25 miles from the reservation center on the Tampa end....