Life On The Road!

We were sitting at the bar, lamenting how horribly difficult it was being on the road...sitting in the hotel bar drinking while our families lived their lives an ocean away.

It was a tough life, to be sure. Nothing to do but drink, shoot the breeze with colleagues, and joke with the hotel staff who, after nearly 7 months living there, had become a virtual surrogate family.

Tough indeed.

Just then the phone rang. In the bar.

It was my wife (the front desk staff knew when to transfer it to the bar). nearly in tears because the well pump had failed and there was no water in the house and she had no idea what to do and she hated me always being gone and I needed to do something right now.

4,500 miles away, what could I do? If I jumped on a plane that evening, it would be very late the next day before I got home – assuming I could even get a flight on this short notice.

And then what would I do? I'm not the most handy guy when it comes to fixing electric motors. In fact, I hate it and I suck at it.

As you can imagine, this wasn't quite what my wife was hoping to hear. It did, however, give her something other than the water problems on which to focus her frustration and anger.

I quietly ordered another beer as I listened. VERY quietly.

She muttered something like "that's right, I'd forgotten how utterly useless and aggravating you are in these situations."

She then reminded herself that she'd have ended finding someone else to fix it even if I was at home and what the hell was she thinking calling me with a problem like this? She might as well just call the neighbor and see if HER husband would come over and fix the damned thing.

I listened quietly. Not too quietly, but just quietly enough so she wasn't immediately aware that I was drinking another beer.

My colleague was laughing it up with the bartender and the waitress...He'd been through this before, too.

"Well, sorry I bothered you" she said. "I need to get off the phone so I can call Karen and see if she'll send Jim over to look at the damned thing."

I sighed heavily, the guilt obvious in the sound.

"It's OK." she said, "I know this isn't easy for you either, being too far away to do anything and having to listen to me whine."

"No, honey, it's the least I could do. I'm sorry I'm not there for you. If you want, I can catch a plane tomorrow."

I wasn't due home for another 5 (billable) weeks...a fact of which we were both acutely aware.

"No. I'm fine. I'll take care of it......but I need to get off the phone now, it's getting late.

"Ok, dear, I'll let you go." disappointment obvious in my voice. "Do you want me to call later to see how things went?"

"No need. What can you do from there anyway? Gotta go. Bye. I love you."

"I love you, too. Bye."

She hung up.

I ordered another beer.

Yup, life on the road sure is tough. :-)

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If you need a professional consultant to help straighten out your remote operations, leave a comment here or e-mail me at: TomFawls@Council4SmallBiz.com. I'd be happy to get on the road for you!

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