My Wife and Business Trips

My wife doesn’t like me taking business trips. At least not anymore. When my wife and I moved out of the San Francisco Bay Area to Spokane, WA, yet managed to keep a job in the Bay Area, I was travelling down to California on a monthly basis. At the time, I was teaching classes in California. We also didn’t have any kids at the time, so it wasn’t a big deal. When I changed employers (to another Bay Area company), I ended up travelling with about the same frequency. I also did three 3-week international stints (two in the UK, one in Singapore). However, most of my travelling stopped for two big reasons:

1. The bottom fell out of the economy — the dot.com bubble burst in March of 2000.
2. I was about to have a kid — Jaden was born in June of 2000.

Business trips got a lot more scrunity after that, both by my employer and my wife. Now that the economy appears to be coming out of it’s slump and I’ve had a job shift at my current employer, the monthly or bi-monthly business trip seems to be a more regular occurance. However, my wife is objecting. The biggest reason is: my wife is about to have our second child in May. I agree I shouldn’t have any trips for at least a few months after that, but if she thinks I’m going to suddenly “travel no more,” she’s in for a rude awakening.

I have a unique arrangement with my current employer. I am granted a tremendous amount of automity. For the most part, I can do my job anywhere that I am reachable by phone and have an Internet connection. However, there are some parts of my job where I’ve gotta travel. I’ve gotta be trained once in a while. My boss(es) have to get us all together in a room once in a while and talk to us. I occasionally have to have face-to-face meetings with people. That’s the way business gets done.

I am not entirely unsympathetic to my wife, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think she realizes just how good she has it. I like that my son comes up stairs around 6pm to remind me it’s time to stop working and start playing with him. I like that I don’t have to “drive home” to be with my family — they’re basically a few steps away. I frequently spend my mornings feeding my son breakfast while my wife gets ready in the morning, keeping an eye on my email to stay on top of things. There’s likely to be more crises and what-have-you with a new baby on the way. I don’t mind being there for that, and at least 3 weeks out of every month (usually more), I’m there for every minute of it. Aside from my business trips, the occasional trip to the store, or taking Jaden somewhere, I never leave the house. I don’t hang out with friends at night or on weekends, I don’t go to bars, movies, or spend the weekend turned into Sports or have my head permanetly plastered inside of the hood of a car. I probably spend too much time in front of a computer, but at least I am home. I am home almost all the time and easily accessible. Most wives would love that kind of access to their husbands.

When I travel, I take advantage of the time away. When I travel, it’s usually to the office in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m from that area. It’s like “going home.” I spend time with my friends (many of whom live in the San Francisco Bay Area), I socialize with my co-workers, I listen to the kind of music I want to, I just enjoy the space. That’s one reason I stay up late after my wife and kid have gone asleep — I like the space. I rarely do any of these things outside of my business trips. I have no friends in the Seattle area, so it’s not like I have much of an opportunity outside of my business trips to see other people. My co-workers are several hundred miles away, which makes socalizing a bit more difficult and less fulfilling. Most of the music I listen to is inappropriate for younger listeners. Since kids are either in earshot or I need to keep my ears open for kid-related activities, music is basically out.

At the end of the day, these trips are not only about “work,” they are when I can do the “other” things I cannot or will not do around my family for various reasons. They’re little things, but they are things I enjoy. They are things that aren’t about my family. It may seem selfish, but if I don’t take care of my own needs, nobody else will, and I won’t be as well equipped to take care of anyone else’s needs, including those of my family. I feel that it is unselfish of me do these activities during my business trips — times when I am away from the family anyway. Asking me to stop these trips is also asking me to stop doing some things I enjoy. Other opportunities to do the other things are very rare.

Let’s look at the likely alternatives if I have to get another job because my wife is unhappy with my travelling:

1. Commuting is a very big possibility. The reason being is: while telecommuting is nice, I miss being in an office around other people. While a lot of things are substitutes for facetime (e.g. regular phone meetings, instant messaging, SMSing), they are just that — substitutes. Being around real people is something that those substitutes can’t entirely replace. If I have to replace my current job, I would seriously consider something with an office I can drive to. Problem is: most of the companies I would likely want to work for are quite a commute from my house — I suspect a commute of at least an hour or more each direction.
2. If I have to go into an office every day, guess what: I’m not around the house during the day. That means I have to get up earlier — a lot earlier than we currently manage to get up. That also means I’m home later. That means less time with my kids. It also makes my wife’s “getting ready in the morning” ritual a little more difficult.
3. Lower pay. I am currently getting paid as if I were living in the San Francisco Bay Area. The cost of living in Seattle is a bit cheaper. Trust me, my wife and I use this to our advantage. If I get a local job, it likely means I will be making the prevaling wage in the Seattle area, which is a little less than the Bay Area.
4. Higher pay, but more travelling: A lot of other places I would want to work are not based in the Seattle area and could pay significantly better, but would likely require even more travelling as a pre-requisite. That means being around even less.

I personally think being gone up to one week a month is a small price to pay for complete and total access to me the rest of the time.