California...California....Here we come

I'm on my first business trip, and it hasn't even been one night yet and I'm already feeling pretty tired. But I guess that's what 9 hours of traveling does to you. I don't know how consultants can get use to doing this for like years. One thing about traveling is that it sucks when you travel alone. If you sit down for an airport meal or settle down in your hotel room, it would be nice to have someone to chat with. Things like traveling and eating are really best experienced with other people around.

As I was riding on the plane and having 9 hours to myself, I got to thinking why companies send their employees on business trips. If you add everything up, it gets quite expensive to send one person. Here's what my expense report will look like:

$300 Plane tix
$300 Rental Car
$600 Hotel at 120/night (why did they book me a baller hotel room? ...I'm not complaining though...)
$300 Food at 50/day

That total is roughly $1500 just to send me here to learn something. The more time I spend in the corporate world, the more I realize how crazy it is. The amount of money I spend here in a week can equal to the amount of money required to feed a small village of 50 people in Africa for a month. America is insane.

(Above image is a pillar at the Sacramento Airport. Neat!)