My crazy job - Planes, trains, and coaches galore

Yet again, I’m sitting on a bus back to Oxford from Heathrow (free WiFi!) and I’m realizing that I haven’t yet written a blog about my job! Between arriving in Oxford in early Oct., leaving on this crazy travel schedule for work 4 days later, and jam-packed weekends with Kent in Oxford....I haven’t even written about what I’m actually doing on these hectic trips. The travel is “only” 8 weeks and I’m already at the end of week 6! I can’t believe how fast time is flying – it’s already the end of Nov. I guess I don’t have Thanksgiving anticipation, so I’ve lost track of the month of Nov. They are maniacs about Christmas over here, so the stores start even earlier since they don’t have Thanksgiving.

Anyway, back to the job. Dell couldn’t figure out a way to move me over to the UK (ridiculous, but that’s another long story), so I resigned back in July and took a few months off to see friends & family, sell/pack the house, and basically enjoy a nice summer with Kent. Probably a blessing in disguise – we had a great summer. So I was wondering what I was going to do to support us when the $ was at 2 to the £, and talked to some old friends from Dell and they took me on as a contractor for a corporate customer events “road show” called the Future of Computing Tour. If you remember some of my European work trips in the past, this is the same thing. Except now, I am not the subject matter expert speaker, but rather working behind the scenes on the events marketing team. Now I have definitely run the gamut at Dell, from engineering to product mgmt marketing, to marcom, to customer events. I actually enjoy what I am doing now....

....well besides the travel. You are asking “what?! You get to see all of Europe?!” It’s really not glamorous at all. Now that I am along for the full 8 weeks, instead of a cushy 2 weeks with a nice weekend of sightseeing somewhere in the middle....it’s tough stuff. The tour is set up such that we put on the same show in each city – my day is 7:30am to about 3:00pm and then we head to the airport for the next city. Do it all again the next day. Sometimes I forget where I am (and I definitely never remember my hotel room number!) because I only see the airport and hotel. We’re always arriving to a new city in the dark, and maybe we’ll have a nice dinner, but no pictures from all of these travels cause it’s DARK! I think I've surpassed Kent on the 'countries visited in the world' list, but do they count if you don't really sightsee?

The only solace is when our event is in the city centre (like earlier today in Lisbon – right on the water or next week at the Roland Garros in Paris – cool!) OR we happen to have a day off in the middle of the week.....I can sleep in a bit, hit the gym, and sightsee. That, and I really like the people I am working with, and I’m getting to see a lot of old Dell friends (they are classified as friends if you travel together – get to know each other better than in the cubicle world!). I had the chance to see Anna in Budapest also. Very nice to catch up with her. Also, I’m brushing up on my “Please, Thank You, Hello, Goodbye” in many languages too. :-)

I do appreciate everything I’m learning and the experience I’m gaining, but I’m not sure I will want to do this particular contract again (the event is 2x per year). I don't appreciate the unhealhy lifestyle though. I do my bet, but I love trying all of the new food (and a little too much wine probably). With horrible hotel gyms, only 5-6 hours sleep and not enough time to exercise like I want to, I think I’ve packed on a few pounds and lost my marathon training in 2 short months. And most of all, I miss seeing Kent every day. At least I get to go home on the weekends (4 nights at home this weekend!). He is so busy with school that we really do need to be home together. I’d like to get a little more settled in Oxford and explore England and Europe with my favourite travel partner (that would be Kent), instead of colleagues!

So, I’m looking for another marketing job a little closer to home to start after we get back from the Carolinas for Christmas/New Years. We’ll see....I’ll keep you posted! Maybe when this is over I'll give a recap of my favorites!

More soon...Karen

Here's a map of all of my travels in 8 weeks (minus Moscow, Cairo, Ankara)