Business Travel

With my trip to the ghost town of Swansea behind me, I only had four days left in Phoenix. Three and a half, really, as my flight on December 24th was leaving at 1 PM. Not much occurred, as my Sunday was spent shopping for Christmas presents, flat and unbreakable, to pack in my luggage and take home to Toronto, and Monday through Wednesday was spent completing any and every thing that needed to get done at work.

With that, however, I have a few reflections on my time here in the desert.

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Another Kind of Ghost Town

The office I am working in is surrounded by desert. There are two large buildings and a third under construction, a parking lot for all the workers' cars, and then desert in all directions. I was on the phone with my father last week, sitting in my car after a long day at work, and a coyote came strolling into the parking lot, poking around for any scraps left from the careless humans. I chatted with my father and watched as the coyote weaved in and out of the fence and sniffed at the curb.

It's not all planned to be wilderness forever, though. In fact, a lot of it was planned to be developed in the next few years. However, with the economy hitting a wall, a lot of those developments have been put on hold, awaiting an upturn. On my way to work in the morning, I pass numerous signs advertising homes for sale, with nothing but vacant desert, or perhaps a few phantom roads marking them.

With the economy the way it is now, though, there is no guarantee that any of these developments will ever happen. Like Swansea disappeared with the great depression, so to these planned communities may never exist because of a downturn in the economy and a rethinking of building in a waterless desert at a time when fresh water becomes harder to get.

It's a different kind of ghost town, the one that never gets built. Planned, but never executed desert communities, swept over by the same sand that took Swansea.

Of course, we are all probably living in ghost towns. Unless you happen to live in Jericho in the West Bank, or one of the similarly old cities in the middle east, most of us are living in a place that is relatively new. And there are a lot more places that have disappeared off the map than are still on it.

My house in London is situation in a reclaimed marsh in a time or rising sea levels. That's not exactly a recipe for longevity. I was watching a TV show on the Travel Channel last week that said Niagara Falls would soon (i.e. within a period of time measured in thousands, not millions of years) disappear completely due to rising land mass at it's downstream end. With it, who knows what will happen to any of the Great Lakes cities - Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland or Chicago. Of course, some of those could disappear much sooner - victims of offshoring of jobs - both manufacturing and white collar. The job I do, as a business analyst, seemed a secure choice to go into once all the programmer jobs disappeared overseas back in the late 90s. Now, not so much. Chinese and Indian Business Analysts are on the verge of being able to do what I do at a fraction of the price. Time for me to start looking for a new path, perhaps.

Who can say what the future holds. Hopefully if it is disaster, it at least holds off until we've all had a chance to live our lives. Sorry to all of you in the future reading this who may have suffered from my wish for things to hold off until I was dead and you were living, but the late 1900s / early 2000s were nothing if not a time for selfishness.

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Feeding the Multitude: Fish In the Desert

Speaking of selfishness, my last night in Phoenix I went to a really good Sushi restaurant called Ra. As one might imagine, there isn't much of a fishing industry in Phoenix, so the fish is all flown in from around the globe that day to be cut up into thin, pricey slices just for my benefit that evening. I'd feel a lot worse about it if the Sushi hadn't tasted so good.

Of course, if you've ever eaten... well, really anything that wasn't slaughtered in the room next to the kitchen in which your meal was prepared, you have probably had the same experience. It is just that it is so obvious when you are eating fish in the desert that everything is flown in from far away. Our greenhouse gas meal. We got free water too, which there isn't much of in the desert either.

It was, though, really good fish.

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Forty Days in the Desert... Okay, Thirty-Eight Days... But that is close

I bid adieu to the South-West.

On Wednesday, December 24th at 1:50 pm on a sunny day in Phoenix, my flight to Toronto left fifty minutes delayed thanks to weather in everywhere else in North America other than Phoenix. In fact, for the first time in 40-something years, every area in Canada had a white Christmas. That did, however, mean lengthy (i.e. days) delays, especially for those out west. Vancouver and snow do not mix well.

With my flight living the end of the runway in Phoenix and launching out into the blue skies, my 38 days in the desert ends. I may be back, though it seems doubtful. However, you never can tell with the economy nowadays. Anything past January 2nd at this point is unclear, and really even that isn't set in stone, as I might try and travel somewhere over the New Year's period. Cross my fingers for good last minute deals on hotels, train tickets and/or flights!

It has been an interesting five-and-a-half weeks for me out in Phoenix. I made a little coin, replenished the bank account, and rebuilt a little bit of my bruised ego (at least when it comes to thinking people don't want me to work for them). I had some excellent adventures and did some great hiking in Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Tombstone, Phoenix and Swansea. I even got to drive across London Bridge.

Mostly, though, I learnt about the desert, and gained an appreciation for why people come here. It is a beautiful place, but also a deadly place.

While I always had a good supply of water, granola bars and never was really too far away from my car, it is easy to see how, without food or water (especially water), one could succumb to elements quickly. The desert is definitely a place to respect, even when going out for a day hike. For that reason, it is a humbling place. Much like being out in the brutal cold of winter, being out in the desert makes you realize how frail you, as a human being, are. It reminds us, and connects us to our humanity, and the fragility of that state.

That being said, my 38 days in the desert has taught me one thing for sure. I really want to make my time in the U.K. work. I want to live abroad - truly abroad - and I really want to see this through to some sort of logically conclusion.

So, prepare yourself for more blog entires from the east-side of the Atlantic.. After a short stint at home in Toronto, I'll be at home in London, and hopefully back to immersing myself into a life European.

A recession is defined as a contraction in the business cycle or a period of reduced economic activity. Generally, to make it practical to measure, a timeframe is applied - that being two quarters, or six months. Six months of "negative growth" and an economy is stated to be in recession. The Eurozone (those countries that use the Euro as their currency) recently announced they are in a recession, and it is widely expected that the USA and Britain will soon follow suit with negative growth in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2008.

I was ahead of the curve.

See, I stopped working in April of 2008, and thus have been experiencing a period of reduced economic activity, at least on the revenue side of the revenue and expenses equation. Along with that, my retirement savings have suffered a mighty hit with the slide in stock prices over the last few months.

So, as of end of October, I had 6 months of no income. Two quarters of negative growth of my savings account. I was in a recession.

No more, for I have found a job. Which is excellent news for both my bank account and my self-worth. There's only one bad thing. The job is a little outside London.

8494 miles outside of London, to be precise. The job is in Phoenix, Arizona.

Now, some of you may be asking yourself what this means to my plans for living in London. "What about all those musing on the nature of Europe and your part in it, Greg?" you may be asking. "Is this the end of your experiment in living abroad?"

The answer is no. I plan on returning to London, hopefully shortly.

The Phoenix job (wow, now it sounds like a bank robbery or something) is a two month contract, working as a consultant to a company in Phoenix. So only 7 months after declaring myself done with consulting, looks like I am back at it, at least temporarily.

As it is a two month contract, come the end of December I will be back on the street, unemployed. At that point, I hope to return to London, and hopefully the London economy will be in a little bit better shape for me to return to.

For the next two months, however, be prepared to hear about Arizona, because that's where I will be.

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In other news, my next entry will be my 200th. I know if you look at the address bar you might think that the number of this blog entry would suggest otherwise, but some numbers have been skipped for technical reasons, so the next one is really number 200.

I will try and make it something special and exciting. Big round numbers deserve nothing less.

I watched a very interesting program last weekend called "Britain From Above." It's a BBC series that looks at the landscape of the island from the air. The first episode shown last Sunday was on London. The BBC website has a number of clips from the show on their website. Hopefully those outside the UK can see the videos. I have included a few links within the text to the site with videos from the show.

The program was able to provide an interesting contrast of present London to the past. In the late 1940s, at the end of World War II, the RAF flew a number of missions over London to record the damage to the city. Given the amount of damage to the city from the Blitz, plans were drawn up to rebuild the city completely anew. Lord Abercrombie came up with a vision of a London organized with wide streets, lots of parks, high rise apartments and highways to move cars quickly into and around the city.

Now, if you've ever been to London, you will know that London is none of those things. It is narrow streets at odd angles, very few high rises, a smattering of parks but not a lot of green space and bad congestion and few highways. Not surprisingly, Lord Abercrombie's grand vision of a completely planned city never got any political traction, and thus few if any of his plans were built.

Within the "Square Mile," as the old city of London which is the heart of the financial centre, large buildings are being designed and built to fit into the irregular street scape of London, including a planning restriction that requires that sight-lines to St. Paul's Cathedral not be interfered with.

To counter this restriction and still build the tallest building in the City of London at 122 Leadenhall Street. The building has become known as the Cheese Grater given it's sloping side, sloped to ensure that the sight-lines to St. Paul's are not blocked.

122 Leadenhall had a building standing at that location, which is currently being demolished. Because of the way that building was created, the building was demolished from the bottom up.

You read that right. They removed the lower floors first, and worked upwards. Here is a picture I took of the building when I was in London last year in August of 2007.

All the floors have been removed now, and the core is now being demolished in the more traditional way of top-down.

Bad news today for the future of London, though. Turns out that because of the economy going soft and demand for commercial space falling, British Land (the developers) are discussing delaying construction of the tower. This also comes upon news that the Pound Sterling is at it's lowest level in 2 years, and an economic forecast of stagnation and recession for the UK.

Hmmm, probably not the best time to be looking for work in London...

Those of us who travel a significant amount for business often call ourselves "road warriors." We tend to be very efficient at travel, and I would for the most part agree with this Inc. article's assessments of the skills needed to be a road warrior:

• Tidy
  
• Thifty
  
• Flexible
  
• Adaptable
  
• Agile
  
• Patient
  

Despite our self-profressed patience, though, we Road Warriors can also be a bit of an insular and surly lot, especially when confronted with "leisure" travellers who have packed liquids or can't manage to take off their shoes and belts before arriving at the x-ray machine.

Anyway, all that's behind me now, I think. After 10 years and 10 months in consulting and almost 8 years at my present company, I resigned my position today. It has been a spectatular time, and has allowed me to see many places all over the world, either because of work trips, or the result of tons of air miles and hotel points earned on the road. So cheers to the road warrior lifestyle for that.

But lately I have been thinking about something different, something new. Much like I always seem to get itchy feet for new places, I have gotten the itchy feet for a new work and living experience.

So, somewhat fittingly, my last day is Earth Day. One less road warrior on the road, and 30 tonnes of carbon kept out of the atmosphere from my flying.

This also means an end to the business travel part of the blog. My next move will probably see me keeping a lot more grounded when it comes to work.

This doesn't mean that there is an end to this blog though. I am currently in the process of looking for work in London, England, and am expecting to move there sometime in the summer. (An aside, hello to any potential employers that have found my blog. I promise I won't write about you in here!) I am looking for a job that is in "industry," which is consulting speak for non-consulting. If anybody has any suggestions or contacts in London, feel free to drop me a line.

I'll write a little more on my decision to move abroad in a future entry, but living abroad will obviously offer me the opportunity to experience a foreign culture in a new way - by totally immersing myself in it. Even though Canada and the UK aren't so different, I'm sure I'll still have enough misunderstandings and culture fumblings to provide a few funny moments in the blog.

In addition, the proximity of the UK to continental Europe will still provide me the opportunity to travel, this time it'll be around Europe instead of jetting around North America.

So say goodbye to the road warrior, for he is no more, and say hello to the future immigrant, for he is about to be.

Cheers,
Greg

Since early November, I have been taking the very first flight leaving Toronto, a 6:05 am flight to Houston, Texas. Interestingly, no plane is allowed to take off from Toronto's Lester B. Pearson airport before 6:30 am, but Continental is so excited about getting me down to Texas as early as possible, they load up the plane 25 minutes early, giving them time to get de-iced and head out to the runway to be sure they are right there, at the edge of the runway, ready to go when the minute hand reaches the bottom of the clock.

This week, instead of travelling down to Houston for the usual Monday through Thursday work schedule, I’m doing two days in Norfolk, Virginia then heading down to Houston for a couple days before heading home for the last time this year. As my flight to Norfolk was leaving Toronto on Monday afternoon, I actually got to sleep in on Monday morning!

Now, I should explain what I mean by sleeping in, because I actually got up this morning at 8:00 am. But usually on Monday mornings, I am turning off the alarm at 4:00am, before grabbing a quick shower and heading out of my apartment and into the awaiting cold taxi for the ride to the airport.

And unlike most Monday mornings, I was actually woken by my alarm clock this morning, even though it went off a full 4 hours later than it usually would. On the nights before I have those 6:05 am flights to catch, I never really sleep all that well. There is this nagging fear that grips me all night that I am going to sleep through my alarm and miss my flight, and so I never really am able to fall asleep. Ocasionally I'll drift into a fitful few minutes sleep, only to awake with a start and a feeling of dread that I've slept through my alarm. My heart will start racing and adrenaline will pump through my body. I'll look over at the alarm clock, only to see that I still have a good 2 hours before the horrible buzzing claxen of the alarm clock.

photo courtsey of Imageafter.com

The only real rest I get Sunday nights or Monday mornings is once the flight attendent closes the main cabin door on the plane, and I can sink myself into my airplane seat and finally shut my eyes, confident that I didn't miss my plane.

I'm not alone in this malady. Many of my fellow road warriors, business travellers who hit the road many times a year, describe a similar problem, the inability to sleep on those nights before early morning flights. I've tried a million things to try and sleep better - getting up early on Sunday morning so I'll be more tired on Sunday night, warm milk, booze (warm or cold), stretching exercises, counting backwards from 100, but so far nothing has eased the fear of missing that flight.

So this weekend was a blessing, and I'm doubly blessed when I think about the fact that come Friday I will be arriving at home and hanging up the laptop bag and black dress shoes for a full TWO WEEKS of not doing any business travel. I haven't even planned any big trips for my vacation, instead choosing to stay close to home, visiting with friends and family, hanging around the house drinking tea and watching DVDs and most importantly, sleeping in, especially on Monday mornings.