So, after having a nice relaxing weekend back home, I had to travel again. As one of the top performers in the company, I had the chance to take a special training class on how to deal with difficult situations, and as the classes filled up quickly, I took advantage of an opening in our Springfield office, to sign up for it. Once I got all the travel arrangements finalized to be there on Thursday and Friday, my manager approached me and asked if I could extend the trip and spend two days training a newly transferred member of our group, in the products I used to work on. I agreed and made the changes, and eventually the time to fly arrived.
I was a little less ready for this one, as the flight was mid-morning, and I had to rush to get to the airport on time. I learned from my last trip, and packed lighter, only taking a carry-on bag (to avoid the $25/flight baggage “fees.”) Previously, I had checked my bag at the counter, so this time as I was bringing it as a carry-on, in my hurry to get to the plane, I totally forgot about picking it up at the TSA x-ray machine. I made it half-way down the moving path before I realised it, and I quickly turned around and ran back in the wrong direction, to get to the security desk. Once I was off, I realised it would have been faster to run with the flow, then take the moving path back. No matter; when I got to the security scanners, they were simply scanning my bag again, making sure it wasn’t suspicious. I quickly thanked them and rushed off to the terminal, where everyone else had boarded, and as soon as I was on, they closed the plane.
If Boston was hectic and crowded, and Rochester was more suburban and pretty, Springfield was quite laid back and green. The whole time I was there, I awoke to fog in the morning, and it was drizzly a few times during the day. The airport was out in the middle of farmland (coming in for a landing, I saw fields in all directions.) It just had a nice, mellow feeling to the place, which I really enjoyed. The people were overly friendly, as West Coast people tend to be. Plus, this was one of our company’s main sites in the US, as we occupied the entire building, which included an on-site food court, a number of large conference rooms and data centres, and from what I heard (but did not see), a fitness room.
The local manager (peer to my own) introduced me to everyone on the team, as if I was some special visitor; I appreciated that. The day and a half that I had to work with this new tech were interesting for both of us, as I hadn’t touched the product in months. We spent most of the time talking about a lesser-used product, because it was very difficult to set up and use. Fortunately, we were able to get it working on the first try, so we were able to try out a lot of the functionality that it offered. I only hope it was enough to help him feel more confident on it.
The training I went through was quite interesting. We had a decent assortment of people in the room, coming from all over the country, and also covering all positions like management to sales, etc. The main focus of the class was to help us identify difficult conversations and not let them escalate, but teach us how to take a step back and maintain control over them. The videos in the class were actually performed by actors and actresses in Utah (I recognised someone from The Single’s Ward.) I found the concepts pretty useful, although I am usually easy going enough that I hopefully won’t get into those situations much. (Ahh, the joys of being a White personality.)
By the time I was on this trip, I didn’t really feel much of a desire to eat large meals any more, and even got a chance to use the fitness room in the gym. I went to Jack-in-the-Box the first night (hey, we don’t have them in Utah!), tried a couple vegan places (one was too salty, and the other had excellent cornbread), and did a Sushi place one last night. Breakfast was complimentary at the hotel, and lunch was typically spent at the office, eating whatever special of the day was whipped up by the chefs. I found that interesting, actually, that the site had contract workers cooking for a living. I spoke to one of them, and he really enjoyed his job. Sounds like a fun thing to do, if you like to cook.
The people there were all great and helped me feel welcome, but I really was glad when I could finally get back to my family. Rebecca said Chloe slept in my bed every night; not that this is any different from any other night!