People who go on Business Trips
 

This maybe a dumb question but I'm still going to ask it anyways to satisfy my own curiosity. I tried to google this question but to no avail, so anyways

I was wondering what field of work people are in when they go on business trips. If you some of you guys go on business trips often, what's your profession?

I've always wanted to be a person who gets to go on business trips, but I never know what field of work their in.

:flamesuiton:

A better question would be what industry requires travel. Sales people are the most common to travel, yet its really comes down to what industry they are in.

I used to travel for business working for the military. In healthcare I nolonger travel.

Some people in my IT department get to travel (within US and Canada) for:
- courses
- conferences
- disaster recovery planning

Some people in my IT department get to travel (within BC), to do hardware and software upgrades and put on training courses for staff in our area offices.

I have friends who tell me about their accounting friends and it seems like they get to travel around the world and work in different countries for months/years at a time.

I work in the telecommnications industry specifically in network deployment and optimization. I used to travel a lot - almost once a week to any given place in Canada but I got bored and tired of it. Sales people travel a lot and it also depends on the company you work for.

I've worked in technology sales catering to the fortune 500 clientele for 7 years now, ranging from BI, CRM, database analytic etc...

Use to travel a lot all thoughout the US but since I've moved into a management position it all varies on the need to travel. Traveling use to be fun and dandy but when you end up in a hicktown for a week its not as exciting as it sounds. Takes a toll on your body. Only perk is collecting points and visiting places were you will never visit in your lifetime.

IT technologies:

where you have to go to clients around the world to teach them how to use/implement your software

All our sales guys travel a lot. I used to travel back and forth between Vancouver and Boston quite often, but it's because I was on contract to a company there.

Thanks for everyones response. It's just something that I've always wanted to do. Yes I am aware of what it can do to you physically with the constant travel between time zones, but if I may elaborate my question again,

What sort of people travel in the financial sector?

Private equity

pro poker players

Consultants (management, HR, IT, supply chain etc...) will typically travel Sunday to Thursday to client sites. I used to be a software development consultant for a firm in Vancouver and had to occassionally travel as well but that was maybe once or twice a year.

The occasional trip sounds great but when you're on the road 300 days out of the year like some of my buddies who are in the management consulting field, it starts to suck. Plus you're mostly traveling to not-so-glamorous shit holes.

My friend is a financial analyst and has to travel a lot for IPO meetings. My cousin also works for HSBC in loans and has to travel around China. Both say it sucks and I take their word.

Business trips are only fun if you happen to have friends in the same city that you can hang out with during downtime. Its the best way to catch up with friends.

I have the flexibility to determine what I do when I go on trips (on one right now for 2 weeks) and I'm staying over at a friend's house! But sometimes when you end up in a city where you're just there to work, you end up going back to hotel at night, do the paperwork and hit the sack REALLY early.

i worked in the legal field in IP and got to travel for conferences etc.

btw, was this post at all influenced by the recent clooney movie ?

I'm in press, and I travel a lot for press exhibitions like CES and Computex, as well as private conferences that the manufacturers put on, tours of facilities, introductions of products, etc.

This makes no sense.

No I haven't seen that movie actually. Heard it sucked tho. Recently influenced by my wanting to travel as well as when I was at the airport few weeks ago saw a bunch of people in business suits with their brief/suitcases

If you were in finance it would. Private Equity refers to investing in companies that are not publicly traded. As part of your research into whether or not you should be investing your clients funds into a company, you will travel to their place of business to evaluate their operations.

I work/worked in finance and I always travel.

Honestly, it sucks shit.

All my life I wanted to have a job where a company would pay big bucks to send me on business trips and I could take a limo to a big corporate office. I wanted to be someone important like the people you see in the paper, or on BNN or whatever.

It's like dating a stipper. You think it's going to be the best experience in the world and it is for the first little bit. After a while, you feel like you'd sell your soul just to get your life back.

I'm not saying going on business trips is all bad but the wow factor is gone very quickly. If a company is going to pay you to be somewhere else, chances are, you're going to be working your ass off while you're there.

I would go to New York and Boston every other month and after 10 times I still had no clue about the city other than where the office was and where I could get something to eat at 1am after I was done work.

Jobs that specifically involve a lot of travel in finance would be wholesalers or any sales position. Another job would be any sale position where the head office has to fly you in.

If you're looking for a career path. Start getting educated up the ass and mixing with the business crowd.

my brother in law who is a computer engineer travels a lot for conferences and whatnot, he works for nokia

I'll start off by saying that with my position and what I do, I am expected to travel every day. I did it for about 2 years straight, every single day traveling to every possible location you can think of in Canada. At one point, I lived out of my suitcase for a month straight working my ass off and was on an airplane twice a day. I now have a team of contractors who are still young and are still in school so for them to travel is a real treat. I no longer travel by choice.

Yup. I'll agree to that.

During the time I was traveling for work, yeah, it was cool and all. I would be in Calgary, Toronto , Montreal, stop in Los Angeles and New York, visit my family or friends for a bit. But the novelty wore off fast. I was getting tired, my body was being battered, I wasn't getting enough sleep...the list goes on. I felt like shit and I just wanted a proper work/life balance. Traveling was definitely not a part of the solution.

Yup. Novelty factor wore off fast. I'd wake up, get ready, head to the airport, check-in, get on the plane, fly over to the next city, you lose all that time in between plus time zone difference, already then and there - you wasted an entire day plus the pile of e-mails and work you have to get done. Then at the next day, I get up at 6am, get ready by 6:30, head downstairs for breakfast or stop by a Tim Horton's or whatever to grab a quick bite, drive an hour to head office and work my ass off from 9-5pm in a huge business park the size of SFU and UBC with little to no options as to where to go or what to eat and stuff to do. At the end of the trip, 12pm, head down to the airport, fly home, I'm either starving and/or tired. I felt like shit when I got home.

Yup. I'd go to Toronto and Montreal all the time, 3 or 4 times a month and had no idea about the city other than when my co-workers or friends who lived there took me out.

Yup. In addition to this, be prepared to work hard. Very hard.

I work in Corporate Security.

I'm travelling next month for my very first business trip to Edmonton, needless to say, it's still got a WOW factor to me. But again, It's just EDM, and the daily highs are -4c in February. I think I'm just gonna go in there, do my thing, then get the hell out.

Thanks for everyones comments.

Browse the forums at: www.flyertalk.com . There are a lot of threads asking the very same question. It's not a dumb question at all...

I will echo what everyone else here has said about business travel. It's not glamorous and after a little while the novelty wears off.

Just to add a little bit:
- if you stay overnight, you'll be holed up in a hotel room working or emailing, out with a client for dinner or watching tons of shit-ass television that you wouldn't watch otherwise.
- all that touristy stuff that you thought you were going to do, you can't, because it's closed on a weeknight.
- you'll be too tired to do that touristy stuff anyways.
- you get really really really (really) sick of restaurant food.
- you get fat from the restaurant food anyways, cuz 90% of it is shite.
- when you come home, all you'll want is for a home cooked meal, and your girlfriend will say "Let's go out!". You'll go out because...
- your g/f will nag you or may even leave you because "you're never around".
- participating in regular activities - say a sports league with the boys - becomes difficult if not impossible.
- want to work out? Get used to a treadmill or whatever flavour of universal gym your hotel has.

On the other hand:
- you do get frequent travellers' points (not really that shit hot all things considered but make for cheaper vacations)
- since your employer is covering your travel expenses, you effectively get paid more. (you're not paying for groceries etc when you travel)

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To answer your original questions - financial types, consultants and auditors typically travel, as well as on-site technical specialists. Jobs that require a lot of face time with external clients or jobs that require "kicking tires" from a business perspective are often travel jobs. Many upper-mid management and up type jobs involve travel too, but this will vary from business to business and business type too.

I was just there for some work.

You definitely want to get the fuck out of Edmonton, ASAP!!!!!

What a piece of shit city.