The Return of Business Travel
My company apparently tracks our top travelers, a rolling report looking at the past year and ranking those who've logged the most trips. I'm a person who typically does travel for work, but not at a level that would ever normally earn a spot on this list. Amusing then, that I'm currently showing as the company's #1 top traveler because the business trip I just returned from was the first one that got approved since the pandemic shut everything down. It was just a one-hour flight to Phoenix, which makes this pretty hilarious, but I suppose it's also a strange sort of badge of honor, as if I'm helping to usher in a return to business normalcy.
The business trip was to an industry event, an event that had assured the wearing of masks, the requirement of health screenings, and the presence of sneeze guards on all booth tabletops. Features that were all completely rejected by the event attendees, which, combined with the relaxation of requirements by the CDC, resulted in an event that felt downright pre-pandemic. I kept asking myself if I was comfortable not wearing a mask (since in California we are still required to wear them everywhere we go) and the answer, of course, was that I wasn't. Not so much because I felt at risk of getting COVID, but because I hadn't been prepared to go cold turkey. I had underestimated how comforted I had grown to feel in a mask. It's a layer of protection that apparently did as much for me mentally as it did physically. Yet I joined my industry associates and shook hands and gave hugs and broke bread and did business, and despite the previously mentioned discomfort (should we be doing this???), I confess it felt refreshing to step, however tentatively, back into a world where people do such things.
Other things are moving forward as well, including cover options for my new book, out later this year. I'm a bit torn between an option with a familiar style a bit reminiscent of my most recent book, or one that has a completely different look and feel. This decision, too, feels nice. The kind of decision that wreaks of normal life. Of everyday pursuits. Of questions, answers, and individuals having more influence on the futures we are shaping together.