Day Trip to Phoenix

This morning I'm at the airport. 4:45am alarm, rolling from home by 5:30, through security at 6am, now awaiting my 7am departure before the sun has even risen. I'm headed to Phoenix for the day to meet with a major customer.

On the one hand I'm like, "Yay! Meeting a customer!" In the past 12 months I've been to a few company internal meetings and staffed a few trade shows but I've only had, I think, two f2f meetings with actual customers. I yearn for the clearer communication and tighter relationships that come from meeting in person instead of via teleconference.

Yet at the same time I'm also thinking, "Ugh. Travel." Especially this out-and-back day trip to Phoenix. Getting up at oh-dark-45 is not fun. And tonight I won't be home until sometime after 8pm. Don't get me wrong; business travel does have its exhilarating aspects. Mostly it's the better communications stuff I mentioned above. Early mornings and long days are not the fun part.

Oh, and then there's this fun part: 115° F. That's the forecast high for today in Phoenix, 115 degrees (46° C). I switched my usual business attire from a staid shirt and sport coat to a lightweight, short sleeve shirt. I trust anybody who's not currently dying of heat prostration will understand. 🥵

Keep reading: Back at the Airport in the Afternoon

Finished in Phoenix, Heading Home

It doesn't feel that late at 4:30pm, but it's been a long day. I've been up for almost 12 hours. I'm almost done with my day-trip to Phoenix.

The flight out of SJC this morning went smoothly. Morning flights on Southwest Airlines usually do; there's little or nothing earlier in the day to snowball into trouble. One colleague was on the same flight, but we sat separately and kept to ourselves for the flight. I liked it that way; the flight was downtime / "me" time after getting up early to schlep to the airport and before hours of meetings.

Once in Phoenix we cabbed over to a nearby hotel to meet other colleagues as they arrived. There were a total of seven of us from the company converging from different directions.

Meetings with the client went well. One of the principals at this client has a reputation for being a hardass. He derailed our presentation as usual (it's one of his M.O.s and nobody listens to my cautions about it so it keeps happening over and over and everyone's like 🙀 every time) but this time the verbal beating wasn't too bad. I say that in comparison to his first meeting with us, where his first three words were "Your product sucks." 🙄

Now I'm back at PHX airport awaiting my flight home. The same colleague I flew with this morning is sitting next to me, though again we're each using this as personal time. I appreciate the downtime.

My flight home departs 5:40pm and arrives 7:26pm. ...That's the schedule, and today I think we might actually be on schedule. Our aircraft just pulled up to the gate to drop off passengers from its previous flight. And traffic here at PHX airport seems light this afternoon. Yay for traveling on a not-holiday Monday afternoon.

If things continue to go smoothly I'll meet Hawk for dinner somewhere on my drive home from the airport. If things go sideways... well, I guess for dinner there's a protein bar with my name on it.

Update: The protein bar waits 'til another day as I arrived home in time for a relaxing dinner date, thanks in part to a smart transportation choice.