by Beks
When booking out of town travel for work, I get to choose where I stay. We have a generous maximum allowance that most employees use fully – even upgrading room choices for nicer suites.
In my crazy mind, I figure the finance department actually monitors the spending and takes note as to who spends the limit, and who saves the company money. I didn’t want to book a budget busting hotel and chose one a little further away in a less expensive area.
I didn’t say it was a bright idea.
I arrived at the hotel and was pleased to discover it wasn’t too bad. The area was nice and the buildings had been renovated sometime in the last 4 decades – a big plus for me. Remember folks, I stayed in hostels in Europe with mold growing up the walls and dirty sheets. My standards are what some would call… shockingly low. Anyway, I liked the place. I wouldn’t say I felt ‘safe’ but I felt I could adequately survive the night.
At around 7pm, a high pitched scream echoed down the hallway. It was followed by more screaming.
A lot of screaming.
Turns out, the occupants in the next room where the proud parents of a 5 year old who took to screaming whenever she didn’t get her way. That particular screaming fit was because mom and dad wouldn’t let her put the key in the door.
Great. Now, in the event someone decided to murder me, my screaming would be overpowered by a 5 year old.
The screamer eventually gave it a rest and I fell asleep around 11. At 2, the hotel alarms were set off by some kids playing pranks. The alarms blared for more than an hour. The hotel staff was quick to apologize, but their apologies didn’t help me focus in the 8 hour training session the following day.
The rest of the week went pretty much the same way. Alarms, screaming children, car horns blaring. You get it.
Lesson learned.
When traveling for work, save money – but spend enough to keep your sanity.
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
As a finance person monitoring spending for a large non profit, let me be the first to tell you that the company doesn’t give a rat’s behind how much you spend as long as it’s less then the total amount allocated for the day. If they give you an allowance of 100 bucks a night, $102 will get you noticed, 99.50 will not.
For goodness sake, spend the money and stay someplace less awful next time!
They give you the room allowance so you CAN stay some place close by, safe, and somewhat business-oriented. Take advantage of that so you are rested, fed, and ready to fully absorb the training which you are taking. If you save hotel room money but don’t get the full benefit of the training, you aren’t really saving the company money.
It is a good idea to always stay at a ‘business hotel’ — they are quiet, clean and most importantly safe for business women. They also tend to be closer to business centers than the ‘family’ or ‘budget’ hotels and are therefore more convenient.
Also, you aren’t getting extra points for not spending the expected amount on travel. So if you need to take a cab or rent a car — by all means do so.
Umm… just wondering… did the free LSD make it better or worse?
So in Nice Girls Don’t get the Corner Office (a book I detest, but this point did resonate), the author said that saving the company pennies on travel never gets rewarded. I detest the book overall because it breaks everything into this – being a girl is bad because girls soft and nice and therefore lose, and boys are good because they’re tough and therefore win. Seriously. Sets the women’s movement back about 50 years.