Prior to the financial crisis, it was quite common for junior bankers to travel for work, especially for low-level meetings where the deal team required a bank representative on site. Nowadays, the practice seems to have stopped: most banks have decided that there is little business logic to let their monkeys loose on their clients (especially in a time when clients are harder to come by), so monkeys are instead kept strictly under key and lock back at their home base offices, excepting emergencies (like a Senior Vice President falling ill on a deal roadshow, requiring backup).
A frequent question you get during banking and consulting job interviews is, "do you mind travelling for work?" The most common response by fresh graduates (in my experience) is invariably, "No, I think travelling for work is an interesting/eye-opening/exciting experience, and would love to have a job that allows me to travel/see the world/go around in circles in the air" etc.
How quaint. And deluded!
Don't get me wrong: I love travel, I love exploring world cultures and meeting new people.
But I like to travel in my spare time, not as part of work.
The reality of business travel is very different from the interview answers: one has to deal with problematic internet connections, late taxi drivers, natural disasters, man-made disasters, and other inconveniences that the Banking Gods threw in to spice up the Travelling Banker's lot. And that's not even including the enemies who are nominally your friends (aka your bosses)...
The very first business trip I had cured me forever of the illusion that "business travel is exciting/interesting".
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On a relatively quiet Wednesday afternoon at 12pm, my associate G called me, asking,
"你明天早上忙吗? Are you busy tomorrow morning?"
Me: "没事。干吗？Nothing. What's up?"
Him: "Hohoho. 那今天晚上你跟我飞去上海吧。Then you're flying with me to Shanghai tonight."
At 8pm the flight took off. G used the time to give me directions on what to do on our presentation, and we were passing my laptop between our seats in business class. In the last hour, he said, "休息吧。待会儿再继续。Take a break. We'll continue later."
The plane landed at around 10pm, and we got through immigration and customs at Shanghai Pudong airport around 10.30pm. Took a cab to the hotel, the taxi driver was new and got lost; G ended up calling our Shanghai colleague for directions, and finally reached the hotel at 11.30pm.
Checked in, went to my room with the echo of G saying "15 分钟后在lobby见！15 mins meet at the lobby!", dropped my suit jacket and change of clothes I'd picked up from home during lunch, headed downstairs.
Met G, and both of us walked to our bank's Shanghai office, which was about half an hour's walk. We reached the office around 12.15AM, to be greeted by our colleague walking around in hotel slippers. Connected our laptops to the company network, started working on the presentation. G seemed cheerful, "希望能早一点儿回去休息！Hope we can go back earlier for a rest!"
At around 2AM, my laptop crashed. Restarted the bloody thing, loaded my presentation again, and the computer switches itself off AGAIN. (Is it any coincidence that this brand rhymes with Hell?)
Around 3AM, my computer decided that it was tired, and took a long time to connect the graphics sources files to the presentation file. G came over to help. Both of us were sweating buckets, as our Shanghai office colleague helpfully told us that there was no air conditioning at night.
3.15AM. We both realized that the numbers provided by the client made no sense, even after we counterchecked it with the financial projections provided by the company and accountants. And especially at 3.15AM. I noted down to bring this up tomorrow at the client meeting.
3.30AM. Our Shanghai colleague called it a day, and left.
4AM. Bloody computer was really taking its own sweet time. G hogged my computer, and started swearing in Mandarin and Beijing-dialect.
4.30AM. Finally, draft presentation was done and saved. Computer obviously got the hint after being called various things associated with mothers. Moved on to the financial model, which is the responsibility of our competitor bank __. We looked through financial projections provided by the accountants and the firm, and start drawing up questions.
5.30AM. I was so tired that I fell asleep while listening to G in midsentence. He gently shook me awake, and told me, "你休息吧，model 的问题由我来包 Go rest, I'll come up with the questions for the model". I sat there with open eyes and a dreaming mind. I don't remember much.
6.30AM. We both packed our things, and shuffled slowly back to the hotel.
7.10AM. Arrived back in the hotel. Showered, set alarms for 15 minutes on my phone, Blackberry and using the morning wake-up call, slept for 15 minutes on the bed with all the lights in the room turned on at maximum brightness, got up, showered with cold water, changed into my suit and tie, and left the room.
7.30AM. Checked out of room with G. We hailed a cab, and headed to client office. G was again optimistic, saying "今天的会，估计我们下午4点之前就可以回香港 Today's meeting shouldn't be too long, we should be back in HK before 4pm."
8.30AM. Reached client office block, in a part of Shanghai that I'd never been before. We both got a coffee and breakfast from Starbucks, and headed to the client office. The meeting room was a relatively old room, filled with the company's different products on display shelves around. The company produced food and beverage products. Both G and I helped ourselves to the company's (very good) ready-to-drink green tea beverage, and sat in the conference room waiting for the others to turn up.
9.15AM. Apparently the meeting started fifteen minutes ago without any formal 'opening'. I did not know anybody in the room, and while G made some formal introductions of me to some of the other people, most of the senior client company managers came in, sat down, and just proceeded to yak their respective points. Interestingly, the client firm's managers spoke Mandarin to the accountants, bankers and lawyers, but invariably spoke in Fukienese/Taiwanese dialect to each other.
12PM. Both G and I were expecting a wrap up of the meeting, followed by a declaration of lunch. But suspiciously, the conversation seemed to be lacking a tail-end... and it just went on. My heart sunk, when a staff from the client company came in and whispered to each of us, asking us what did we want for lunch. Lunch came in the form of bento-box-like Chinese packet lunch, but there was no formal break as we continued discussing while eating.
1PM. Discussion started flagging, when it was deftly moved on to the financial model, which competing bank __ seemed extremely keen to talk about. It turned out that they came in later on this deal, and were thus eager to demonstrate value to the client by focusing on the modelling bit. G showed no dismay, but I noticed that he was desperately fidgeting with his legs under the table. Concerned, I whispered to him, “你生病了吗？ Are you ill?" "不是，只是很困 No, just very sleepy."
2PM. I dealt with my sleepiness by desperately pinching the fleshy bit between my thumb and index finger, where there is supposedly an acupressure point that saves sleepy bankers/cures nausea/causes pain/all of the above.
2PM to 4PM. G and I occasionally contributed our questions and comments, as the ranking banker from our competitor calmly, deliberately, and painfully-slowly led the discussion through line-by-bloody-line of the firm's financial statements and projections.
4PM. G made a move and informed the client firm that we had to leave soon if we were to have any hope of reaching the airport before rush hour hemmed us all in. We left the office, completely knackered, grabbed a taxi, and headed to the airport. En route, we started bitching... but because we had been so tired earlier, we were both quite awake while in the cab. We started talking about random things. G recommended that I read Hegel. I recommended that he read "The Black Swan".
6PM. We just missed the flight to Hong Kong, and wait for the next flight at the lounge.
8PM. Flight took off for Hong Kong. Both G and I were too exhausted to work, and collapsed in our seats, snoring away.
10PM. Flight landed in Hong Kong airport: it felt like less than 10 minutes. Red-eyed, we made our way to the Airport Express, and headed to our office, with G telling me, "Incorporate all the changes that the company had told us to do, and send it to our deal time, then you can go home."
2.45AM. Sent out the file, finally, without the computer crashing. And finally headed home to rest.
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Thus ended my first business trip, which forever cured me of any enthusiasm for future business trips!
