let’s discuss business trip mishaps

by Alison Green on April 18, 2024

Let’s talk about business trip mishaps. Maybe you were booked for a 26-hour series of flights for a trip that should have only taken 11 hours, or maybe your boss told you to camp in a tent while traveling for work, or maybe you had to share a hotel room with a coworker who screams in her sleep.

Why not turn your misery into our entertainment by telling us your business trip horror stories in the comments?

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  1. The Original K.*

    Not my story, thank God, but what leaps to mind is the admin who sent their boss to Naples, Italy instead of Naples, Florida.

    2. FuzzFrogs*

      Oh my gosh, so many questions. Did they actually end up in Italy?? I was going to ask if they didn’t notice needing their passport, but I guess if you’re not American, it wouldn’t come up…

      1. purple monkey & bubblegum tree*

        IIRC they were all Canadian, so would have needed passports either way.

      2. Purple Loves Snow*

        I remember this letter. They were from Canada so would have needed their passports to get into the USA. They were also from a French speaking province so English was not their first language so that added to the confusion.

        1. umami*

          Oh no! I was ordering pesos for a trip to Monterrey, Mexico the other day, and the person helping me mentioned going to Monterrey on his first-ever flight, and since he had never booked a flight before he thought you just went with any airline and picked the time you wanted. He went with the top choice and didn’t realize until he got to the airport that his flight was going to Monterey, California.

          1. Sad Desk Salad*

            I was visiting San Jose, California, once, but my bags ended up in San Jose, Costa Rica. Sigh.

            (I did ultimately get to Costa Rica years later, but with different bags.)

            1. I Have RBF*

              Oh, no.

              The Costa Rica destination would have been much more fun. (Source: I live in San Jose, California.)

            3. Eater of Hotdish*

              Intelligence is knowing the way to San Jose.

              Wisdom is knowing which one.

              (also, this sounds like something I could do, so I’m not hating)

          2. Flemmard*

            I’m reminded of ordering some equipment from a US supplier to be delivered to an address in Oxford, England. Somehow, they contrived to send it to Oxford, Nova Scotia.

        2. Indie*

          In Canada we usually have three airport “terminals” – domestic, international and US-bound. The US-bound is there because we pass US customs and border control BEFORE getting on the plane. So the fact that they didn’t have to speak to an indifferent US agent should have been a pretty good indicator that something is off. Another one is the expected arrival time printed on the boarding pass. So, if this whole thing is true, this is as much on the boss as it is on the admin.

          1. It’s Suzy Now*

            In Vancouver, though almost all US bound flights go out of the US bound terminal with pre-cleared customs in YVR, some do leave from the international terminal. My favorite Vancouver-New York flight for many years was actually the last leg of the flight coming from Hong Kong and continuing on to New York, and used the international terminal.

            1. Picky*

              Oh, the wonderful Cathay Pacific flight, of blessed memory. Always half-empty, many opportunities to stretch out and sleep.

      3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        They were Canadian, yeah, so the passport aspect wasn’t the clue it could have been. They did end up in Italy, and IIRC the admin in question was fired shortly after the plane landed. Search the site for “naples italy florida” without the quotation marks and it will come up.

      4. Hlao-roo*

        The letter was titled “I accidentally sent my boss to Italy instead of Florida” and it was posted April 3, 2017 if you’re interested in reading the whole thing. The letter-writer commented once under the name “H.S.”

      5. The Original K.*

        The boss did end up in Italy, yep! Didn’t realize what was going on until they landed.

        1. B*

          Are we sure this was a mistake and not a favor? “Oh, no, I’m in Italy and would you look at that, I can’t get a flight to Florida for 3 days!”

          2. Princess Sparklepony*

            Unfortunately all the flights for three das were booked. I’ll be leaving for home sometime next week. I’ll let you know when I can get a flight….

            – Orders more gnocchi and gelato

      6. DannyG*

        I use my passport to fly anywhere, so that wouldn’t have been a tipoff, but an 8-10 hour flight time vs a 2-3 hour one sure would have been.

        1. Clisby*

          I do, too (I’m in the US). I have a REAL ID for travel, but my nightmare is that I get to the airport and I’ve let my driver’s license expire, so I always take the passport, too.

          1. La Triviata*

            If you’re from Washington, DC (District of Columbia) it’s sometimes a toss-up if the TSA agents will accept your driver’s license. They’ll assume you’re from Columbia (the country) and send you back for a US passport. Even Real IDs. Some nice people might compliment you on how well you speak English. Yikes

            1. Just wow*

              The country is Colombia- spelled differently. I’d have thought a TSA agent would know the difference, but your experience says otherwise. Yikes is right.

              1. compliance and coffee*

                Also known to happen frequently for New Mexico (thought to be Mexico), and also people who don’t know that US territories are US citizens.

                And then also people who don’t know about Hawaii.

                Sometimes I wonder if TSA agents are that incompetant or just trolling us.

                1. Professional Straphanger*

                  There’s a reason our license plates say “New Mexico USA” on them!

              2. SchuylerSeestra*

                I’ve run into this issue twice at bars, but thankfully not at the airport. In one occasion the bouncer didn’t realize Washington DC is a real place and thought I had a fake ID.

                1. Nina*

                  If they don’t know that DC and Colombia are different places, are they really likely to know what a Colombian ID card looks like?

                  Asking as a New Zealander who got into all kinds of places with my NZ driver’s license and only once had the date on it questioned (31/04/94 – clearly not a US-style date)

              4. L'étrangère*

                I’m never surprised like that since the time an Air France agent on the phone asked me which country Paris was in

            2. Laura*

              This has only happened a handful of times, as far as I know. And it happened right after they changed our (DC’s) driver’s licenses so they didn’t look the way many other states’ licenses look. But I fly between 2-5 times a year and it’s never happened to me and I haven’t heard about it happening after the time it happened several years ago.
              I’m not saying it never happens, but I don’t think it’s common.

            3. Veryanon*

              I don’t ever use my Pennsylvania driver’s license for traveling, as we’re not required to be Real ID compliant yet and I keep forgetting to do it. The last time I used it, I had to go to Memphis for business, and the TSA people acted like Pennsylvania was on another planet. So I always just take my passport.

            4. Beka Rosselin-Metadi*

              I’ve definitely had to explain to TSA agents that DC was a real place and I did in fact live there and was also a citizen of the United States.

              1. allathian*

                Yeah, I suppose that can happen if geography’s an elective and people have absolutely no intellectual curiosity for learning for its own sake. I can sort of understand not knowing much about the rest of the world, but basic facts about your own country?

                When I was in middle school I had to learn all the capital cities in Europe. I thought that was fun so I learned all the state capital cities of the US just for the heck of it, before losing interest.

            5. Indigo a la mode*

              They actually changed the entire DC ID because of this issue. My sister was just here from DC and showed me that her license reads “Washington, DC” instead of “District of Columbia” these days. Makes you wonder how many times that had to happen to warrant a whole redesign.

              She *did* recently get refused service when buying non-alcoholic beer(?!) in Chicago because DC IDs have black-and-white pictures, for some reason, and the clerk didn’t believe it was real.

          2. LJ*

            PSA to everyone – REAL ID enforcement at airports has been pushed back (again) to 2025 now. They’ve been kicking the can down the road for so long I wouldn’t bother wasting time to line up at the DMV for it

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              I got mine all done, and now continually nag Husband to–but since they keep pushing it back he never bothers, arrrgh.

              1. Kuddel Daddeldu*

                I (not a US citizen) travel a lot. At many airport, they do not have the machine to verify my US issued ID, a TWIC (transport worker identification credentials) that is supposedly good to fly domestically. It’s much more secure than a drivers license as it requires a background check and fingerprints; I need it to work inside the security perimeter of seaports.
                Oh well, my passport is always at hand.

            2. Princess Sparklepony*

              I got mine but I’m still salty about it. I shouldn’t have to show a special ID to travel between states. That’s one of the perks of being a country. Although the way things are going, I’m not going to be shocked when they start doing border crossing inspections at state lines.

              1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

                As of 2015-ish, I saw at least one border inspection station at the edge of California and Oregon. It seemed like they were mostly on the lookout for agricultural products that could be carrying disease.

          3. Anonomatopoeia*

            Well, you can always get home without ID if you accidentally totally lose your driver’s license while 1800 miles from home (but still in the US) the evening before your flight back, but it does involve a lengthy conversation with TSA and a deeply ridiculous scenario where the officer whose English is the most heavily-accented comes to you IN the busy TSA line with a walkie-talkie and that officer and another one elsewhere with the other walkie and a computer that has google play telephone while they quiz you about your destination as you and they keep moving to let other people through the line.

            I assume that conversation would have gone less well were I not white, but it was still a pain.

          4. ArcticFoxy*

            You can fly with an expired license, at least domestically. I learned that after spending a whole afternoon at the DMV getting a temporary paper one, only for the TSA agent to tell me I didn’t need it.

    3. danmei kid*

      My fear every time I need to travel to Portland, ME or Paris, OH. Was on a train to Newark, NJ once and the guy next to me was stunned to learn he wasn’t going to Newark, DE.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        When I’ve taken the train from DC to New York (so both are in the same direction – if you were starting from Philly it’s a different story) the conductors are always careful to enunciate “New Ark, Delaware” vs. “Nuark, New Jersey” (the two are pronounced differently).

        1. Whomever*

          It doesn’t help that the station in Newark, NJ is Penn Station, and that on Amtrak, the next station heading north is New York Penn Station (both named after the Pennsylvania railroad vs the other railroads who might have stations in the area). Over a bad PA, especially if you are not a native English speaker, Newark and New York can sound quite similar. (Again these days the conductors usually emphasize the “Newark NEW JERSEY” because of this).

          1. AnotherOne*

            I immediately thought about the two Penn Stations and the number of times I’ve been on trains were people were so confused.

      2. Testing*

        I don’t know if it’s an urban myth, but I’ve heard the airport in Vienna, Austria has a counter for people who were actually going to Australia.

        2. ConstantlyComic*

          It is an urban myth, alas. I looked it up a while back after a pro wrestler that my partner’s a fan of did a whole bit where he said he was ready for an event happening in Australia… with a picture of him at an airport in Austria.

        3. Alex*

          I actually have a magnet on my fridge that I bought in Vienna that says “no kangaroos in Austria”

        4. Ophelia*

          Sadly a myth, BUT I have an (Australian) friend who was living in the US, and when she tried to ship some gifts home, the carrier sent them to Austria, and she ended up on the phone having a series of increasingly frustrating conversations.

          2. Linley*

            That surprises me. I cannot convince the US post office that Austria is not the same as Australia… I have to hang ovet the counter to see what they stamp and inevitably need to correct the clerk. They’ve often never heard of Austria. When I lived in Vienna I once had a package arrive to me (from my family in NY) by way of Sydney.

            1. Academic glass half full*

              I have had stupid arguments with my administration that when I speak to a consultant in New Mexico, IT IS NOT AN INTERNATIONAL CALL.

            2. Stora paket*

              I’m in Sydney and I’ve had a package arrive from a friend in Sweden via Austria! Which I suppose is kind of on the way…

          3. CatMintCat*

            I (living in Sydney, Australia) once received a package that had visited Sydney, Nova Scotia on its way to me. My book had seen more of the world than I had.

      3. The Original K.*

        Thankfully those two are within a couple of hours’ drive! Or you could get on a train going south and get off in Wilmington and then drive or Uber; it’s like half an hour. You could resolve that fairly easily, I think. It would be annoying and inconvenient but not impossible.

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          It would suck if he had started in Philadelphia!

          (For readers in other regions, Philly is about halfway between the 2 Newarks.)

      4. Foxy Hedgehog*

        I do know somebody who hired a pilot to fly them, along with a bunch of electronic equipment, from Michigan to Bloomington, Indiana. They ended up in Bloomington, Illinois, instead.

        I’m not sure they ever agreed on whether the pilot or the client was at fault there. The client for not specifying, or the pilot for not asking for clarification (the cities are about the same size).

      5. L. Ron's Cupboard*

        I once interviewed for a job in Wilmington, North Carolina and was told a previous job applicant had once driven 12 hours across 3 states for an interview at that business – but went to Wilmington, Delaware instead because he wasn’t aware there *was* a Wilmington in North Carolina.

          1. Nightengale*

            SEPTA (South Eastern PA Transit Authority) has regional rail trains there from Philly as well.

      7. Clisby*

        This wasn’t a case of business travel, but once, during the freak southern US snowstorm of 1989 around Christmas, I was stranded overnight in Atlanta, along with a bunch of other people. One was a woman who had worked for the past few years in Paris. She was finally getting to go home to visit her family in Dayton, OH. Unfortunately, the travel agent in France booked her to Daytona, FL – right in the path of the snowstorm. I hope she finally made it to her family – the only way I got to mine in time for Christmas was to rent a car and drive from Atlanta to my hometown not far north of Charleston, SC. On Christmas Day, my father and I went to the beach in 60 degree weather to see 6 inches of snow still on the dunes.

      8. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

        So many states I’ve lived in have Portlands and Parises. Or plenty of other towns named the same as a more famous city. Though once it was two similarly named small towns in states where the two-letter abbreviation were similar enough that the wrong font could mix them up.

        Back when I was dating my spouse, one of us rented a V8 Mustang and got a little too carried away on the Wyoming highways (spoiler: not me). Two speeding tickets on consecutive days, the first one acquired in Buffalo, WY (second was in Casper). Spouse’s driver’s license was from an east coast state, so when it reached that state’s office, someone read it as Buffalo, WV and entered it as West Virginia instead of Wyoming.

        Wyoming tickets were paid promptly, but the DL office had a fit when there was no payment on record to the (nonexistent) ticket in West Virginia. Pre-spouse had to call and explain that for them to get a speeding ticket in Buffalo, West Virginia and then one the next day in Casper, Wyoming within that timeframe was not technically possible without going 80mph the entire way.

        1. BubbleTea*

          Well, they WERE speeding tickets… maybe they thought that’s exactly what happened!

          1. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

            I did once drive from Wyoming to Iowa going 90mph as much as possible and turned a 17 hour drive into a 12 hour drive. In my defense, my grandfather was on his deathbed and I was trying to make it before he was gone. I just barely made it. In my second defense, anyone who’s ever driven I-80 across Nebraska knows that the speed limit should be 90.

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          TIL there is a Buffalo, West Virginia. (Too bad, that would have been an easy way to get the ticket dismissed!)

        3. New Jack Karyn*

          “So many states I’ve lived in have Portlands and Parises.”

          There are also a lot of Springfields!

      10. Dog momma*

        Does the train even go to Newark DE?
        We live in SC. The only close passenger service I know of is in Charlotte, NC, 2 hrs by car.
        We’re from Rochester NY. The only passenger service is east to NYC, and west to Toronto, Cleveland etc. . I would have loved to take the train to Binghamton NY to visit family, especially in winter, but alas , Binghamton dropped passenger service in the late 60–70s.

        1. Doreen Green*

          Yep, Amtrak has (limited, I think) service, and there is also regional rail service from Philadelphia to both Wilmington and Newark.

    4. HailRobonia*

      This sort of thing never seems to happen in fantasy/sci-fi stories. “You must throw the ring of power into Mount Doom”…. three movies later “I meant Mount Doom in Mordor, not that mountain in the north named after famed explorer Hannah Doom…”

      2. ferrina*

        I would absolutely read this series!
        And now I want to learn about Hannah Doom, famed explorer. Great name for a kids series.

        2. SunriseRuby*

          She could be a descendant of the Doom family of Cold Comfort Farm! Old aunt Ada Doom “saw something nasty in the woodshed” when she was a child and refused to leave the safety of the farm, but she spent her life keeping her children, grandchildren, and various nieces and nephews there with her until Flora Post showed up and convinced her to travel and reorganized everyone else’s lives. For those of you who haven’t read “Cold Comfort Farm”, it’s a comic/satiric novel, believe or not! Read the novel by Stella Gibbons, watch the movie version with Kate Beckinsale, or both! It would be just perfect for explorer Hannah Doom to be Flora’s adventurous, intrepid godchild, lucky enough to have missed psychological imprisonment by an accident of birth.

          4. Princess Sparklepony*

            I love that movie. I’m not sure if I’ve read the book but it’s now going on my list (just in case.)

      3. Hannah Lee*

        … And I would absolutely read a series which starts out by introducing a “hero” who goes on his quest to Mount Doom, is the kind of hero who is kind of annoying because they seem like a self-insert Marty-Stu who is kind of a perfect dude who can do no wrong but is also kind of boring. One of those lead characters whose pages are kind of a slog compared with what’s going on with the side characters and incidental characters.

        And then in chapter five, he’s approaching Mount Doom, and you’re thinking “ok this is where something is going to go wrong, some complication, obstacle will pop up that derails, delays him reaching his objective for several chapters. But no … a few little glitches, but he’s there! He does the thing! He tosses the ring into the inferno of Mount Doom! And, nothing. It’s clear The Hellmouth is still opening.

        Then suddenly! one of the Hellmouth Advance Team Beasts swoops down and eats the “Marty-Stu Hero” dude.

        And you realize, to your delight, that HE wasn’t the main character. Those 3 other really amazing, complex, interesting funny characters are going to be center stage, and the real heroes you’ll be following for the rest of the story / stories. And whole caravan of those other compelling characters he ran into along the way are going to be coming along for the ride.

    5. Bob*

      A friend of mine worked at a bank in Charleston, WV. Software sales guy could not find the address because they had flown to Charleston, SC. They showed up that afternoon at least.

      1. theothermadeline*

        Not for work, but one summer weekend when I was an undergrad my then-boyfriend and I decided to do a spontaneous road trip and just go where the wind blew us. We were starting out from Cincinnati and after a few hours he said, “I’m getting tired, how about we stop in Charleston?” Me – thoroughly thinking that we were talking about Charleston, SC because I’m bad at geography – was thrilled and then shocked at the tiny sleepy town we ended up in.

          1. Kesnit*

            Except they are real. Charleston (the state capital) is in the southwestern part of the state. Charles Town is in the Eastern Panhandle.

          2. slashgirl*

            In NS we have two places named Centreville, there are two Lawrencetowns (although one is near a beach and honestly they should make the name officially Lawrencetown Beach, c’mon folks), two Greenwoods….and those are just the ones I’m aware of. At least none of the duplicate places are both in the same county…..

      3. Bronze Betty*

        Years ago, my husband and I drove from Michigan to visit our son in Charleston, SC. The roughly halfway point is Charleston, WV. When we texted our son that we had arrived in WV (the day before we were to see him), his roommate was very confused that we had arrived at our destination so quickly. Nope, but we did get a chuckle that we had two stops in Charleston.

    6. Future*

      I love that one.

      There is apparently an occasional problem with people booking flights to Sydney, Nova Scotia (in Canada) instead of Sydney, Australia. I think sometimes people see a really good price and just book quickly without checking where they are actually going!

      1. Not-So-New Mom (of 1 8/9)*

        In the 80s there was a guy from Sacramento who famously accidentally traveled to Auckland instead of Oakland. Apparently the two sounded the same to him, and he mangled his ticket so badly the flight attendant couldn’t read it.

          1. Panicked*

            Ah, the joys of 1990’s sitcom travel, when two unaccompanied children with no passport and no ticket, can just hop on a (not jam-packed) flight to New Zealand.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        I flew out of St. John’s, Newfoundland once (was there for a friend’s wedding) and the gate agents were very careful to distinguish between “London, UK” and “London, ONTARIO, CANADA”. Neither was my flight but it was very amusing. And from there the distance probably wasn’t too different!

        1. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

          I have a friend that lives in London, Ontario and she said if she had a dollar for every time she had to explain to someone she was not talking about England, she’d have enough to book a ticket to Vancouver.

          1. noncommittally anonymous*

            I’ve had the same issue with Ontario, California, including the Post Office saying that to send something from Arizona to Ontario CA required international postage.

            1. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

              New Mexico Magazine has a column called “One of Our 50 is Missing” which is filled with stories of New Mexico residents (or people trying to travel to/from or send packages to/from) running into various issues because a ticket agent, postal clerk, or other don’t realize it’s one of the US states. The online archives only go back to 2012, but it’s a fun read.

            2. thunderingly*

              I went to college in CA(lifornia) and was very confused at how many people were from Ontario, having only heard of the Ontario in CA(nada).

        2. Kristin*

          Ha I once went to London, Ontario, put the travel details in my Google Calendar, then got a frankly gushing email from Google Travel, inviting me to all the exciting things I could do on my trip! Including a visit to Big Ben and the Tower of London!

      3. Herr Z. Lich*

        There is a famous case of this here in Germany which, when you read about it, doesn’t sound very believable because the mixup was between Bordeaux in France and Porto in Portugal.

        Except the booking was made over the phone by a woman from Saxony, where the local dialect makes people soften hard consonants. So p/t/k become b/d/g, and [porto] became [bordo].

      4. Tee*

        I always wonder if people accidentally book to fly to Saint John, New Brunswick instead of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, or vice versa, for a conference or other business travel. The names are very similar, and both are in eastern Canada, and they are geographically far apart but you’d take a similar route — for example, from western Canada or New York you’d connect through Toronto either way. It would be a relatively easy mistake to make if you weren’t familiar with the destinations!

        1. Two Dog Night*

          My work involves a lot of hotel names… and, yeah, those two get really confusing, especially since they’re both major cities in their provinces.

        2. Formerly Ella Vader*

          1988: pre-internet, pre-cell-phone, pre-self-booking-flights:
          As the small airport in St John NB cleared out after people on our flight picked up their bags and left, I was sitting quietly reassembling my bicycle and touring gear. I eavesdropped shamelessly as a panicky young woman in a University of Toronto jacket approached the information counter telling them that her aunt and uncle hadn’t shown up to meet her and she didn’t know what to do. A few exchanges later I heard her raised voice, “Wait, you mean I’m NOT EVEN IN NEWFOUNDLAND??”

          I didn’t stick around to find out how that got resolved.

      5. Jay (no, the other one)*

        I have more than once managed to stop myself from booking a flight to Costa Rica instead of San Jose, CA.

        1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          That’s one where much like the guy who ended up in Italy rather than Florida I’d really be tempted to just stay there being “unable to book a return flight” for a few days.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        It was not. They were headed to a conference to pitch products. So they lost out on a lot of orders. This cost the company a ton of money.

        1. The Original K.*

          Yeah, and the admin was fired and marched out of the building. The admin’s question was “how can I get them to give me another chance?” and Alison’s advice was “shoot your shot but it’s probably not going to work.”

    8. BellyButton*

      Like the poor Brits who ended up in Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada instead of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.

    9. Red_Coat*

      Oh, I remember that one, lol. Reminds me of the time that due to a crazy winter storm, I got stuck in airport hell. A friendly ticket agent got me on the last flight to Manchester. It was stupid early in the morning, everyone was tired and grumpy. I didn’t notice until they asked for my passport that my ticket had gotten booked for Manchester, England and not Manchester, New Hampshire.

      I told my mom the next day that if I’d had a passport, I would have gotten on the flight and not made a peep about it.

      1. Toaster Oven*

        I had kinda the opposite problem once — I was trying to get from the US to Birmingham, England, during a big storm, and the ticketing agent rebooking my flight thought I was just being an idiot and so tried to book me to Birmingham, Alabama.

      2. Anonintheuk*

        I have an ex colleague who did not realise that the city of Genoa is called Genova in Italian, and it isn’t the same place as Geneva.

        1. londonedit*

          There was a mix-up a few years ago between some of my running friends, who were organising a trip to run the half-marathon in Lausanne. Except a couple of them managed to enter the half-marathon in Lucerne. Both in Switzerland, both races on the same day, but definitely not the same place.

    10. Anonymous professor*

      I used to work at Miami University in Ohio, and there was a story among the international student office about the time that a student called them after arriving and couldn’t find the staff that was meeting arriving students at the airport and bussing them to campus. Eventually after a series of calls back and forth (“they say they’re at baggage claim by door D”/”I’m in baggage claim, all the doors have numbers?”) they realized that the poor student had flown to Miami, FL instead of Cincinnati, not realizing where they were actually going to be studying abroad.

      1. Orv*

        There are various tales of international students at University of Washington (Seattle) thinking they were going to get to see the nation’s Capitol.

        Supposedly the state was originally going to be called Columbia, after the river, but they figured that’d cause confusion with the District of Columbia…so, they named it Washington.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          It amazed me how many people mix those two up! When my mom and I visited England, I had to clarify “Washington, the state, the one on the west coast, above California” every single time I had to say where I was from.

          I did absolutely love the shop assistant who perked up like a sparkler and said “Oh! Fraiser! With the little dog!”

        2. Labrat*

          When I was a kid, there was an Ann Landers or Dear Abby letter about a boss who asked to be booked a flight to Washington (DC). He got a ticket to Somewhere in Washington state. Secratary said he didn’t give a city, so she picked one. As an adult I wondef if that was a joke.

          …Then I think about some of the stuff people pull.

    11. The Prettiest Curse*

      There are two Montgomery Streets in San Francisco, on opposite sides of town. Am out-of-town volunteer who was chairing a meeting for my former job once ended up on the wrong Montgomery Street. Fortunately, he made it to the correct location on time!

        1. Auntie-Sis*

          I only know Montgomery and New Montgomery and they’re,.. the same street just different sides of Market Street? If there’s another one, I’ve never heard of it in 30 years here.

    12. Glad I’m not doing this any more*

      I couldn’t use Indeed to find a job when we moved to Los Angeles bc it does not differentiate between Ontario, California (abbreviated CA) and the province of Ontario in Canada (also abbreviated CA in most job postings.) Gave up and declared myself retired.

    13. Mallory Janis Ian*

      My predecessor in my university departmental admin job once sent a guest lecturer to Mexico instead of bringing him to our university/town. I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems to have been a mix of English not being her first language and poor communication with the department head, as they had both become fairly frustrated and disenchanted with one another.

    14. BlueWolf*

      Reminds me of the story I heard about an (former) assistant at our company. The assistant apparently sent the boss to a meeting on the opposite coast, but the meeting had been canceled (presumably with enough notice to cancel the associated travel). Needless to say the boss was not happy to waste a day traveling for nothing.

    15. Not A Girl Boss*

      My employee is in a very prestigious global development program for our larger organization. She told me that she got her month-long travel trip assignment, and it would be to Melbourne. I was so excited and happy for her (although honestly kind of surprised because usually we don’t get to go anywhere cool) talking about her trip ‘down under’ and such for 3 weeks before she finally said “um… why do you think Florida is this exciting?”

    16. Middle Name Jane*

      Honestly? I have no patience for people who take no personal responsibility. Yes, the admin made a huge mistake. But the boss who didn’t check their own boarding pass or notice an airport screen or literally any other indicator that the flight was going to Naples, Italy or that the flight time was going to be much longer than a trip from Canada to the U.S.? The boss bears responsibility too.

    18. RedinSC*

      I almost sent myself to San Jose, Costa Rica, rather than California.

      Too bad, I’d like to go to Costa RIca one day! (The airline let me change my flight just after booking it, fortunately)

    20. Thank you for your email*

      On this theme, my husband once flew into the pretty small airport in Redmond, Oregon and was surprised that the airport serving Microsoft’s HQ would be that small.
      As he tried to organise a taxi he realised that he needed to get to Redmond, Washington and should have flown to Seattle.

    21. H3llifIknow*

      I *almost* did a similar thing. Heading to Riverside County, Ca to an AF base there. I was told “the nearest airport to fly into is Ontario, Ca.” Ok, so I start the booking process thinking “wow, my geograph is bad; I had no idea Ontario CANADA is close to California, at all!” As I’m booking the trip, I mention to my husband how crazy this is and he says, “ONTARIO CALIFORNIA do NOT BOOK THAT TICKET” and saved me from much embarrassment.

    22. Ace in the Hole*

      Oh no.

      This does make me feel better about the time I mistakenly sent a large shipment to Ontario, Canada instead of Ontario, California.

  2. Tuckerman*

    Excitedly ordered shrimp and grits at a diner in Charleston, SC for lunch while at a conference. Proceeded to get violently ill, lied in the grass until the next session. Now that I live in the South, I know what quality shrimp and grits should taste/look like.

    1. KBrooks*

      Oh no.
      I was just thinking of which business trip disaster story to tell, and yours reminded me of the worst: I got a stomach bug while attending a trade show. Realized I felt bad, so went outside the conference hall to get some fresh air. Then further realized I was about to puke — had no time to make it to the bathrooms, so vomited into a potted plant right outside the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main lobby of the hall.

      1. Yeep*

        ooh! Puking! Yes! I was at a conference when I was about 20 weeks pregnant. It was winter in DC so the weather was not terrible but the welcome reception was in a heated tent on a rooftop. The heat was super high and I started to feel a very familiar feeling coming on (soooo much puking all throughout all my pregnancies). I said something like, “Hah, I’ve heard this story before,” while my boss was talking to a group of guys, walked out, over to the rocks/landscaping, threw up, and walked back in. It was a delight.

    2. Tio*

      I got food poisoning during a vendor visit on an out of state business trip and missed a ghost tour I had booked for that evening out of pocket. I was also the only one who got sick because my food had been prepared separately due to dietary issues. My suspicion is that they made mine earlier and let it sit too long, but who knows.

    3. Wilbur*

      Ate the meatball dinner on a United flight from China, landed in the US and spent the next ~4 hours violently ill. Couldn’t keep any medication down to mitigate the horror. Spent the hour long connecting flight desperately trying hold it together. When my wife picked me up from the airport I was an empty husk, unable or unwilling to string together more than a few words.

      Also United lost my luggage.

      1. Princess Sparklepony*

        Your silver lining here is that it was on the way home. So at least you were able to go home and recuperate. It’s worse to be sick at the beginning or middle of a trip.

      2. Protoa*

        have you heard the song ‘united breaks guitars’?
        United broke a musician’s guitar, by handling it roughly while loading it, refused to compensate the musician, he made a song about it, United was suddenly willing to pay…
        But they still took a PR hit.

    4. noncommittally anonymous*

      I once got stuck on the East Coast for 3 days because of a snowstorm. I made my first connection, but then couldn’t get out of Raleigh to get home. The first night, I ate something in the airport that made me violently ill, so I got to spend the night in the airport while continuously running to the bathroom (with luggage!) and throwing up.

      The second night I went to the airport hotel, gave them a credit card, and said, I don’t care what it costs, get me a room!

    5. ArlynPage*

      I traveled to another country for a global meetup for my company. I was only a couple of years in, hadn’t met very many of the higher-ups or rest of the company, but I was extremely honored to be recommended by my manager to do a presentation at the global meetup about the software my company makes. I was so nervous about the presentation, and when I finally got to the meetup, I was SO jet-lagged; I’m well traveled but I was absolutely obliterated by the travel and the time change. On top of that, I must have had some bad sushi and ended up with violent food poisoning. I managed to stop throwing up enough to go to my presentation, got up on stage, and looked out to see that the audience was full, comprising not only the higher-ups, but also the DEVELOPERS who MADE THE SOFTWARE. I’m so glad that I practiced so much, because I think I blacked out and just went through the presentation on autopilot, trying my hardest not to throw up. I was told afterwards that it went very well!

    6. Marillenbaum*

      From my previous stint in university admissions: I was at a Very Fancy British Boarding School (think, Princess Margaret donated the science building). I was feeling not great. I get through the college fair and I think I just have to make it back to my hotel when suddenly…nope. In the middle of the glass-walled teachers’ lounge, during class change, I am suddenly, violently unwell. I was mortified!

      1. Frieda*

        I threw up in a hallway at a conference after getting food poisoning. Extremely kind graduate students from the school where it was held called someone to clean up and shooed me out the door, where I went back to my hotel and laid in misery for about 12 hours, being ongoingly sick. My partner eventually called the hotel front desk to see if there was any food available and I wobbled down the hall to get something to nibble on. Eventually I was able to drive to get takeout soup at a Chinese place.

        I’ve never been sicker. Had I been at home I would have had my partner take me to urgent care for dehydration. Awful awful awful.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        When it happens, it happens, ugh. I’ve seen and been that person and have only ever felt alarm and sympathy!

    7. Kc*

      On an international trip with ~ 20 subordinates, we ended up passing around some sort of noro virus that led to uh, problems at both ends. It was a nice location too where we had booked some fun excursions, but every day another group of people was sick. I ended up skipping the excursions, buying a case of Pedialyte and Imodium, and just handing them out to whoever was sick each day. Fortunately only one needed urgent care for dehydration, but it was the work trip from hell!

    8. Dog momma*

      And its not necessarily in a diner! But our little coffee shop derves, delicious shrimp & grits …only during Master’s week & A week at Xmas. Which reminds me I didn’t get any yet…

    9. NoIWontFixYourComputer*

      Wasn’t a business trip, but was a chaperone for my kids elementary school tip to science camp. One of the activities was the neutral buoyancy pool…. And I had… um…. intestinal disturbances … right before we were scheduled for that.

      Needless to say, I did not go into the pool.

  3. Green Goose*

    At a previous job I lived in California but would travel to Colorado for work. On one of my first trips the temperature dropped about ten degrees and then started raining about two days into my trip. Even the rain was colder!

    I was severely underdressed for my work trip and I had to do a class observation in a portable building so I was soaked in ice rain shivering through the class.

    A bright spot is one of my Colorado coworkers drove me to a Ross after that class so I could buy warmer clothes for the rest of the week.

    1. Rocket Raccoon*

      Northerners love to outfit unprepared visitors. It’s like taking a baby kitten into the kitchen :)

      3. NutellaNutterson*

        I live in the PNW and have had to warn visitors to bring warm layers. My script is “Yes we’re visiting an island, and yes it’s late June. Seriously, bring a fleece, waterproof, and your warm socks.”

        I attended a conference that handled this beautifully by citing the “chilly air conditioning” in the conference center in their reminder/head’s up to bring warm clothes. It significantly reduced the number of people awkwardly wearing tourist sweatshirts!

        1. Rocket Raccoon*

          I have a friend in MA who works at PAX East every year and he makes a sport of recognizing first-year attendees by their lack of weather preparation.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            LOL, I was totally ready for a typical New England winter this past year (my first in MA) and then we didn’t have one!

          2. Beancat*

            Another MA-er here who’s PAX-adjacent (different cons, haven’t made it to PAX yet unfortunately) and this is utterly delightful!

        2. Chick-n-Boots*

          Kind of the opposite but when I was in my early 20’s I used to live in an old WWII era building in Brooklyn that was totally charming and wonderful except for the radiator heat that went on in October and did not shut off until spring. We were on the 5th floor of a 6th floor building and it was so flipping hot in our apartment in the middle of winter, we’d often have the windows open. (There was no individual thermostat in any apartment – the heat was just on. Period.) When my mom came up to visit me for the first time it was December and she asked me what to pack. I told her all the usual cold-weather type things but said “bring shorts and a tshirt for hanging out in the apartment and sleeping.” She thought I was kidding. I was not. My roommate and I had to loan her some stuff to tide her over because as a person who is perpetually cold (and who thought I was kidding) she only brought fleece PJs.

          She loves to tell that story because the first night she stayed there, she woke up because she could feel snow falling on her feet. (We’d opened the window to try to manage the temperature before going to bed.) Outside in the city it was snowy, windy and freezing. Inside the apartment it was the tropics in July.

          1. NutellaNutterson*

            Fun fact! Radiators were designed to keep it warm enough for you to have your window open for fresh air!

          2. KerryBee*

            Same with my first place in New Jersey. It was like living on the surface of the sun. It regularly registered 89+ degrees inside during winter. We sometimes used to sleep with our window air conditioner running even in the height of winter since we both have asthma and couldn’t sleep with windows open. If I never live in a place with radiators again it’ll be too soon.

          3. WhyIsEverythingBananas*

            My first apartment after I moved out was leased by a Turkish PhD student. We had electric baseboard heat, and we live in a climate with VERY cold winters (one day my first winter here, our windchill was colder than Mars that day…). She would turn the baseboard heaters up to 38C and my boyfriend had to learn to layer with a Tshirt so he didn’t boil in my apartment in January. When she eventually moved out, I realized there was so much ambient heat from being an inside apartment on the second floor of 3 (apartments on 5 of 6 sides of me) that I NEVER turned the heat on for an entire winter…and I was still plenty warm.

        3. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

          When my parents visited me in Wyoming for the first time, I told them to bring a warm coat, warm socks, gloves, and a scarf because it might snow and even if not, the nights can get very chilly with the wind. They thought I was bananas because it was late June and did not heed my advice. First morning there, they woke up to snow and had to shiver their way to the nearest outfitter for something other than shorts and tshirts.

        4. goddessoftransitory*

          ESPECIALLY when said visitors are from a significantly warmer clime!

          Back in the day I worked in a tee shirt/sweatshirt store, and we sold soooo many sweatshirts to tourists from hot areas that were absolutely freezing. This was during mid summer where as far as we natives were concerned it was roasting, so ACs everywhere were blasting. Thus furthering their discomfort!

          1. Star Trek Nutcase*

            Works same in reverse. I tried telling Pennsylvania relatives to bring shorts, tees & bathing suits, along with some warmer stuff for their visit at Christmas. But nope, they just wouldn’t accept we had more really warm Christmases than cold here in north central Florida.

        5. Artemesia*

          The PNW is always likely to be chilly especially in the islands in Puget Sound. I make it a habit to always throw a set of silk long johns into my luggage and they take up no space but can make a huge difference in comfort in unexpectedly cool places (doesn’t take the place of wool socks and a rain coat but still). I am right now in Chartres where it is chilly and I spent last night till midnight wandering around cursing myself for not having those silks in the luggage which I ALWAYS do but somehow not this time.

      4. starsaphire*

        Northern Californians, on the other hand… well, unfortunately, we tend to just point and laugh.

        Yes, California is very warm and bright and sunny on TV. In the movies, California beaches are jampacked with bikini-clad sunbathers slathered in tanning lotion.

        And pretty much every gift shop on every pier of every coastal town north of Pismo Beach is fully stocked with $100 sweatshirts, which sell like hotcakes during our frequent foggy 55-degree summer weekends…

        1. Happily Retired*

          I used to work in the San Francisco and lived in the East Bay, and my commute took me over the Golden Gate Bridge. On July afternoons driving home, I enjoyed watching the tourists in their wife-beaters (sleeveless T-shirts) and tiny sundresses, blue with cold, walking across the bridge as the fog rolled in from the Pacific.

          Meanwhile, employees wore puffy parkas.

          1. Lily C*

            I grew up in SF. Spent many summer days as a teen hanging out on the beach in a down jacket with hat, scarf, and gloves. I used to bring my dad’s old army entrenching shovel so my friends and I could dig ourselves a windbreak to hang out in.

          2. ypsi*

            I have a different story (unrelated to business travel).
            Each year in early October, there is a big gathering of people with greyhounds (the dogs, not the buses) in Dewey, Delaware. I attended it one year and even though it was an overcast day, it was very warm and humid. So of course we (being Canadians) wore shorts and short-sleeved Tshirts and were amused by folks from California who shivered badly in all layers they had brought on this trip (even their greyhounds had winter jackests on!).

          3. Forrest Gumption*

            Not trying to be snarky, but why were you driving over the GG Bridge if you lived in the East Bay? GG Bridge is the gateway to the North Bay, whereas the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge is the gateway to the East Bay.

            1. Happily Retired*

              The East Bay goes quite a bit north and south from the Bay Bridge. We lived in Point Richmond, just off the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. So I drove GG and RSF bridges.

              The Bay Bridge gets you to Oakland/ Berkeley, and I’d then still have to trudge along 580 home. I tried it a few times and thought I’d blow my brains out.

              I worked at the VA. So I went home through Sea Cliff *drools*, then GG, then 101 up through Marin, then Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, then home. Random: there were times that I simply couldn’t merge onto the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and wound up driving all the way up and over San Pablo Bay, just so I could keep moving.

              People who don’t have commutes into major metropolises and/or geographically-restricted cities don’t know what these drives are like! I bought a ton of Great Courses CD’s to listen to along the way. Ask me about the Vikings or music theory, I dare you!

          4. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

            San Francisco is one of my favorite places to visit in the summer for exactly that reason. It’s a lovely change from 115F temps and unrelenting sun.

          5. AFac*

            The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.
            -paraphrased from Mark Twain, who apparently never said it

          6. Dog momma*

            yes, many years ago, I took mom on a vacation going up Highway 1 in Cali. we took warm jackets and sweaters. As we were told people wore winter coats in SF ..in Aug. .And found this was true.

            1. AngryOctopus*

              Yep, my cousin lives outside of SF, and she posted family pics of a trip into the city where they were all wearing sweatshirts in late June.
              I did a trip where I went from Boston to AZ to San Francisco (for a wedding), and had to pack basically every kind of outfit I owned to cope with the weather changes.

              1. Maisy Daisy*

                That’s like the time I went to Anchorage in June for several days of vacation before the annual meeeting with upper management for four days, then to Las Vegas for a five-day business confernce. I needed casual clothes for the cool and rainy weather for the vacation and then bussiness clothes for each day of meetings. The Las Vegas weather was 100 degrees+ but business casual-ish. I packed as much as I could for work and conference that could go to both and mailed the rest of the Las Vegas clothes to Anchorage. The Anchorage casual clothes and work clothes not for Vegas were mailed back to my office. It worked.

          7. Azure Jane Lunatic*

            I used to live on the coast a ways south of San Francisco, but worked in Palo Alto. I would complain about the summer heat every now and then.
            “You moved to California!” said my friend (living near San Jose).
            “I moved to SAN FRANCISCO!” I would always clarify.

        2. Popscicle*

          That happened to me at a conference in a late summer heat wave in the Ozarks in the early 90’s. The gift shop $40 long-sleeved polo ($85+ now) seemed too expensive; but I finally caved, wore it in every air-conditioned session, and still have it today. In that case the price reflected the quality.

        3. lyonite*

          One summer evening we were meeting up with some of my husband’s friends who were visiting from Canada. We were near the coast, so it was cold and foggy of course, and I made a comment about being able to recognize tourists by their brand new San Francisco sweatshirts. Then we went outside, and the other couple put on. . .their brand new San Francisco sweatshirts.

        4. L'étrangère*

          There was the summer where a French friend’s sisters insisted on coming in August, then ignored her FIVE urgent, expensive long-distance phone calls urging sweaters. Fortunately they were Frenchly thin so the community pulled together a wardrobe of sorts, but there were daily discussions and unlike a normal August the sun only peeked out twice in the entire month of potential afternoons. She ended up having to drive them to LA the last weekend so they could go home suitably sunburnt and avoid the humiliation of coming back from California looking more palely Parisian than before they left

        5. Princess Sparklepony*

          Used to live in the SF Bay Area. Going into SF during a heat spell was always funny. SF residents don’t really own summer clothes. The outfits you would see….

          But when the fog rolls back in… it’s cold, even in the summer.

          I miss the sight of fog rolling into the city. It was impressive, it actually does roll. (Or at least it used to.)

          1. Elizabeth West*

            Santa Cruz was the same way. You could set your watch by the fog — out around 11 am, back in again around 5 pm. In between, it would be warm, but as soon as the sun set, you needed a jacket.

            One year at Christmas while I lived out there, MO had a cold snap and my family were all really mad at me when I said I was walking around in a t-shirt.

        6. Cedrus Libani*

          I’m in the San Francisco area, and we definitely have to warn the visitors…it may be August in California, however within the city limits it’s London in November, pack accordingly. Some believe us, some end up with a new $100 sweatshirt.

          We also sometimes have to talk them out of a day trip to Los Angeles. It looks super easy, it’s only halfway down the state (and a mile is only 0.6 km, right?), but it’s a LONG day even if you just take a selfie with the Hollywood sign and immediately turn around.

        7. Ace in the Hole*

          I’m in coastal california, way up north. Used to work at a shop popular with tourists. I loved the reactions when someone complained about the cold and I informed them that we were actually in a heat wave.

      5. Alex the Alchemist*

        Yeah, last fall I was at a friend’s wedding in Colorado and their MIL had arranged a pre-wedding hike for everyone and provided extra sweatshirts for us Southerners who didn’t think to pack any. It was wonderful.

      7. KaciHall*

        I was in college in Indiana, and we called the kids from down South frozen peaches. By the beginning of October you could tell who they were, because they’d be walking to class wrapped in a comforter. Apparently at campus visits (over the summer) some of the tour guides told students that they wouldn’t need coats until after October break because it didn’t get cold until then.

        1. Dog momma*

          We’re from WNY. so know all about the weather. But we moved south 8 years ago. and visited family there once in Oct with a nice Indian summer in the low to mid 70s. Luckily brought jackets but were freezing the entire stay. Another time came the beginning of June? ,anyway, during the lilac festival & stayed on Canandaigua Lake. I noticed right away the daffodils were still blooming. Uh oh.. And definitely no lilacs yet. We damn near froze.. Furnace didn’t work in the little house ..we only had a portable heater. Terrible!

    2. Juicebox Hero*

      See, this is why, whenever I go anywhere, I pack clothing suitable for everywhere between Barrow and Bimini. People laugh at me and my giant suitcase, until they’re stuck in a heatwave in a normally cold place or a cold snap in a hot place. Or searching all the tourist traps for phone chargers, antacids, extra socks, etc.

      1. SarahKay*

        I live in the UK, and usually holiday there also, so holiday packing will always include at least one warm sweater, probably two.
        For my fortieth birthday I had a week in Saint Lucia, with a weather forecast of 28-30 C (84-86F) the entire week.
        I had a reasonably warm jacket for the travel, but dear god, the mental effort involved in not packing at least one warm sweater was almost beyond me.

        1. BubbleTea*

          In fairness, you need four seasons worth of clothing in a single week in the UK, holiday or not.

            2. sarbah77*

              As a Michigander who just got back from a trip to Liverpool…. we ain’t got nothing on their weather swings!!

      2. Chauncy Gardener*

        Yup. Every time I go to Florida, it immediately becomes rainy and cold, in spite of 80+ degree forecasts. So I always bring all my Florida sweatshirts and fleeces I had to buy the first few times I was there.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Hee, this reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon where a woman is writing a postcard saying “Once again, Alma, our arrival has ended the drought of the century.”

      3. Artemesia*

        Because of a horrific experience a dear friend of mine had on a plane 35 years ago I never fly without in the bottom of my carry on a change of clothes and it includes a very light weight pair of pants and t-shirt to save weight and space — it has more than once been a life safer when the place I visited was unexpectedly super hot and the rest of my clothes designed for expected weather were too warm.

    3. Ms. Murchison*

      Ha, being under-dressed on a work trip is so frustrating. I went to New Orleans for a work conference one summer and packed for the weather forecast. I had no idea that folks there keep the air conditioning cranked up so it’s 60 degrees indoors. I was shivering the whole time and there was no opportunity to run out and buy a sweater. Everyone else complained about the humidity outside but I couldn’t wait to escape the convention center at lunch every day!

      1. Shannon*

        I did the opposite – I live in the south and traveled to Rochester, NY for a few weeks in January. I was so excited – finally I’ll be able to wear real sweaters! I didn’t realize they run the heat so high that they can wear short sleeved polos in winter. I was roasting inside!

        1. AFac*

          When I moved back east for school I was lent a giant, waterproof, wool peacoat by a relative. I had to give it back because while it was fine for outdoors, it was too darn heavy to lug through the halls of my university every day.

          I also lived in the dorms, and after Thanksgiving the heat was so high we all slept in tank tops and shorts. Which meant a rush to put additional clothes on every time there was a 3am fire alarm.

      2. Elizabeth West*

        This happened to me at the sci-fi con I went to in 2022. Blazing hot summer, so of course I didn’t bring a jacket. I was in the freezing-cold panel room all day for two days and I had no time to run out and get something. They had these thin long tables with three-sided cloths on them — the second day, I finally just took the damn thing off and wrapped myself up in it.

        1. Ms. Murchison*

          I did bring a denim jacket “just in case” and it was completely inadequate against southern AC. I wish it had occurred to me to do something like this.

      3. Artemesia*

        I did some work in both Singapore and Kuwait — and both places, but especially Singapore had AC that would freeze ice. It is an otherwise warm and muggy environment. Sitting in those super cooled rooms was miserable.

    4. RabbitRabbit*

      Meanwhile as a Chicagoan who’s traveled to San Francisco a few times in February/March on business and pleasure trips, I still found SF to be uncomfortably cold and damp, even when escaping subzero temps in Chicago. None of the layering I’m used to made it very pleasant.

      1. JB (not in Houston)*

        I was going to say cold in a humid place is worse than colder temps in a dry place, but I assume Chicago is quite humid, so I’m curious about why SF was so much more unpleasant for you. I’m sure a weather or climate expert could explain it. But it does go along with my belief that you can’t safely pack for a trip based on temperatures alone.

        1. starsaphire*

          It’s hard to explain, but San Francisco cold is like… cold from the inside out. Like, your *bones* feel cold.

          Lifelong northern Californian here, and yeah, it’s a different kind of cold.

          1. The Prettiest Curse*

            Meanwhole, as someone from the UK who lived for many years in the Bay Area, San Francisco’s damp fog seemed practically balmy to me compared to UK winters!

            I did always enjoy spotting the tourists in their shorts and over-priced sweatshirts. Apparently there’s a vending machine at the airport which sells Patagonia fleeces to well-heeled visitors, too.

            1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

              Similar, but from Alaska. I don’t think I used my apartment’s heat more than twice in the years I was living in the Bay Area. It was a welcome change from Arizona.

          2. Arglebargle*

            I love San Francisco and have a lot of friends there and love to visit but I always say there is NO WAY I could live there because 45 degrees in San Francisco is SO MUCH COLDER than anywhere else. Once I was so cold I put on every article of clothing I had brought with me and got under the covers of my bed. I even checked my temperature because I swore I was having chills but nope. It truly IS cold from your bones. The only other place I have found that is in New Orleans. It’s HOT as heck there in the summer but the winters? 40-50 degrees and damp and miserable.

            1. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

              Where I live is similar. It’s very humid and damp here, so the summers are brutal and the winters just miserable enough to be offensive. If I’m sweating my behind off in 70F indoors in summer, why am I now shivering and can’t get warm in 70F indoors in winter? The weather outside it doesn’t even have the decency to get a proper winter temperature yet I’m somehow colder here than when I lived where it got 20 below.

              1. goddessoftransitory*

                I despise humidity more than any other type of weather condition. My sister lives in Maryland and is always trying to get me to visit in summer (she’s a teacher and has time off then.) No, thank you! You can NEVER get cooled off–it’s like living inside a giant dog tongue.

                1. EmmaPoet*

                  I’d prefer the dog tongue- it would come with a dog, at least. DC area humidity was hell on earth for me.

        2. Popscicle*

          I’m not sure exactly how it works either, but it’s so true. I left Kansas City, dressed appropriately for the 15 degree (F) weather and was chilled to the bone in the same clothing in the 45 degree fog in San Francisco. Winter (or cold temp) humidity is a whole different thing than summer. (Insert Mark Twain quote here.) Chicago’s humidity is more a summer thing, though some lake effect weather systems may cross seasons.

        3. Clisby*

          The only time I’ve visited Chicago was in January – I was living in Charleston, SC, at the time and went to visit friends. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, what anyone from Charleston would call humid. I had to buy some heavy-duty moisturizer at a drugstore because I felt like my skin was all drying up.

            1. Cheshire Cat*

              One time when I visited my sister in Chicago in September, she let me know that they were experiencing a heat wave and I should pack accordingly.

              I live in the South where summer isn’t over until October, and the temps in Chicago were about the same as they were at home. The humidity was lower than at home, too, so it was quite pleasant for me. Unlike other visits where I froze in July because of the wind!

          2. Artemesia*

            I retired to Chicago and it is dry in winter. I have issues with dry skin and I have to slather myself with moisturizer every day not to be an itchy mess — and in winter we run humidifiers in the bedroom and living spaces and go through gallons every day.

        4. RabbitRabbit*

          Agreed with the other commenters. Chicago can definitely be humid, and I checked – we’re actually on average more humid during winter months (?!) than warmer ones but you do need hardcore moisturizer in winter to deal with lizard skin popping up. SF just felt way more damp and bone-chilling.

          1. Martin Blackwood*

            Keep in mind, cold air holds less moisture than warm air! so its probably a similar amount of water in the air.

        5. Kristin*

          people SAY this but having experienced a damp -30 in Montreal and a dry -30 in Winnipeg, both of them suck

          1. Not a Vorpatril*

            Once you get notably below freezing, humidity is not longer really a factor (probably because it effectively has to freeze out)

            That being said, my wife and I appreciated our time in Montreal where we broke an outdoor thermometer, which was obviously deficient for not being able to cope with sub -40 temperatures.

          2. Ace in the Hole*

            I’m not sure how you could have “damp -30.” At that temperature the air barely holds any moisture even when saturated.

        6. Aspirational Yogurt*

          Typically, the colder it is, the drier it is (not a perfect scale but generally). Chicago is very humid in the summer but not so much in the winter. And though SF is much warmer than Chicago in the winter, the dampness feels unpleasantly cold.

          This is a thing that people don’t realize about coastal California generally, how chilly the winters can be because they are damp. My SIL moved to San Diego last year after growing up in Minnesota and living in NY for 10 years. She complained about how cold the winter was. In SAN DIEGO!!!

        7. Quill*

          In Chicago winters it’s routinely cold enough that if there was any humidity at all, it would be snowing. So staying dry and sheltered in 20 F in Chicago keeps you out of the worst weather, while at 40F in California mists you will never feel warm again.

          1. Sad Desk Salad*

            There’s a train station in the bay area that hits exactly in that not-so-sweet spot that it can be full sun and 60F and I’m shivering my face off and my Reynaud’s has rendered my hands the color of highlighters. The next stop on the train might be 10 degrees cooler but it doesn’t make you feel like you’ll never be warm again.

        8. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          According to a wilderness EMT I once chatted with, the highest number of hypothermia cases are not from subzero situations (where most people have the good sense to stay indoors, or at least bundle up) but from 40 degrees and raining, especially for people who started out in 40 degrees and sunny and got caught in the rain. Cold fog isn’t going to be quite as bad as rain, but it’s still pretty bad – wet skin loses heat MUCH faster than dry skin. (It’s why when you’re swimming, you feel FREEZING when you first get out of the pool even if it’s 90 degrees out.)

          Apologies to non-Americans. 90 is about 32 C, 40 is about 4 C. “Subzero” in Fahrenheit means below about -18 C.

          1. Juicebox Hero*

            Yep, my brother-in-law ran his first Boston Marathon in 40F rain/slush and wound up in the hospital being treated for hypothermia, and he was far from the only one. He was prepared for the temperature, but not the wetness.

            My sister had a lovely chat with a nice man in the waiting room, who was also waiting for a hypothermia patient to be released. The nice man was Wycliffe Grousebeck, majority owner of the Boston Celtics. She doesn’t follow NBA basketball so she had no idea. Upon finding out, my BIL darn near had to be hospitalized all over again from the shock XD

        9. Laura*

          Chicago isn’t humid in the winter though. It might be chilly (mid 50s-mid 60s) and humid in the spring or something, but it’s not humid when it’s at peak winter.

      2. Madame Hardy*

        “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Often attributed to Mark Twain, but not his; author unknown.

      3. Princess Sparklepony*

        Just for you!

        She likes the free, fresh wind in her hair
        Life without care
        She’s broke and it’s ok
        Hates California, it’s cold and it’s damp
        That’s why the lady is a tramp

        California especially Northern California can be damp. Also, the residents pride themselves on not turning on the heat during the spring/summer/fall even though the temperatures drop quite significantly when the sun goes down. “Just put on a sweater…” Hey, how about you put on the heat!

    5. kim*

      I also traveled from California to Colorado for a conference only to be caught off guard by the weather. I even checked the weather beforehand! It was supposed to be in the low-to-mid 60s. It was instead extremely windy and then later in week it snowed. I did not have a suitable jacket or shoes. Fortunately the conference was downtown on the mall and I ducked into a Ross – possibly the same Ross!? – to get a couple pieces to tide me over.

      I was an exhibitor at the conference and at the booth next to mine in the exhibit hall was a guy from Alaska; he found me HILARIOUS.

    6. MsMaryMary*

      Years ago I had a business trip from Cleveland, to Denver, to Sioux Falls, SD, and back within a work week. It was 70 in Denver. It was 70 when I arrived in Sioux Falls. Then the temperature dropped 40 degrees overnight when a storm blew in. It was a full prairie blizzard and the warmest clothes I had was a wool cardigan. The car rental return was outside and I seriously thought I might get lost in the storm walking to the airport. Obviously, my flight was cancelled and I managed to get the last open room at the airport hotel. I spend the night snowed in before being able to leave the next morning.

      I also double checked my ticket and hotel several times to make sure I booked them in Sioux Falls, SD, not Sioux City, IA to avoid the Naples/Naples situation.

      1. MendraMarie*

        At least Sioux Falls / Sioux City are only about a two hour drive apart. Not that that would have helped in the storm!

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Grew up in Sioux Falls. Can confirm that is an entirely normal prairie weather pattern. Though a “full prairie blizzard” would likely include windchills below zero (F). To this day, the world record for fastest temperature drop belongs to South Dakota (though on the other side of the state), where once it dropped 58 degrees F in 30 minutes.

    7. Kuddel Daddeldu*

      Attended a two-week course at a rather well known university near San Francisco. The lecture hall was dreadfully cold as the cleaning staff always set the AC as cold as it would get.
      After two days, they got what you get when you put 40-odd engineers in a room: A technical solution to a social problem. We simply put the thermostat to a less frigid temperature and stole the knob so they couldn’t freeze us again. (We reinstalled it on the last day, of course).

    8. Mid*

      Oh Colorado. It’s not uncommon to go from 70°F to 30°F to 70°F again in the span of less than 48 hours. I tell visitors to always pack for all four seasons, regardless of the time of year they’re visiting. One fun Christmas had us in the high 60s all week, and then a 45° temp drop leading to a blizzard in less than 12 hours.

  4. HonorBox*

    Not mine exactly, but I was party to it. At a work conference many years ago, a friend came up to me during one of the breaks and asked how many beds I had in my hotel room. I told him I had two, and asked why. He explained… He and a colleague “Joe” (who was married) from another business had agreed to share a room for the conference, and Joe told him that a female friend from a neighboring town was coming to visit and they were definitely going to hook up, so my friend should make himself scarce, because there was a zero percent chance that this hook up wasn’t going to happen. My friend asked if he could crash on the second bed in my room so he didn’t have to make things even weirder than they already were. I agreed of course, and have side eyed Joe ever since.

    1. AVP*

      oh my god!!!!

      $50 it didn’t happen in the end anyway and Joe brought this upon himself for nothing.

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Once she realized that she wasn’t worth the price of a hotel room? Yeah, “I told my roommate to make other arrangements for the evening” stops being a flex sophmore year of college.

      2. A Poster Has No Name*

        Or it didn’t happen and Joe planned it that way all along so he could have a room to himself.

        1. HonorBox*

          People knew who she was, as she had been to conferences as an attendee previously. And if I remember correctly, my friend had to run up to the room to grab a few things early in the evening and they were in there already.

      3. Leash Witness*

        While I obviously (and thankfully) wasn’t there to know for sure, I think I’d be taking your $50. If I remember correctly, the female friend confirmed enough the next day to a couple of people I know.

        1. HonorBox*

          Damn. Wrong username… had changed it to comment. But yes, I am almost certain it did happen.

          1. HonorBox*

            Also compounding matters, I got a stern talking to from some female friends for “enabling cheating.” I told them I was just helping out a friend because he was put in a really terrible spot.

            1. Cyborg Llama Horde*

              Gosh, yeah, it sounds like the cheating was going to happen regardless, and it’s just a matter of whether your friend was stuck IN THE SAME ROOM.

            2. Nonanon*

              Hate it for a couple of reasons, up to and including you don’t know what the relationship is like, and the parties involved might have a more open relationship than you’re aware of.

              1. allathian*

                Regardless of whether it’s open or not, it’s none of my business. Sure, I wouldn’t lie to cover for a cheater if their spouse contacted me full of suspicion about the sleeping arrangements, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to tell the spouse unless they’re a close friend and I know for a fact that their marriage’s supposed to be monogamous. And even then I’d risk losing a friend for “shoot the messenger” reasons, but I’d rather take that risk than the risk of losing the friendship when the spouse learned about the cheating from someone else and learning they were the last to know about it.

            3. Star Trek Nutcase*

              FFS when will some women stop assigning any responsibility for cheating to anyone other than one(s) in committed relationship/marriage. My focus is on my spouse or SO who made vows/promises – it’s anyone else’s responsibility to monitor or making cheating difficult.

    3. Green Goose*

      The audacity!
      A former coworker of mine was studying to get her MBA while working and one part of her MBA was an international trip that the cohort went on and when she came back the stories she had.
      People blatantly cheating on their spouses, and she said one person literally left the trip to go be with an ex and then just showed up the last day at the airport to go back home with everyone.
      She had gone their to learn while a lot of people went there to go wild and misbehave.

      1. theothermadeline*

        “Married But Available” is an alternative definition that I unfortunately learned about while in business school

      2. CommanderBanana*

        I worked at a very small association that ran a very large annual conference (think 10,000+ people and I’m sure it’s grown since then) and that kind of stuff happened. All. The. Time.

        1. Artemesia*

          I think I got hit on at every professional conference I went to till I was about 45 — and I was married and so were they all. It never stopped surprising me.

    4. Saturday*

      What the heck, Joe. If you’re gonna try to hook up during the conference, you need to get your own room!

    5. Chick-n-Boots*

      Oh hell to the no. I’d have told Joe that if he needed to hook up with that old friend so badly, he could get himself another room. There is no way I would have gone along with that.

      What a jerk!

  5. Pink Candyfloss*

    I was traveling to a conference with my whole team including boss. I was a very late inclusion due to management oversight, so I booked super last minute, and when we arrived at the hotel I was told the block was full and the room I had reserved wasn’t available. My boss offered to put me up at the Red Roof inn down the street from the lovely resort conference hotel – and just then the hotel manager told me they’d be updating me to the Presidential Suite at no extra charge. So in my case, it paid off! My boss was openly jealous; that alone was worth the aggravation.

    1. FuzzFrogs*

      The nerve of your boss! I hope you discussed the Suite in front of him as often as possible, both during the conference and afterwards.

      1. Phony Genius*

        I like to think that the boss discussed the Red Roof Inn in front of the hotel manager hoping to get a result like this, since the room was reserved and unavailable.

          2. Lab Boss*

            They’re a pretty bare-bones chain hotel. In my experience they’re seldom BAD, if I have to book a hotel to do literally nothing but check in, sleep, and leave in the morning Red Roof can be a good choice, but they’re not where I’d want to live out of throughout a conference.

            1. Curious*

              They allow you to bring your dog for free, so if you are driving on vacation, they can be a reasonable choice.

            2. Clisby*

              That’s how I’d characterize it. I’ve stayed in them (and similar on long road trips, and usually they’re OK for what they are – a bed for the night.) I wouldn’t want to stay more that that, just like I’m not booking a Marriott so I can check in, fall into bed, get up in 6 hours, and be back on the road.

          3. Sleeping Panther*

            They’re a budget hotel chain. The last one I stayed at was fine for a graduate student trying to attend a conference on the cheap, but was much lower-end than the hotel where the conference was hosted or the sort of hotel business travelers would use.

          5. Hannah Lee*

            It’s what my pet loving friends refer to as The Red Woof Woof Inn.

            Because though it’s not fancy and it can range from bare bones to very run down, it’s pet friendly. So if they are traveling with their dog, and doing a road trip, they can book rooms there an know they won’t have issues when the go to check in.

          6. I Have RBF*

            Red Roof Inn is what I’d call a traveler’s hotel, where you get off the highway, check in, eat, sleep, get up, shower, breakfast and then go on to the next. It’s no frills, but sometimes they have a free breakfast. It’s not a place to stay for several days unless you are cheap, or it’s the best thing in the area. It is in the same class as Motel Six, Comfort Inn, Vagabond, La Quinta, Days Inn, etc.

          7. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

            I just stayed in one in Dallas TX for the eclipse. It earned all two of its stars, but also there was peeling paint, rust in the bathtub, and hair in the corner that definitelty wasn’t ours. But they did hand us a paper bag with treats (chips, granola bars, fruit snacks, a water bottle) which was weird but appreciated. AND, a full sized fridge!

        2. The Rafters*

          I think maybe he wanted the resulting Presidential Suite, but thought somehow that he would get it.

        3. Ex-Teacher*

          I like to think the boss is a known jerk, and the hotel employees noticed that the boss was being a jerk and gave the upgrade as a way to stick it to the boss.

    3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      I love it. Boss trying to be petty and you wound up in the Presidential Suite instead. BTW, always wanted to know what one of those is like.

      1. Texan In Exile*

        We stayed at a Hampton Inn in Evansville, IN, the night before the eclipse. They called my husband a few days before and asked if he wanted a free upgrade to the Presidential Suite from the regular room Mr T had reserved months ago. He said yes and I was very excited to experience this fancy room.

        When I saw the room, I remembered Oh RIGHT we’re in Indiana! We’re not at a resort. We’re not in an expensive hotel.

        There was a sitting room, but it there was no more furniture than in a regular suite, so there was a ton of space between the sofa and the TV. Like – I would have wanted to move the sofa closer to watch TV.

        The bathroom was enormous – but it was just a stretched-out bathroom. There was the regular microwave and fridge plus a bunch of cabinets and drawers. I guess if you had to stay for weeks, it would be nice to have the space to sprawl and cupboards to put food, but the only thing presidential about it was that is had a lot of square footage. Nothing was even gilded.

        That said, it was fine. We had a great view of the flight line next to the hotel. We were in the corner, so it was quiet (except for the airplanes). And the hotel staff did a great job with fun eclipse treats, including Moon Pies, Starbursts, and bakery cookies decorated with eclipse themes.

        1. Vice president sweet*

          We got a “presidential suite” like that one time, and we joked about how it was OBVIOUSLY for the presidents of cheap nonprofits (like the kind we worked at at the time) not, like, actual presidents of actual countries.

        2. Just Another Cog in the Machine*

          We stayed in a regular room at a “fancier than we normally get” hotel in Fort Wayne the night before the eclipse (we traveled another hour to see the eclipse the next morning). What we ended up with was needing to pay $8 to park in a nearby, unaffiliated parking garage (other choice was $25 for “valet” parking) and no mini fridge in the room.

        3. BW*

          Are you me? We checked into a Hampton Inn in Avon, IN for the eclipse. Our room wasn’t ready, so they “upgraded” us to a nicer suite. It was exactly as you described. Nice, clean, and way larger than normal, but not a presidential resort. We were there for a week, so it was very comfortable. No eclipse treats, though.

          On a different note, I remember the conference I attended where EVERYONE got food poisoning except the vegans. It’s been 25 years and people still talk about it.

        4. Elizabeth West*

          I splurged once at the Radisson in Branson, MO for a sci-fi con and got myself a suite on the VIP restricted floor. It was a lot like this. The toiletries were nicer, and there were twice as many towels, with a separate room for the toilet and shower. Plus, there was a giant round tub in the main bathroom, but it was surrounded by mirrors. (No, I do not want to look at myself climbing in and out of the tub, ergh.) It was very nice, but it would have been more fun pretending to be a mini-celeb if I hadn’t been by myself.

          I love that they gave you eclipse-themed treats. :)

        5. goddessoftransitory*

          Back in prehistoric times when I was wed, we booked a room in a very nice local historical hotel for our big night (we were starting our honeymoon the next day.)

          The room was nice but SMALL. Like, it was a dollhouse sized room or one of those tiny houses but stuffed inside the hotel. The bed was big and luxurious and took up almost the entire space–there was like, one foot square clearance around the edges so you had to kind of shimmy alongside it to get in. It was only that one night so we didn’t care that much but man, for what they charged…

          1. nottechnos*

            I’ve stayed (intentionally) in a Carrie Nation like that. The room had no closet, or appliances, or bathroom, but it did have a big brass bed and just enough to shave and dress.

          2. Elizabeth West*

            There is/was a tiny motel at Rehoboth Beach in DE with a “honeymoon” room like that. I’ve never slept on such a big bed in my life.

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              I mean, I appreciate the tacit acknowledgement that it was indeed the honeymoon suite!

        6. Princess Sparklepony*

          Reminds me of the time I got upgraded to first class on an airplane. It was a very small airplane. The only difference from coach was the location of the seat and the glass of champagne. Same chairs, same pitch, same recline.

          It was a flight of about 30-40 minutes. But hey, it was First Class! We had a laugh.

          1. AngryOctopus*

            Delta “upgraded” me to Comfort Plus on my 25′ flight from Seattle to Vancouver (BC). It was slightly nicer than a regular seat, which may have been noticeable has the flight been longer.

      2. MechE31*

        We booked a presidential suite (on credit card points) at a higher end hotel in Orlando. It was 2 floors with the upstairs being a master suite, the downstairs contained a great room with a full size dining table and a couch/tv area, a kitchenette, a 2nd living room which converted to another bedroom and a connected room that was optional that looked like another standard hotel room.

    4. Iron Chef Boyardee*

      Surprised the boss didn’t demand you switch rooms with him so that he could enjoy the Presidential Suite.

    5. Sweet Suite Life*

      Sweet and also Suite!

      I have a similar story from many years ago. Our org — a nonprofit but the boss I worked for had delusions of grandeur — was putting on a conference in a sunny resort destination in January. I was told to arrive early the day of the conference rather than two days before in order to save the org money. Unlike my boss and his favorite, who somehow just *had* to go down two days before.

      I showed up and my room reservation wasn’t there. My boss refused to answer both my calling him AND the hotel front desk calling him repeatedly.

      The desk clerk said they were very booked up but they could get me into a room for the night IF I put it on my own credit card and allowed it to be charged so my org could reimburse me. Now, a) resort hotel = $$$$ b) January = extra $$$ c) my finances were still so bad after a nightmare divorce that I couldn’t afford to put even one night’s stay on my card years later.

      I almost burst into tears at the desk explaining why I couldn’t and that my boss had the only corporate card. The meetings staff were too busy putting out other fires to answer the front desk calling them AND the front desk manager wasn’t answering the clerk’s calls. (The meetings staff thought my boss would take care of it and apologized profusely when they heard he hadn’t.)

      So the clerk made an executive decision to hold the card info but NOT charge it, to make notes in the system and talk to their manager when they could find them, and get me into “a room we have available right now.” That way I could change and go staff the first session I was scheduled to be working in two hours.

      As they put it, “This would be simple to sort out if SOMEONE would answer their PHONE.”

      My boss deigned to ask me after that session “Oh, did you sort your room out? I got all those messages but I was busy.” (Busy working on his sunburn, from visual evidence.)

      “The front desk was SO nice! Since YOU didn’t call them back and they couldn’t sort it out with YOU as the only corporate card holder, they put me into a suite because they felt so SORRY for me,” I said sweetly.

      That upper-floor ocean-view suite was almost as big as my apartment, had a balcony with an uninterrupted view of the ocean, sported a Jacuzzi tub and chocolates on the pillow every night, etc., etc. As in, way above what I could ever have afforded on my very nonprofit salary even with our discounted room block rate.

      The boss and his favorite were stuck in staff rooms facing…not the ocean. They both sulked the entire conference about how could I have been upgraded that way. Too bad not sad.

      3. Artemesia*

        I love the stick it to the boss story. I once once upgraded when I arrived quite late to a conference where I had a speech the next morning. I ended up in a sort of multi-level town house suite — quite elegant and lovely. And I managed to break a toe on a marble pillar that sort of extended at the bottom and so the next morning I could barely wedge my now purple to the ankle foot into a shoe and limp to the venue. And then there was the endless walk to the gate at the Toronto airport. These days I would have figured out how to get some assistance, but I was young and shouldered through.

    6. Napster*

      I’d been with a company two months, went to a conference, had to stay at a Red Roof Inn (boss’s choice). Would have quit upon return but I needed that job. Glad you didn’t have to stay there, even more glad that your upgrade caused the boss consternation.

    7. RedinSC*

      Oh man! I had to actually stay at the Red Roof when this happened to me!

      Everyone else was at the Opry Land hotel resort conference center place and I was down the road and across the street behind the Waffle House at the Red Roof. Hahahahahaha

  6. Llama fan*

    At a conference, the last speaker before lunch droned on and on and on and on for over an hour past his allotted time. Meanwhile, the tuna salad, egg salad, and potato salad, all with a copious amount of mayo, were sitting out being uneaten and unrefrigerated. Half the attendees got sick that night. Starting the following year, they had a rule that when lunch arrives, they cut the speaker off and eat right away.

    1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      URGH I had something similar happen at an Awards Dinner. Food was already eaten thank goodness. But the room we were in was reserved for a group right after us. So we had a hard stop. The keynote speaker kept telling these long stories. he would stop one and then say want to hear another one. We literally all shouted No. he kept talking. Meanwhile the next group was waiting out in the hall for him to shut up so theyc ould get in.

      It was so rude of the keynote.

      1. noncommittally anonymous*

        I, personally, have pulled the plug out of the projector when a speaker went 20 minutes over his allotted time. He kept saying, “I’m almost done! Just one more minute!” and then just kept talking.

        2. Cats Ate My Croissant*

          I used to work backstage at a receiving house – mostly touring plays coming in for a week, but occasional one- or two-night comedy acts. One of these was Ken Dodd who was NOTORIOUS for over-running, to the point where the crew had a betting pool on how far he’d go past the alleged close of show. Sadly I wasn’t there at the time, but on one occasion the stage manager got fed up and dropped the curtain, whereupon Ken just stepped around it as it descended with nary a pause in his rambling.

      2. Skippy The Wonder Admin*

        Fortunately no food poisoning in this one, but the keynote that went on. and on. and on. and on. was the organizer of the conference and the grand high lord of the organization. First thing in the morning. I was making frantic wrap-it-up gestures from the back and… nope.

        The carefully balanced schedule for the whole day exploded. Lunch was an hour late, and since lunch delivery came at the scheduled time and set up and I didn’t think to intercept them and get the stuff in the refrigerator, the sandwiches went out and then everyone picked up lunch on their way to the next panel. Which was better than letting the sandwiches sit, but at that point nobody knew what was going on or when.

        Everyone seemed to enjoy most of it, fortunately, but we won’t be working together again.

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      It may have been a food poisoning incident but I doubt it was due to the food being left at room temperature for an extra hour as such.

      1. She of Many Hats*

        Catered food is usually prepped off-site and transferred to the meeting. If the caterer was across town during the summer, and didn’t have a refrigeration unit in their vehicle, it could have been more than two hours since the food was at proper temp. Add in the factor that many caterers use DoorDash or Uber to deliver the goods and you have even less control over food temps.

      2. sheworkshardforthemoney*

        Maybe, but room temperature food that is supposed to be chilled is really hard to choke down. We keep our food on ice and chilled until the speeches are actually done because in the summer a lot of events are held outside. Warm salads and sandwiches with flies buzzing around is an appetite killer. We temp the food all through the process and it can warm up to the danger zone in less than an hour.

      3. Winstonian*

        I agree. And that’s from multiple experiences of eating room temperature egg salad sandwiches and devilled eggs (definitely out for more than an hour).

      1. beware the eggs*

        Cooked eggs actually have a very short shelf life. My husband found this out the hard way when he ate a breakfast sandwich that he left in his work bag for an hour or two. His sister has an MPH and confirmed that eggs are a high risk if left at room temp for long.

        1. Ally McBeal*

          Yep. My grandfather was a preacher who took a new assignment every 5 years, and there’s a legendary story from one of those cross-country roadtrip/moves where he insisted that the family would eat egg salad sandwiches while on the road… but the cooler was not sufficiently cold and the car eventually reeked of sulphur. I’m pretty sure no one ate the sandwiches and my famously frugal grandparents were forced to buy food. I never saw my father eat egg salad. (I like it, personally, but I wasn’t crammed into a station wagon with my 5 siblings and two parents and forced to endure the smell for hours.)

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          Butter, apparently, can be left at room temperature for no more than four hours–that’s the maximum cutoff.

          1. Bethlam*

            Wow, not at my house.. I don’t like hard butter, so the current stick is left out until it’s gone. That can be anywhere from 4-7 days.

            1. Princess Sparklepony*

              I use a butter bell with water in the bottom. But when full summer hits, then I have to put it in the fridge.

            2. Dog momma*

              Bethlam, that’s the way mom did it. but we live in the South, so it totally melts. and yes we use AC in the summer lol. I buy spreadable butter and leave it in the fridge..problem solved!

          2. allathian*

            Not true. Butter needs to be at slightly below room temperature to be soft enough to use as a spread. My grandparents kept their earthenware crock of butter on the table all day and only put it in the basement at night (the earthenware helps keep the butter a bit cooler). They had a fridge, but it was very small for the size of their family, so they only kept extremely perishable goods, like milk, in it. The basement had an earthen floor and maintained a fairly stable 10-15 C (50-60 F) temperature year round.

            My grandparents had a homestead in the country, and because everyone had a basement/cellar to keep things cool, most households there bought a chest freezer before they bought a fridge.

          3. Artemesia*

            Wow — we never refrigerate our butter unless it is really hot. Lived to tell the tale so far.

          4. londonedit*

            What? That’s why butter dishes exist, because traditionally (before fridges became commonplace, and even after that) people didn’t refrigerate butter, they just kept it in a butter dish and that way it was always spreadable. Then again this is Britain where you can usually (barring freak heatwaves) count the number of days a year where it’s over 25C on the fingers of two hands.

          6. Distracted Procrastinator*

            The point of butter was to preserve the cream. If it could only last 4 hours at room temperature, then it sort of defeats the purpose. Butter is fine for days at room temperature. It can oxidize which changes the flavor a bit, but that’s why it’s kept covered. It does not “go bad” if left out for a few days.

          7. Ace in the Hole*

            That is untrue, and also very strange advice. Butter needs to be at room temperature to be used, otherwise it’s too hard to spread. From the USDA:

            “Butter and margarine are safe at room temperature. However, if butter is left out at room temperature for several days, the flavor can turn rancid so it’s best to leave out whatever you can use within a day or two. Margarine, especially soft tub margarines, can separate into oil or water and solids when not kept refrigerated although it will be safe.”

            In other words, you never need to refrigerate it for safety. You might want to refrigerate it for longer-term storage to keep it from getting a weird taste.

      2. FL*

        Bacteria multiplies really quickly outside of the food-safe temperature ranges, so if there’s just a few little e. coli or whatever floating around in there, they could become a big enough colony to make us sick. I learned the hard way not to partake of crockpot buffalo chicken dip that had been sitting around lukewarm for a few hours after a potluck lunch…

      3. ferrina*

        It’s not decomposition that you worry about, it’s bacterial growth (even microscopic). As soon as you get a food into the danger zone (40-140 F) bacteria starts growing. It grows at different rates on different foods.

        Some of the most dangerous foods are- cooked potatoes, potato salad/tuna salad, cooked eggs, sliced melons.

      4. run mad; don't faint*

        There’s also all the time it took to make them and plate/box them to factor in. I knew someone whose job was food safety at a huge convention venue. He said that explaining to people that they couldn’t have 10,000 sandwiches just out and waiting until the conference was ready was a common part of his job.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Refrigeration has to be one of THE biggest game changers in our perception of how reality works ever. Like, right up there with mechanical clocks and the internal combustion engine.

          In the US, at least, the idea that food cannot be kept “fresh” indefinitely comes directly from the idea that we can habitually buy fresh items and keep them cool, consistently, and the proper temperature to inhibit bacterial growth. That notion is much, much more recent than many people realize even in America (the cliche’ of grandma cooking meat dry as a bone, for instance, came from making sure your meat was cooked all the way through because of uneven refrigeration technology distribution.)

          So ironically, being so used to food being kept “good” for days means people have a far shakier sense of how short a window they have once something is out of a climate controlled environment.

      5. fhqwhgads*

        2 hours is generally how long it’s still safe. Unclear how long it’d been refrigerated prior to being visible in the room. Doesn’t mean guaranteed sick after 2 hours, but the potential increases exponentially over time with two hours being the “it’s going downhill absurdly fast” mark.

        That said, not-shitty catering shoulda had that stuff in trays over ice on the buffet. Not just sitting there.

    4. Mztery123*

      I don’t even understand why they serve tuna salad, and egg salad at a buffet like this. Asking for trouble.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yeah, obviously not everyone can have sandwiches, but there are buffet lunch options with much less potential for disaster!

    5. LCH*

      over an hour past his allotted time? someone should have cut him off regardless of the food. WTF.

      2. sheworkshardforthemoney*

        Or people should have quietly started to leave. We used to have a yearly orientation. The pizzas would arrive and the grandboss would keep droning on as they slowly congealed.

        2. Oh, just me again. . .*

          But a battery could be even better, if you could just time the amount charge on it to the time allotted to the speaker!

    6. whyblue*

      I was on a business trip to Paris with my then boss (we are German). We were meeting clients in several suburbs, so we decided to stay in the city and take the train out. On one day, the train service was suspended half-way to our customer, so we had to switch to a cab. The driver was wearing a purple suit.

      We show him the address we want to go to. No problem he says. A few minutes into the drive, we notice he is going back to the city. We ask him about it. No, he says, he knows where he is going. We look at Google maps and we’re pretty sure he does not. After much discussion, he finally says he thought we were trying to get to a street by the same name in the city.

      At this point, we are running half an hour latenfor our meeting, so we decide to stick with the driver rather than trying to find another taxi. Henturns around and heads towards the suburbs.

      Pretty soon, we notice he is not following thebstteet signs to our destination. No, he says, he knows a better way. More discussion ensues as we drive through what feels like the deep countryside, hardly a house in sight. The discussion abruptly comes to an end when he turns a corner into a cul-de-sac.

      At this point, my manager, never a calm person, is screaming blue murder and jumping out of the car, wanting tontake a different cab. Only that we are now in the middle of nowhere and about an hour late to our meeting.

      Eventually, I manage to make him get back in the car and webtell the driver to follow our Google maps for the rest of the way. Eventually, we get close to our destination, but the driver refuses to drop us of in front of the company headquarters and stops about a block away.

      Then the haggling starts. Obviously, we are not willing to pay for the city tour and the scenic drive he gave us. The driver insists on us paying full price. The haggling gets heated and eventually my manager jumps out of the car, screaming blue murder, and runs away.

      I am wearing a skirt and heels. I couldn’t outrun a snail in that get-up, so I stay and keep arguing with the driver. He threatens to lock the door and take me the police station, so I jump out. He gets out his phone and tells me he is speaking to the police. I ask him to hand me the phone, because I would like to speak to them as well. Turns out he is on the phone with a friend. Eventually, we settle on an amount. I pay and walk to the customer’s building.

      In the lobby, I run imto my manager, who apparently went to get our client to help us, only he didn’t tell me. He yells at me for paying anything at all. Turns out later, the amout I paid was less than the fare should have been, had we taken the direct route.

      Moral of the story: Never even trust a driver in a purple suit. Also, it pays to know foreign languages.

      1. Artemesia*

        I had a business trip to China and brought my husband and we ended with a brief personal stay in Hong Kong. There is a sheet they gave us at the airport explaining cab fares, how much it should cost and that tolls are only charged into not out of the city to the airport.

        On our return to the airport the cabbie starts complaining about traffic and then the heavy tolls he is paying and I KNEW — so when we got there I told my husband ‘I’ll pay, you guys get the luggage out’ and I stood on the curb digging in my purse for the money — so when the guy said 400 whatevers for a ride that should be 200 whatevers. I told him I knew that the fare should be 200 and handed him that and when he started making a fuss I told him to call the police. He drove off.

    7. I Ain't Eatin' That!*

      Once more for the folks in the back. Mayonnaise was invented to preserve eggs. It will become transparent without chilling, but it doesn’t go bad easily. It wasn’t the mayo that went bad, it was the tuna and the eggs.
      In this situation, why didn’t people leave at the appointed time? Surely they weren’t chained to their chairs.
      In Pastor Labelle’s comment the participates were complicit in the speaker’s rudeness. Get up and go, people.

  7. RIP Pillowfort*

    Okay so I had a conference last year in Washington State. We stayed at this very posh art hotel. Hotel itself was lovely. Everything regarding travel was perfect. Conference was so great.

    But the entire floor I was on was dedicated to boob art. They had them in the hall, my room had drawn photos of boobs, etc. I was not expecting it.

    1. Leash Witness*

      This made me think of a somewhat related experience! I was in DC for meetings along with a number of other business leaders from my community. The hotel we were staying at was hosting some sort of sex convention. The “meeting room” they were using was draped off well so it wasn’t obvious what was going on, but as I was checking in, standing right next to my Mayor, we saw a couple leaving the “meeting room.” They were both dressed in skimpy leather outfits and she was leading him through the lobby on a leash. The Mayor looked at me and said, “What the F— is going on here?”

      1. Morgana*

        I attended a conference at a mouse-themed hotel known for families, think princesses in the lobby. Our conference was medical ethics, with meeting rooms throughout the buildings featuring happy, upbeat titles like “When the Baby Dies – Neonatal End of Life Issues.” Coming out of a presentation into the “happiest place on earth” was a trip. It was also hard to find cafes or hall space to have the side-line conversations. What were they thinking?

        1. Cease and D6*

          That’s hilarious, and I have to know why it happened. Aren’t those ‘Mouse Themed Hotels’ typically quite expensive? Why did the organizers choose it?

          1. The Prettiest Curse*

            I looked into a Disney hotel as a potential conference venue once and can confirm they are incredibly expensive even if you’re getting a group booking discount. However, if the conference was primarily aimed at doctors, the organisers could have assumed they would be less price-sensitive than other types of attendee.

        2. Yeep*

          I was at an indoor waterpark resort in the Wisconsin Dells over the winter (not my choice, thank you) and the conference they were hosting was a conservative Christian values conferences including titles about porn and what to do if your child is gay.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            Coulda been Land! Been to conferences at both.
            Dolphin/Swan, no thanks.
            Grand Californian, fine by me.

            1. Princess Sparklepony*

              I like Land so much better. We used to go on vacation and stay at the Candy Cane Motel that was pretty much across the street as I remember. Very down market. I think it’s been bought out and redone as an expensive motel now.

        4. goddessoftransitory*

          I would guess someone thought “these are such heavy issues; let’s make sure people can distract themselves in a good way!” without realizing how tonally jarring it was.

          1. Princess Sparklepony*

            Or were the doctors bringing families and the location gave the spouses and kids something to do during the conference?

      2. AMT*

        Was it the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Summit? I’m a therapist and was a speaker at that conference a couple of years. It’s usually held in the DC area (Alexandria, if I’m remembering correctly). It’s a big, strange mix of people—sex therapists, coaches, educators, disability activists, religious leaders, leather folks, drag queens, pretty much anyone you can think of who might have an interest in sexual freedom.

      3. New Jack Karyn*

        That’s so rude of the couple. The public had not consented to be a party to their stuff.

        1. Thinking*

          IDK. I need to think about this, thanks for making me do that.
          I mean, I don’t consent to people’s clothing loudly declaring their political beliefs. Or deliberately loud cars and motorcycles drowning out the TV in my living room. But society is clear that both groups are allowed to do those things.
          This feels a little different, but is it? They are actually “disturbing” me less than the loud noise is.
          Thanks again, I’ll be over here arguing with myself.

      1. Juicebox Hero*

        I know people who’d think that was the breast work trip ever. I’m sure it made for some lifelong mammaries, though I guess RIP Pillowfort would have liked art with bra-der appeal. I hope the windows were at least good for birdwatching – you know, tits, boobies, hooters…

        Yes, my inner child is a 12 year old boy.

    4. Meow*

      I was actually on the other side of this one, but I used to go to some smaller, local anime conventions, and so they’d usually rent out only half the hotel. Which means invariably, someone else would rent out the other half. So you’d be dressed in a costume with armor – or an enormously poofy dress – with a wig that goes down to your ankles, maybe even a fake longsword. And then you’d turn the wrong way in the hallway and find yourself in the middle of a medical convention. Elevator conversations were always fun.

      1. Meow*

        Whoops, this was supposed to be a top level comment, but it ended up as a reply. Oh well, tangentially related I guess!

      2. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        I once went to a library conference and the other half of the convention center was an adult entertainment conference – a fair number of librarians wandered over to that side of the convention center but I didn’t notice any adult entertainers coming over to check out the librarians. Another small conference and there were 2 other events at the same site – Mary Kay (lots of attendees wearing pink) and a cheerleading competition (lots of teenagers in cheerleading costumes and their parents).

        1. BubbleTea*

          I feel that second one could have been intentional – the cheerleader to MLM shill pipeline.

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            I picture pink Caddys, cruising like sharks through the parking lot–“Mary Bell! That one, with the orange and purple pompoms! She’s perfect!”

      3. Minimal Pear*

        Back when I went to anime cons I know we shared the conference center with some kind of Greek heritage festival and a gardening show on two separate occasions!

        1. sheworkshardforthemoney*

          The local Greek church and the synagogue shared a large parking lot. When Greekfest happened it was always well attended from the other side.

      4. ursula*

        My industry has an annual conference that happens in a different city every year. For 3 years in a row our event coincided with a furry event in the same hotel! I have to say, they were honestly great? Super friendly, great vibes, everybody clearly having a good time and living their best life. I’m not a furry but I walked away from these experiences thinking so warmly of that community! Lifetime furry defender over here.

        1. Anonymous Industry Scientist*

          That happened to me as well. Everyone was so nice, but I one hundred percent refused to explain to the very staid VP at my company why there were people in the elevator with him wearing giant animal costumes. I am just not touching that with a 6 foot giant raccoon costume.

      5. Kesnit*

        My wife and I are pagan, so had a pagan ceremony for our wedding. We had the wedding at a hotel – and next to our room was an evangelical Christian women’s event. (We don’t think they noticed…)

        What was noticed was all the people in costume. You see, our wedding was Halloween themed, and everyone was told to come in costume. The entire wedding party was in Renaissance garb. I saw a woman frantically pushing the elevator call button when my best man, groomsmen, and I walked through the lobby. (The best man and I were wearing swords. One groomsman had a 6-foot staff. And my 6’3″ brother-in-law was wearing a full kilt.)

      6. Tupac Coachella*

        I went to a horror movie convention that split space with a Christian ladies retreat. Got my own biases checked when I saw two of the ladies’ retreat participants politely approach two of the celebrity guests at the bar (one of them a *very* well known person in that community but not particularly well known outside of it) to share that they were big fans and request a photo, which was happily obliged.

      7. Buffy*

        My favorite shared convention experience was the simultaneous occurrence of:
        -a nerd convention
        -a teen beauty pageant
        -a Tuskegee Airmen reunion

        (I was one of the nerds)

      8. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

        I once attended a Transformers convention where the adjoining conference hall was hosting a home improvement showcase convention thing for professionals. While my friends and I hung out in the lobby, we started trying to guess who coming in was going to which convention. Not as many people cosplaying back then, but we got a surprising number of them wrong.

      9. Accidental Itenerate Teacher*

        I’ve had this happen as well.
        I was at the comic con but to get from my room to the con floor I had to walk through….. the Methodist convention.
        Though there were some very lovely older women who were excited to get my picture for their grandsons.

        Then there was the year the con took up the whole center…. except the big theater type room that they’d rented out for some local college’s graduation.

      10. I Have RBF*

        Oh, I know of worse.

        A Red Lion airport conference hotel. A smallish pagan convention, sharing the hotel with … a very Christian fundamentalist MLM group. What a mess.

      11. Artemesia*

        I was at a conference in Charleston and my husband and were surrounded surrounded by small children in pageant costumes. We got on an elevator with two older women and a little toddler boy all kitted out like a lothario in a little tux and slicked back hair (all but the painted on mustache). My husband said ‘you have a fine little gentleman there. And the two older women with him — guessing grandmother and great aunt then answered in baby talk for the child ‘Thank you kind sir’ — we contained our laughter until we got off the elevator.

      12. Anonymous Industry Scientist*

        One time a scientific conference overlapped with the Bronies. Another time, there was a fandom convention in the same center. There were quite a few scientific attendees who bought one day passes to the fandom convention (including me…)

        It was less positive when the oil and gas industry convention overlapped with the scientists.

    5. BikeWalkBarb*

      I think I stayed in that hotel for a conference several years ago. Is it in Tacoma? Must have been on a different floor as I don’t remember the boobs.

      I do remember noticing that the list of artist names was 100% men. Gosh, no women artists available to feature in a hotel with *25 floors* and a different artist on every floor? How strange. If they don’t rotate the art that gives you additional insight into the theme on that floor.

      1. RIP Pillowfort*

        It was in Tacoma so it’s likely the same hotel. They may not have had the display several years ago because the main artist featured for the boob floor was a woman! So that has improved!

        1. linger*

          It’s maybe not so much of an improvement, as they seem to have literally chosen a female artist for her boobs. Unless she chose the theme to match their attitudes. Or unless there was some unifying concept for all the artists’ commissions. In which case there could have been a more startling theme a few floors down.

    6. Guacamole Bob*

      I went on a trip for a professional development program a few years back and the hotel was obviously going for a certain kind of hip vibe. Exposed concrete ceilings in the rooms, no lighting in the room good enough to be on a zoom call, a glass window from the bedroom into the shower (and past the shower to the toilet), and a minibar that included condoms and a vibrator.

      Since we each had our own rooms it was just kind of funny and the attendees joked about it a bit but it was no big deal. But it was kind of weird for a work trip.

      2. RabbitRabbit*

        Sounds like the work conference I went on to a hotel in Florida, where a younger coworker brought along her similarly-aged brother to enjoy the beach and bars. They shared a room (two beds) but the shower was the type with the big glass window into the rest of the hotel room. They saw that, winced, and mutually agreed to pointedly look the other direction when it was shower time for the other.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Whyyyyy with the glass doors? Even alone I would feel very exposed (not in the good way1)

          1. Princess Sparklepony*

            So you can see who’s creeping up on you with a knife dressed up like his mother!

    7. SpaceySteph*

      I have to know if this is Hotel Murano, because I stayed there on the floor with art entirely dedicated to phones of various eras.

        1. Siege*

          Ha, we had our organizational convention there in 2019 and I don’t remember any boobs, but I was cracking up – the lamps in the bedrooms were all different colors of glass, and mine were red, which gave the room a certain ambiance! Also, call me sheltered but it was the first time I’ve ever seen condoms and other aids in the mini bar. Quite honestly, I would bring my own if that was why I was there; I can’t imagine trusting something like that regarding expiry date and quality.

            1. Siege*

              Mini bar doesn’t mean refrigerator only. In higher end hotels, in my direct experience, the mini bar includes drawers with goods you wouldn’t want to refrigerate, such as candy bars and condoms.

    8. Salsa Your Face*

      Oh! I was at a similar hotel in Florida, once. It seemed very much like the kind of place where business travelers might stay, except all the artwork and sculptures were…labial.

    10. E. Chauvelin*

      I and several fellow members of the award committee I was on stayed at a hotel at a library conference several years ago where all of the floors had themes. Because none of us had opted out of the “scary movie floor,” a bunch of us were on the scary movie floor. When the elevators opened they said “Here’s Johnny,” Amityville Horror house in the hall, etc. The rooms were normal, although apparently there was one suite that went along with each floor’s theme. Not bad but part of my streak of unintentionally finding the weirdest hotel at any conference. I’d picked it because the restaurant sounded good.

      1. Perfectly normal-size space bird*

        One of my friends had to take a work trip into Olympic National Park. She was happy to stay in the park, but her employer insisted on booking a hotel room in a nearby town. The town was Forks, WA. The hotel was the Pacific Inn. The room was the Twilight-themed room.

        She was so mad, I kept getting ranting texts from her along with pictures of all the Twilight posters and decor she had to endure. By the time she fell asleep, I was laughing so hard I was hiccupping. She refused to let her employer book a hotel on subsequent trips.

        1. Beka Rosselin-Metadi*

          That is hilarious! I would easily have been texting about how angry I was and laughing at the angry texts.

      2. saf*

        My sister got married in the Catskills, at a ski area. The recommended hotel was the Roxbury motel.

        Just looked it up, and prices are MUCH higher now than we were then. And I am glad we got the chance to stay in the star trek suite! And to see so many of the other rooms, as most of them were occupied by family.

    11. Texan In Exile*

      For a convention in Atlanta, my material-handling engineering company was in the same hotel as a Furry convention.

      I had never heard of Furries before. And I was in an elevator with a grown man dressed in a purple squirrel costume, with his tail draped over his arm.

      1. Thegs*

        Good old Furry Weekend Atlanta (FWA). The last time I was there was… 2018? My fursuit with stilts was still in good condition back then, and I had a friend who was 6’6″ and we were quite the hit with all the tipsy business people in the lobby bars. I would have joined them for a drink, but stilts and alcohol don’t mix!

      2. Tinkerbell*

        Dragoncon in Atlanta (which encompasses five host hotels, 12 ovverflow hotels, and regularly draws 60-80K sci fi fans) always ends up with a significant number of football fans there for the big game that always falls on the same weekend. Unfortunately, many of the football fans never learned “cosplay is not consent,” so every year we have trouble with non-Dragoncon attendees getting handsy with young women in revealing costumes :-/

    12. AlexandrinaVictoria*

      I’ve stayed there! In Tacoma? I, too, was on the boob floor, and I loved every minute of it. I was just afraid to walk across the lobby with all the glass art! It was beautiful, but I’m a real klutz.

    13. goddessoftransitory*

      My goodness! This is like the next to last episode of Fallout in hotel form!

    14. JJL*

      That reminds me of a story my dad told me, he was on holiday with my older brother and stopped in a tiny town at an antique hotel that was now run as a cafe. They were the only customers at the time so while my dad was outside on his cellphone, the owner offered my brother a tour of the hotel. Which was all well and good until he found that every room had vintage pinups and erotica hanging on the walls!

  8. HonorBox*

    Another minor story, but one that still makes me laugh. I was at a conference in Vegas in the middle of July. In order to keep things cool enough in the meeting rooms throughout the day, the temperature was set to 60 degrees. People were FREEZING. We inquired about adjusting thermostats and were told that it wasn’t possible. So the facility staff brought in table cloths for people to wrap around them like blankets.

    1. Auntie Social*

      A similar situation is how I learned to bring one “opposite” piece of clothing when I travel. Brought a coat to the Vegas hotel and that’s how I stayed comfortable while the rest of the room froze.

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        I pack a large scarf in my bag. I don’t have to carry it around separately. It has kept me warm more than once in freezing conference rooms.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I have a lot of $5 “pashmina” scarf/shawls I’ve bought on the street. I love those things. I think pashmina is the Chinese word for polyester. But they are soft and warm but light and can really take a beating. Wash well in the machine and you can even put them in the dryer. They come out fine. I think the price has gone up though.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            Pashmina wool is made of cashmere, the undercoat of the the Changthangi goat. The word “pashmina” has been co-opted to refer to a large draped scarf that can indeed be polyester, which is probably what you have.

            I have a true pashmina someone at an old job gave to me. She got it as a gift and never wore it and passed it on to me. I’ve used it as a blanket on airplanes. It’s amazing.

      2. anon24*

        I don’t travel often and when I do I travel light, but I always have a hoodie with me, no matter where I go. If I’m flying I wear it to save space in my carry on, even if it’s the middle of summer. Gives me a comfort item that smells familiar to bury my face in at night and saves me if I end up somewhere unexpectedly cold.

      3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        My wife is an astronomer, and she always says you can pick out astronomers on the flight to Hawaii (there’s a major telescope on top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island) because they’re the ones carrying a parka.

        1. Spring*

          My family went to Hawaii in the summer when I was 10 or 11, and I was surprised at how very cold it was when we went to Mt. Haleakala to see the sun rise. Fortunately my dad, the planner, was not at all surprised, and we all had parkas with us on that trip for just that purpose. It was beautiful, BTW.

          1. RabbitRabbit*

            Did the same – being from Chicago and traveling there in cooler weather, we were acclimatized to colder temperatures. We didn’t spend extremely prolonged periods on the top but having packed windbreakers helped tremendously.

            1. Bronze Betty*

              Same here. From Michigan, and we didn’t pack parkas, but we did have warm hoodies and several layers.

            2. Siege*

              I was in Spain in 2001 at Christmas, and it actually snowed in Valencia. So all the Spaniards were freezing and wrapped up in giant overcoats and I was wearing a fleece vest because I was coming from the UK at a Canadian latitude and it was merely chilly to me. It probably also helped that I drank a lot of sangria because it vastly improves my Spanish.

      4. Distracted Procrastinator*

        I’m always cold in air conditioned rooms. I always have a sweater. (including non business events like just going to the movies in July.)

      5. AnonAnon*

        ALWAYS!!!!!! I was on a trip where the heat broke AND they never switched the bedding to winter so it was a thin sheet on the bed, no comforter. I was able to sleep in my hat and gloves and use my coat and large shawl as a blanket.

    2. aspirational yogurt*

      This happened to me at a conference last year in South Florida. When I saw the guy from Ireland get up and return with his parka on. I knew it was COLD and not just me possibly sitting directly under a vent or something.

    3. why do people make the choices they do*

      I checked what 60F is in Celsius (about 16C) and yikes, that’s definitely jacket weather. I wouldn’t leave the house without long pants and a layer or two at that temperature. I have not spent a lot of time in countries that are warm enough to need air conditioning, but is there a reason places do this? I mean, it makes no sense to deliberately have a room that cold no matter what the temperature is outside, doesn’t it? Especially if people will be mostly sitting around rather than walking, like they might in a mall or something.

      Is it bad design? Incompetence? Money saving? Some kind of status thing?

      1. Jack Russell Terrier*

        It happens everywhere and is a constant mystery. I live in DC and swear it’s hotter in winter than in summer. On and off, are articles in The Washington Post about it – people bringing space heaters into the office.

        1. Spring*

          NYC used to be like this, but after the 4 day blackout of a huge swath of the east coast of US and Canada in the early 2000s, buildings stopped being air conditioned to freezing levels. It was so much more comfortable, and I was glad to not freeze indoors in the summer anymore.

          1. sheworkshardforthemoney*

            I remember that blackout, a lot of business kept their lights half off for months afterwards because they were already over-brightly lit and they saved money.

        2. CommanderBanana*

          I HATE IT. I have to dress for 3 climates – the Metro, the walk to/from the Metro, and the office.

      2. HonorBox*

        It can be related to the design of the HVAC system and whether or not there is control for separate spaces. So in this case, it was probably likely that in order to increase temperature in the one meeting room, they’d be doing it for all areas on that floor, and there may be a lot more activity in the service areas. Then to reverse the temperature if it gets too hot later in the day, it takes quite a bit of time to even things out.

        Also, if I’m remembering correctly (this was 16 years ago), the hallway outside of the meeting rooms had large windows and there were doors that led out to some sort of patio. So the exterior heat (my shoe soles melted on the concrete that trip) was something they were trying to balance against.

      3. ADD hoc*

        Partly it’s cultural (history of AC being a status symbol, even if it no longer is), partly logistical. A large space full of (even stationary) human bodies will warm up a lot. So they crank up the AC before the people arrive and keep the thermostat low. You might notice a movie theater being cold when you walk in, but chances are that you don’t notice it by the end of the movie, because a bunch of humans have warmed it up over the course of the showing.

        1. Azure Jane Lunatic*

          I wore a fleece blanket on my overnight tech support shifts in Arizona. There were just a few of us, so the temperature really never got warm enough to be comfortable. Someone from Facilities explained to me that if they had it at a comfortable temperature overnight, the inherent lag in the climate control would mean it would be much too hot by mid-morning and the system would be playing catchup all day, which is not where you want to be.

      4. A CAD Monkey*

        Basically the temperature is set low to offset the body heat from the conference attendees and heat from electronic devices. This typically means that to have a “comfortable” temperature of ~72F (22C) for 1000+ people, the thermostat get set to COLD and left there. It’s not the ideal scenario, but the alternative of allowing the individual areas to adjust temp costs a lot of money and comes with more maintenance issues.

      5. The Prettiest Curse*

        Hotels in the US generally keep their air con very chilly for conferences. The excuses they’ve made to me (an events person) when I’ve asked them to turn it up include:
        1. The room will warm up over time as it is populated by people.
        2. The weather outside is warm so they have to keep it cool inside.
        3. It keeps people from falling asleep after lunch. (They would keep it cold and people would fall asleep anyway.)

        Hotels in the UK are kind of the opposite, since we’re a countey less into air conditioning. I did an event for 200 people in a hotel ballroom this week and had to ask them to make it cooler because it was getting stuffy. I never had to do that in the US!

      6. Some Words*

        It keeps attendees awake. Warm and comfortable can easily lead to drowsy and nodding off.

        1. Future*

          I just can’t believe that. There’s a massive range between so cold you need long pants and a jacket and so warm people are nodding off. Also, if people nodding off is genuinely a big problem I don’t think it’s really the room temperature that’s at greatest fault!

      7. Dancing Otter*

        They haven’t gotten out of the mindset of men in business suits needing it cooled until they are comfortable, and to h*ll with anyone else.

      8. run mad; don't faint*

        It’s to combat the rising temperature outside and also to combat the temperature rising when the hall fills up with people. I think the crowds interfere with the flow of air, so the room gets/feels warmer.

      9. JustaTech*

        Vegas is notorious for being extremely over-air conditioned. Part of it is to keep you inside on the casino floor, because when you step outside in July you’re going to turn around and go back in because it’s like 110F outside. (I once burned my arms leaning on a railing to take a picture in Vegas in July. Do not recommend.)

      10. Distracted Procrastinator*

        I think a lot of it is tradition and a lot of it is a misunderstanding of how thermostats work. A correctly set thermostat already takes into account the heating of a room as it fills up. That’s what it’s for. it doesn’t measure the temperature of the air going into the room, it measures the temp of the room itself. If the room warms above the set temperature, the system will turn on and cool it down more. it makes no sense to over cool a room because people will make it warmer. of course they will, that is why we have thermostats. So when that happens, the system will turn on and send more cool air. 68 would still make the room feel cool, but not make people feel like they need to dress in winter gear.

      11. goddessoftransitory*

        A little of each. When AC first became a thing for buildings and businesses, they were set for the comfort of men wearing three piece suits made of wool, and often that just never evolved. It was also a status thing, and a selling point (like movie theaters advertising ICE COLD AIR, a real draw in a boiling hot city.)

    4. ADD hoc*

      That is how I got my “AC hoodie” that says “Las Vegas” in sparkly beads. Living in Texas, I have a lot of use for it.

    5. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Had a similar experience in Phoenix last September. I went out to the 100+ sunshine between every session.

      1. HonorBox*

        I wasn’t as uncomfortable with the temperature as some were, but I definitely took advantage of the Vegas heat during breaks.

    6. Heather*

      Yup. Went to a training in Alabama. We were told it was a bit chilly in the classrooms. I took that to mean wear sleeves. I had to go to Costco the first night and buy layering clothes because it was so cold inside. In my feedback, I told them they should be telling people the classrooms are in the low 60s so people can dress appropriately.

    7. Nightengale*

      I went to a conference in Phoenix Arizona in September, along with most of my department. Everyone kept talking about how hot it was going to be. I tend to run cold and insisted I would be cold.

      I was cold. Many of us were cold. Sure, it was 120 outside but we were barely outside. It was 60 inside. I had worn layers but was still chilly and survived by filling my water bottle from the hot tea urn.

      I was in a medical training program and one of my supervisors went back to her hotel room during the first break, got the blanket off her bed and came back to the sessions wrapped up in it. I considered doing the same, but she already knew almost everyone there and already had a job. I knew I might need a job from someone in that room someday and needed to come off as mildly eccentric at best (rather than my flamingly neurodivergent self.)

  9. Pivot*

    In a former life, I directed a student support service with a staff of college students. Wanted to take them to an upcoming conference, but all travel has to be paid by employees up front and reimbursed (usually months later). I hardly expected my students to pay up front, so I paid for rental car, hotel rooms, conference fees, etc. myself. Drove a van with students and show up to a hotel that, while a reputable chain, has seen better days. It was filthy, so I had to argue with the hotel for a refund while ALSO booking additional rooms, all on my card, at 11 pm. It was so stressful – there has to be a better way.

    1. redwinemom*

      I always check the reviews for hotels – even when it is a reputable brand.
      And I don’t use the hotel’s own website for those reviews….. I fear that they would remove the negative reviews. (I tend to use Tripadvisor)

      1. CatMouse*

        A friend who used to work for a business that bought/sold hotel properties told me to look at photos of the sidewalks and parking areas. If there’s grass/weeds growing through cracks, you probably don’t want to stay there as they probably don’t pay attention to details when handling maintenance and cleaning either. Don’t know how valid it is, but since I now only stay at places with maintained sidewalks and parking areas, I’ve never been disappointed with the interior!

        1. vito*

          Well, I work frond desk at a hotel and the grounds are GORGEOUS. The rooms…not so much. the rooms are tired and the owners do not want to put the money in to upgrade. so looking at the conditions of the grounds might not help.

      3. Ms. Murchison*

        I used to always use AAA books to find clean, safe hotels. Unfortunately, the AAA website uses a mishmosh of reviews and its harder to shop for the ones that legitimately have the AAA star rating. I really ought to see if they still make those travel books with their own hotel reviews.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I thought AAA was really stringent with their reviews. Don’t they have a team that anonymously reviews hotels for their awards?

    2. Anon for this*

      I’ve been in academia and in corporate, and that’s one thing that just blows me away. In grad school I made $18,000/yr and had to occasionally book tickets to Europe (from the US) and hotel rooms for a conference, and then get reimbursed months later. Making ten times as much now, I get a corporate card and my boss checks in to make sure I’m getting reimbursed in a timely manner and they urge me to put appropriate purchases (technical books) in the development budget. It just continues to bother me…

      1. Sleeping Panther*

        My grad department offered professional development grants for job interviews, internships, conference presentations, etc., and while you received the grant far enough in advance that you could use it to pay for travel, you got a maximum of $500 for domestic travel and $1000 for international, either of which barely covers airfare if you’re lucky. I got an internship in North Macedonia, and my professional development grant did cover my airfare, but flying from Texas to the Balkans and back on the cheap will give you a pretty brutal itinerary. My return trip involved spending 36 hours on planes, in airports, or in an airport hotel, and I wasn’t allowed to take my checked bags with me for the overnight layover.

      1. Yeep*

        In the meantime, I run vigilante offering up my travel card to any students I find out are going to a conference. LET ME BOOK THAT FOR YOU

  10. Hiring Mgr*

    I don’t have anything too interesting myself, but i recall an old letter here about someone who was stuck in a foreign country with no money or credit card because her colleague had somehow taken their ticket because they needed two and didn’t want to tell anyone.

    1. Observer*

      That was actually a post on one of the open threads. And it was the person who took the ticket – she was posting about how to deal with the fact that her employer was ticked off when they found out about it.

        1. Insert Clever Name Here*

          This is the first time I’ve read that and OH.MY.GOSH. What an absolutely messed up situation.

            1. Storm in a teacup*

              Spectacular failures on the part of the OP more like. They were embarrassed and behaved irresponsibly and cruelly to a junior employee and then in the chat seemed to initially take no accountability for their action or be able to see beyond their embarrassment to the actual harm they caused their junior employee.
              They left their employee stranded in a foreign airport. They took the work phone and petty cash. They knew employee had not got enough authorisation on their company card.
              Did not inform company employee was stranded.
              Employee’s sister had to take a payday loan to get them a flight back.
              Yes the company should have better travel policies but that doesn’t excuse the appalling behaviour on a part of the OP.

            2. Iain C*

              About the only thing the commenter didn’t do was chloroform their colleague and leave them in a dumpster.

              Changed flights to pocket cash. Took all the money with them. And the phone. Didn’t tell anyone else.

              Sure, the company should have been better, as should the airline – but those all add to OP’s blame, they don’t take away from it.

              1. Quill*

                Yeah, I commented, read further, and while the company didn’t do great (in terms of the reimbursement) and the airline did poorly in not having a policy of being sure which human being a ticket is for… OP did so much worse

    3. Hlao-roo*

      It was posted in the open thread from March 30-31, 2018 by commenter “no Name”

      I’ll link in a follow-up comment.

    4. Janet*

      I think it is the one where the LW was too large to fit into a single seat? Maybe? And they were so embarrassed they told no one.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        And they had made a habit of trading in the company-paid-for fully refundable tickets to buy worse non-refundable ones, pocketing the difference and referring to it as “petty cash.” Which is not where petty cash comes from.

        1. Anon for this*

          I… wow. Just read that, and… they were so hung up on the fact that they were being shamed for their weight that they glossed over breaching company policy to steal money, stealing their junior coworker’s work phone, and essentially just left him for dead?

        2. Antilles*

          Reading that thread, I’m honestly surprised that wasn’t discussed more by commenters because it seems like straight up fraud.
          I’ve generally worked for companies that were easy to work with on travel expenses and reimbursement, but I can’t imagine ANY of them being okay with “we paid for a ticket, you changed it to a cheaper one, and you quietly pocketed the difference without telling us”.

        3. Quill*

          Don’t you know that petty larceny shares a word with petty cash, and is therefore the same thing? /s

    5. Sage*

      I vaguely remember that, but I think it was written by the person who stranded their colleague. It was hard to read.

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        I have just read the post and responses and was horrified.

        The worst part was the casual way in which the junior employee was stranded with no money, nothing to eat or drink and no mobile phone.

        1. MM*

          I think the worst part was how many people commenting defended her and tried to blame the company and the stranded junior coworker.

          1. Anon for this*

            I WOULD blame the company… but for not firing that OP immediately because the incident revealed their fraud, and for not making the junior who was a victim of OP’s fraud whole.

          2. Hindsight*

            To be fair to the commenters at the time, OP really trickle-truth’ed the part where she took her coworker’s phone and especially the part where she created the whole situation by committing fraud (changing flights away from the company-approved airline to a cheaper one and pocketing the difference).

            1. Quill*

              Yeah, going through the comments at the moment, it’s super unclear at first that 1) the flight switch amounted to actual fraud, rather than some kind of conflict with taking the cheaper airline’s price / time frame for convenience, and that 2) OP actively removed coworker’s ability contact anyone.

              1. goddessoftransitory*

                The OP did indeed slide that info under the blanket of “being forced to take two seats.”

            2. Laura*

              wow, just read through that and IT’S WILD. OP absolutely knew what they were doing and they’re upset about getting caught and has no empathy for the coworker that they STRANDED IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY FOR TWO DAYS.

              1. Random Bystander*

                And that the stranded co-worker had to rely on a family member getting a *payday loan* (which comes with outrageous interest rates) in order to purchase a ticket. “no Name” was all ‘I’m being picked on; other country is very biased against overweight people, the airline personnel were mean and commented, when Fergus got back and told people about how he had been stranded I think that everyone at work is talking about my weight’ and not so much about ‘I am ashamed that I treated a junior employee so badly that he was left in a foreign country with virtually no resources and no way back after I broke company policy to pocket extra cash’. I mean, if Fergus hadn’t had a relative able to get a loan and wire him the money, then what?

                I do agree with the commenters who said that the company was slightly at fault for not having mechanisms in place to prevent ‘no Name’ from going rogue on the travel arrangements (since the approved arrangements would have protected Fergus from being stranded). I also do think the company should have made Fergus financially whole (so that the payday loan + interest could be paid off) and taken it out of ‘no Name’ in whatever manner possible.

                Wild, wild read.

      2. ferrina*

        Wow, I hadn’t read that before and that is a tough read. Not just for what the poster did, but the way they hid a lot of it. They were so focused on their shame that they glossed over a lot of their behavior- like directly violating company policy in booking the tickets so she could have extra petty cash for the trip, then taking his ticket (it sounds like without telling him?), stranding him without a way to communicate (taking his phone with her), and not actually telling anyone that he was there….just, wow. I wouldn’t be surprised if the poster was fired.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I read it and I didn’t understand really what happened. And I just didn’t care to reread it because it was hard to read the first time… It did seem like a flustercluck with everything going wrong that could. And no backup from company.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          I mean honestly; this is how people get set up to be kidnapped/assassinated in action movies!

    6. TG*

      Was there ever an update in what happened to the woman for flying home and making the junior employee to fend for himself? I’d have said yeah you can go as soon as you book me a room with a food credit and give me the cash you made on turning in the tickets for cheaper to pocket the money!!

    7. A Simple Narwhal*

      Woof I just read through that and it is…A Lot. To summarize:

      -The poster was in a foreign country on business with a junior colleague
      -When they were trying to fly home, the airline informed her that due to her size, she would need to use two seats/tickets. According to the poster they were incredibly cruel and mean to her, and out of panic/shame she just boarded the plane, using the tickets meant for her and her colleague, leaving the colleague without a ticket home
      -Compounding things, she took with her the petty cash and the colleague’s work phone. She also admits to knowing that the colleague does not have a credit card, just a debit card with low funds. The corporate card he did have was not approved for high amounts, making it mostly useless.
      -On top of all that, they were flying on the weekend and there was no one in the office or weekend travel support available, so there was no one to contact about the situation.
      -When she got home, the poster was so ashamed she did not contact anyone or tell her manager about the situation. It only came to light when the junior colleague managed to make it home after his sister took a payday loan to wire him money to get another ticket, which was days later.

      To summarize the summary: the poster left a junior colleague stranded for two days in a foreign airport with no food, money, lodging, or even his bags. It also came out that the airline home was different from the one out (so she didn’t know about the extra seat requirement) only because the poster went against company policy and rebooked the tickets home on a cheaper airline in order to pocket the difference. (Not exactly relevant to the main issue but not a good look regardless.)

      It was a rough read, I wonder how it all shook out. I hope the poster is in a better place but I really hope that the junior colleague was made whole again. (Another issue was that the company was refusing to reimburse the junior colleague.)

      1. linger*

        The junior colleague was greatly inconvenienced solely through the actions of the senior colleague, who had not told anyone at the company about those actions (unsurprisingly, because those actions went beyond negligence into fraud), and also prevented junior colleague from contacting the company (taking junior’s work phone does not seem a mere accident in this context). It’s difficult to see what responsibility the company had, other than getting the money out of senior colleague to reimburse the junior colleague as soon as they were made aware. Garnishing the senior colleague’s wages would not have been an overreaction, though possibly moot since the senior colleague thoroughly deserved to be fired immediately.

        1. CommanderBanana*

          Yes, if you read the thread, she just keeps harping on how ashamed she is and oh the shame, yet somehow she didn’t apologize or try to make the junior employee whole. Interesting.

          1. CeeDoo*

            I’m not trying to pile on here, but when she said, “I should have told them when I got back,” I nearly had a heart attack. She should have informed the company immediately, not after she took an international flight home! The whole situation was bizarre.

            1. CommanderBanana*

              It was honestly jaw-dropping to me how many people in the comments were rushing to assure her that it was all ok because she felt ashamed, and that meant that leaving her coworker stranded, with no ticket, no way to get home, no money, no credit card, no way to contact anyone, and not telling him or anyone else what she had done, all the while committing fraud with the ticket switcheroo to pocket more cash, was acceptable.

              Her weight wasn’t what she should have felt ashamed of.

              1. Anon for this*

                She admittedly didn’t make a lot of the horrible details apparent, at first. The fact that she stole his phone so he couldn’t try to call for help, the fact that she fraudulently rebooked their flights onto a cheaper airline that didn’t allow refunds, the fact that the “petty cash” she took with her wasn’t actually petty cash, it was the money she stole….

                1. Princess Sparklepony*

                  In reading it (which I found difficult) I didn’t realize she stole his phone – who in heck does that? And I couldn’t figure out what the petty cash thing was or what her “plan” was. I thought it was super confusing but it seems she was trying to hide a lot of her actions.

                2. goddessoftransitory*

                  From BOTH the tickets. So she involved him in the fraud. There’s no way the whole “I took his phone and didn’t tell anyone where he was” wasn’t deliberate at that point.

                  I get her panicking when she realized exactly how much trouble she was in (as she should have) but the whole “oh, I’m so ashamed” thing doesn’t really work when what she was ashamed of wasn’t stranding a coworker in another country for two days! With no money or phone!

              2. A Simple Narwhal*

                I think part of the issue was the poster didn’t reveal all of the information – she made it seem like her colleague just got bumped from their return flight and then a mess happened unbeknownst to her, and now her company is blaming her for something she could have had no idea would have happened. And based on that people jumped to comfort her.

                Then she slowly revealed that she actually stole his ticket and knowingly left him with no money, no way of contacting anyone, and no way home. I think people would have been way less sympathetic if they had the whole picture up front.

              3. Hlao-roo*

                To be a little fair to the commenters at the time, a fair chunk of the reassuring comments were made before the clarifications that the coworker had no was to contact anyone and that the OP booked cheaper tickets as part of a switcheroo to pocket more cash. The commenters were more stern after those details came to light.

                From the original comment alone, it is possible to think that the airline and the company bear the bulk of the blame for that situation (the airline for allowing the OP to use the coworker’s ticket and not rebooking him on a new flight, and the company for not having stronger/better travel policies). The later comments show that most of the blame is/was OP’s.

          2. tabloidtained*

            People can feel deep shame, completely freeze up, and be unable to face the people they hurt through their actions.

            1. CommanderBanana*

              True. Sometimes feeling deep shame is justified. In this case, I think her feeling ashamed of her choices is entirely justified. It doesn’t change that she left an employee stranded, phoneless, cashless, ticketless in another country and didn’t tell anyone.

              Again, I sincerely hope she got fired.

        2. Insert Clever Name Here*

          Honestly, the company should have immediately reimbursed the junior employee for all his costs (including the payday loan and any interest) and then gone after the senior employee to reimburse them. And then completely overhauled literally everything related to travel.

        1. CeeDoo*

          I hope she also reimbursed the other employee/his sister for the interest charged for that payday loan. Those places are so predatory, that even if the company reimbursed his flight, the sister might have been out hundreds of dollars in interest. In Texas, the typical rate is 664% interest. For an international flight, that could run into the thousands just in interest.

          2. Princess Sparklepony*

            Sadly, sometimes people end up taking out another payday loan to pay off the interest on the first payday loan. It’s a vicious cycle. They really should be outlawed.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          If I were that employee I would not rest until I and my sister were totally reimbursed and that person was fired. Like, it would be my quest.

      3. sheworkshardforthemoney*

        If I were the junior employee I would have gone straight from the airport to work and lay out the whole situation to my boss and grandboss. And tell them that unless they did a full reimbursement they would be contacting a lawyer or quitting and leaving a very blistering review on Glassdoor.

        1. CommanderBanana*

          Oh, I would absolutely contact a lawyer, and if the company didn’t reimburse me completely and provide compensation for the time and stress of the ordeal, I would have sued her personally. And if they didn’t fire her for her string of horrible choices, I would quit.

        2. Kiv*

          It sounds like he did, and based on the fact that they sent her home for at least a day for making the excuse that he should have had his own credit card, they probably did fire the person shortly afterwards.

      5. Dog momma*

        I call bull on the panic and shame by the person that did this..apparently there wasn’t A problem on the way out, just the way back. Once I’m done with the comments, I’ll go back and read that. This is JUST EVIL, and the company refusing to reimburse the Jr colleague is just as bad!

  11. Bird Lady*

    A friend and I were traveling to present at an academic conference, and asked me to arrange the hotel room for us to split since I had received a generous financial gift from my now-husband to pay for the weekend at Harvard and to have the ability to “live it up” a bit. I booked a room with two beds and purchased admission for two to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. We figured that if the lunch at the conference was lacking, at least we’d have a good breakfast.

    When we arrived, the hotel manager apologized to us as somehow my double queen room had turned into a single king. While a little awkward, we made the best of sharing a bed since there really wasn’t anything we could do – the hotel was booked with the conference and we couldn’t find another suitable hotel that would allow us to walk to Harvard. Parking in Boston is a nightmare and I didn’t want to pay to park at the hotel and then pay to park at the college. (That money was for the Harvard bookstore, thank you very much!)

    The next morning, I went to breakfast first while my friend finished up. When she attempted to join me, she was told she was denied entrance since the room she was in was a single bed. I tried to intervene, but they refused her entry into the dining room. When I asked for a refund for the breakfast – it was $48/ person – I was told it was nonrefundable. So we went to Dunkin Donuts.

    The next day, we tried again. She entered first, then I joined. And apparently it was okay. But I’m still spicy over losing almost $50 because of a hotel mix up requiring me to share a bed.

    1. Delta Delta*

      The breakfast thing makes no sense. If a couple checked into that room only one of them would be allowed to eat breakfast? Especially if you paid for it? I’m annoyed on your behalf.

      1. A Poster Has No Name*

        Yeah, the hotel was so wrong on this in so many ways. For that money I’d have made A Scene and I’m not one to ever do something like that.

      1. Jackalope*

        Right? Or two family members; I probably wouldn’t share a bed with my sister these days but when we were young and spry in our 20s, sure! It seems so weird to knee jerk deny someone a perk like this when there are good reasons to assume they’re telling the truth, and almost certainly a way to check in the system (or go to the reception area and get a voucher or something) to confirm.

      2. Bird Lady*

        We could have been married as a same sex couple too. It would not be the first time we’ve been confused for a married couple, which we find rather funny, but it just seemed like a weird hill for the hotel staff to die on.

      3. Curious*

        Or a wife and a wife — which I think shouldn’t be a problem in Massachusetts, at least!

    4. CommanderBanana*

      As someone who runs conferences for a living, if that happened to an attendee at one of my events, I’d shred the housing person and the person who refused them entry up one side and down the other.

      1. Bird Lady*

        This was also the same conference in which water was provided, but no way to bring the water with you. Seriously, there were no cups or glasses offered! Lunch was a buffet of vegan lentils and rice, but there were no forks. We were encouraged to use some sort of naan or pita bread to pick up the food. As a Celiac, there was no way for me to eat my lunch other than to use my fingers. We decided to sneak away for a burger and fries with a rather large contingent of folks with food allergies.

        For a food history conference, the choices about food were strange. I could understand trying to be thought provoking, but these were just odd choices.

        1. Hungry*

          I was thinking of a small conference me and a fellow grad got to go to in Denmark years ago. We were very much the juniors there and it was a perk that we got to attend. We were locked in for two long days in a group of about 20 – so there was no sneaking out.

          It was two days without food. Both of us had a few foods we didn’t eat – the main issues here were fish and cheese. Everything had fish and/or cheese mixed through it. The dinner the first evening was a buffet and in amongst all the cheese and fish was a bowl of unadulterated pasta, which the two of us tried to covertly consume without looking too weird.

          There was a fancy dinner the second night with a set menu of no choice (don’t know what vegetarians are supposed to do). The starter was smoked salmon (tears) and the main was veal (wailing). The dessert was pancakes and we both fell on them like wolves. At the end of both days we finished too late for any shops, so we couldn’t even get chocolate or snacks.

          Now that I am older I travel with snacks in all my bags just in case. And I know that bacon, pastries and butter cookies are not actually common danish foods.

    5. Jack Russell Terrier*

      This is odd because my experience with hotel b&b packages is that the amount for breakfast is for the room not per person.

      1. Bird Lady*

        This was per person as an extra add-on to the accommodations. In retrospect, there were plenty of fantastic places to eat near by and it wasn’t necessary. I have Celiac, so I know eggs and protein is usually safe to eat and offered at a breakfast buffet. We figured better safe than sorry, especially if the offered lunch wasn’t great… and it wasn’t.

        1. Jack Russell Terrier*

          Ahh right – not a package!! I can’t believe they didn’t honor it after they made the cock up!

    7. goddessoftransitory*

      Wait, what?? Because only one person at a time sleeps in a KING SIZED bed? I do not get that at all!

  12. Lunch Meat*

    This is a pretty low stakes one. In 2019 I was traveling to a convention my work was putting on. It was my 8th convention so I had my routine pretty well figured out. They told us ahead of time that the hotel had stopped providing free coffee in the rooms. They now had keurig machines, and the pods were available on the minibar if you paid for them. I planned ahead by bringing a reusable k-cup and a small Tupperware of grounds.

    When I got there, I realized that the coffee cups, stirrers, creamer, and sugar were all packaged in plastic WITH the coffee pod. I bought a cheap branded travel mug and then realized it wouldn’t fit under the coffee maker spout. I figured the plastic water cups would survive the hot coffee long enough to pour it into the mug…they did not.

    I think I bought coffee that morning and requisitioned cardboard takeout cups from the meeting rooms for every other morning.

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      I have never been in a hotel in the US either so cheap or so “we’re high-end and don’t provide free anything so our base prices will look reasonable” that they didn’t provide at least free crappy pod coffee! Or coffee machines downstairs!

      1. Lunch Meat*

        This was in Las Vegas, where the rooms actually kind of suck because they want you downstairs spending money lol.

        2. Mairead*

          Yup, my first thought when I read the surprised post above was “tell me you’ve never been to Vegas without telling me…”

        3. Ally McBeal*

          Adding to that, I’ve been to Vegas exactly one time (on business) and was horrified by how skimpy the room service options were. The hotel I stayed in had restaurants, but IIRC the room service was only available from the cafe, and that was prepackaged salads and sandwiches that cost at least 2x what I paid for similar fare in NYC.

          Maybe it was just my hotel and I’d have had better luck if I’d stayed at the Bellagio or whatever, but it was really disappointing.

          1. LCH*

            we stayed at the Cosmo and it did not have room coffee. but it did have windows into the shower from the bedroom.

        4. Skog*

          Las Vegas is notorious for this! One place I stayed at didn’t even have a mini-fridge available!

      3. i need my coffee*

        I’ve been doing a fair bit of international travel the last six months, to quite a few countries on several continents, and I have noticed that a lot of hotels don’t have coffee or tea in the rooms. And not just in the cheap hotels.

        I am not sure if it’s that it’s less common in some of the countries I was travelling in (it was my first time in a certain region) or if hotels are just starting to cut costs because everything is just getting so expensive. I suspect it might be a bit of both.

        1. Chocolate Teapot*

          A lot of countries in Europe don’t have tea and coffee in the rooms although there might be a free coffee machine in the lobby.

          1. Elizabeth West*

            The B&B I stayed at in Cardiff had a whole kettle in the room, along with a little teapot and some biccies. I mostly just went down for breakfast and had my coffee there, but it was nice, and right in the center of town close to everything. I’d stay there again.

        2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

          That’s why I specified “in the US” – I’ve definitely been in hotels in other countries with no in-room coffee or tea.

    2. Lunch Meat*

      I forgot to mention it wasn’t even a real keurig so my cup didn’t *quite* fit and that also made a mess.

    3. OMG, Bees!*

      A new variation to office coffee wars somehow emerges! Wow.

      I don’t drink coffee, so I luckily skip out on most of those. Instead, I drink energy drinks, which are nice and personal/private, so no mugs to share/fight over. But, as they are canned liquids, not allowed on airplanes, so I still have a story.

      After a weekend trip, catching a 6am flight back home to arrive at work by 10am, I sorta planned ahead by bringing an energy drink with me to quickly chug before the flight. Only problem was, due to the early hour, I got my plan wrong and expected to get through airport security, then drink it while waiting to board. Instead, I was told to throw away my unopened drink into the trash to be able to proceed through security. Completely on me, and still annoyed by this years later, but had I been awake enough to realize this, I could have easily had the energy drink well before then instead of needing to get sad airport coffee as a replacement.

  13. ML Sylvet*

    At a large conference, when the CEO finished breakfast room service and went to put tray outside the door, and it slammed behind him. Wearing boxers and with no phone on hand, he stood around until someone else on staff happened to walk by and saved him (and saved some embarrassment).

    3. Yeep*

      Ugh, I forgot my key in the workout room at the same hotel, same conference, multiple years in a row. I am fair skinned and turn the color of an apple when I do cardio, so I had to go to the front desk, sweating, red, and in shorts and a tank top, while everyone from my conference milled through the lobby to get to continental breakfast.

  14. ElizabethJane*

    My first ever business trip happened while I was also working for a horrible boss. It was my first ever corporate job, I was 24.

    There was a truly outrageous amount of traffic around the Atlanta airport and what should have been a 30 minute drive took almost 4 hours (partially because the sales rep driving me made several wrong turns).

    I missed my flight and called my boss about rebooking or what other options I had and he told me the company didn’t pay for employee mistakes and the solution was to buy my own ticket in my dime to get home. I went to the agent to try to buy a ticket and the same day flight cost was over $1000, which I did not have because I was 24. I burst into tears and the gate agent was like “OK we’ll fix this” and I don’t know what she did but I didn’t have to pay anything to fly. I still love Delta for the kindness they showed me.

    (also I learned later that it would have been absolutely fine to put the new flight on my corporate card and that terrible boss was wrong and terrible).

    1. dorothy zbornak*

      I remember being broke AF at 24 so I am very happy that the Delta agent showed you such kindness and booooo forever to that boss.

      1. sheworkshardforthemoney*

        Many years ago I did travel arrangements and at the time people got their travel advances in the form of travellers’ cheques. It was the government and there was no such thing as corporate credit cards at that time. I would regularly get stacks of travellers’ cheques in the thousands of dollars if I was booking for more than 3 people. The travellers were expected to use the cheques for everything, hotels, taxis, meals, etc. One time I was returning to the office with 10K worth of checks stuffed in my purse which was clutched to my chest because I couldn’t imagine any excuse that would explain my losing that much money.
        Finally, there was a conference big enough to rationalize me coming along. My boss took care of paying for my hotel room and meals with his funds. Later I realized how lucky I was because being young 25! I had one poor little credit card and if anything went wrong at all I had was my airline ticket home.

    3. Miette*

      That boss is an ass but you know that. I remember being in a similar situation at the same age, driving my own car to a city about 3 hours away for a work trip, and then having a tire blow out while I was driving. I had crappy credit, not enough credit limit to cover, and the place wouldn’t accept an out-of-state check. I too burst into tears and the manager took pity on me. When I got back and told my boss, she got on the phone to whoever made the decisions about it and yelled until they agreed to let me get a corporate AmEx. The great thing about getting it was that using it and paying it off each month for the business expenses I incurred repaired my bad credit, and I haven’t looked back.

      Anyway, long winded way of saying that… I really think teaching junior staff about travel policies is something that is very much lacking, and should be covered at onboarding for staff who will need to travel. It never has at any company I’ve worked, all you were given was an always out-of-date employee manual and that’s it. I make a point of going over everything with my own team (when I’m a manager), but not all bosses take the time.

      1. Distracted Procrastinator*

        I neglected to ask about travel policies before my first business trip and no one thought to go over them with me. Luckily was a short trip and a small business, so it wasn’t a huge issue to straighten out later, but it would have been nice to know before hand. (my previous company was a very large multi-national company and if I had screwed up procedures with them in the same way, it could have cost me my job. They were very attached to their procedures, especially when it came to money.)

        All employees who are expected to travel should be briefed on travel expectations/processes before their first trip!

    4. Anonanonanon*

      Oh, my gosh this reminds me of my really wonderful boss when I was young and truly broke. We were travelling together for a conference (probably my first business trip), she had my room and flights on her card, she paid for all meals or told me to put anything I ate at the hotel on my room. She had the rental car. Unexpectedly she had to change her flight to travel home the night before we were originally scheduled so we would no longer be travelling home on the same flight. She pre-paid for a car to take me to the airport and left me with petty cash so I could eat. I think of her often and make sure my employees now don’t have work travel costs burden them.

    5. NoIWontFixYourComputer*

      I was flying Delta from Reagan National (DCA) to LAX (via ATL, of course).

      Well, the flight that I was going to take from DCA to ATL was late coming into to the airport… big surprise, right? So while I was waiting for the plane to arrive at DCA, I spoke with the gate agent, explained that I had a connection that I might miss, and could he help me?

      So this guy changes my seat to the first row of economy (I was towards the middle rear), and then books me a backup reservation from ATL to LAX…

      The plane finally comes, and we get to ATL. Anyone who has ever changed planes in Atlanta knows what a nightmare it is. So I’m doing the OJ run through the airport, and actually get to the gate three minutes before scheduled departure. Of course, the jetway is closed, so I sigh, and tell them, I have a backup reservation, for the flight that happens in one hour, and ask if they could please look it up. They print me a new boarding pass, and I look at it, and I receive a very pleasant surprise. I got booked into first class for my inconvenience.

      So, I make it home only an hour late, and get to fly transcontinental first class. Not a bad trade-off.

  15. Quartz*

    Splitting my favorite pair of work pants right down the booty in the Denver airport. I was crying for another reason too, but luckily now I can’t remember. 10 years later I’m in a much better place in my life!

    1. prof*

      Oh no! Nothing like looking back on those moments from a better place and feeling light years away though!

    2. Florence Reese*

      Omg, that’s horrifying at a baseline but that airport is SO CONFUSING and so spread out to boot! Awful!

      (I did laugh out loud at “I was crying for another reason too” though, because yeah, been there. Glad you’re in a better place!!)

      1. Elk*

        I grew up in Denver and it still surprises me every time I fly to another city and the airport is actually functional. DIA is awful!

      2. FricketyFrack*

        I feel like DIA is pretty simple – it’s just so LONG. Like, there are only 3 terminals, so that’s not bad, but it means each one takes 30 years to walk. I had a flight in one of the very end gates once and by the end I was dramatically talking about how we would reach Mordor any minute.

        Meanwhile, I had to take a 20 minute bus ride to change gates at Atlanta, and thought I was going to miss a connection at Heathrow because it’s a 30-40 minute ride to get from terminal 5 to 4, and then you still have to walk more. That airport is insanity.

        1. Quill*

          I can always FIND things fine at denver but can I cross the three mile long terminal in time? Dodging everyone else?

          Last time I flew through denver they had a kiosk of emotional support dogs and honestly, good idea, but they should have had sled dogs to haul me and my carry on across the airport too.

        2. Elizabeth West*

          I used to feel that way at the Dallas airport — and the little carts were always going the wrong way. Then I went back some years later and they had put in a train. It saved my butt when I (stupidly) left my wallet on the plane when coming back from AZ. They called the other gate and someone found it in my seat pocket. Thanks to the train, I was able to zip down there, get it, and zip back. If I had had to walk, there’s no way I would have made that connecting flight.

    3. Mad Harry Crewe*

      On my first business trip, wearing my favorite trousers (and the only pants I was bringing for the trip) – someone had left the broken stub of an audio jack sticking out of the headphone plug in my seat’s armrest. It caught and tore a small but definitely visible hole in the hip. I was so upset.

      1. JustaTech*

        I was on a business trip where we had our Federal Regulators visiting the site and I walked into the bathroom and discovered that the zipper of my pants had ripped out of the fabric. Thankfully I was wearing a shirt I could untuck to cover up my un-zipped-ness but it was just another ball of stress I did not need on that trip.

    4. whyblue*

      I split my pants down the back while trying to get onto a train and slipping on a patch of ice. On my way to day one of a consulting gig for a new client.
      I spent the day trying to keep my back to the wall and walking at the back of the group at all times – only the were very polite and kept gesturing for me to go first. Since then, I do not leave the house without a safety pin.

    5. Anonymath*

      Was scheduled to present some research at a conference in DC and discovered, upon unpacking the afternoon before my presentation, that my husband’s cat (not mine, I like dogs, they came as a package deal with the husband, I treated them well but am not a cat person) had left a present on my presentation clothes. I had no other suitable clothes to present in. Thankfully, I was able to find a dry cleaners that did emergency overnight service, so I was able to pick up my suit on the walk to the conference and changed in the bathroom stall right before my presentation.

  16. Savoury Creampuff*

    This happened to a friend of mine when he was a law firm associate – let’s call him Gallant.

    Adam was driving the partner (Goofus) back to the airport in a rental car . When he started to exit the highway, Goofus told him it was the wrong exit and to continue driving. Gallant said no it wasn’t, and continued. Goofus physically took the wheel and forced him to stay on the highway.

    Needless to say Goofus was wrong, and it took a good half hour to correct the mistake. By the time they were getting to the airport, they were in danger of missing their flight. Gallant told Goofus he would take one for the team, drop him off at the gate, then return the car; if he missed the flight, so be it, and least Goofus wouldn’t, and he’s the partner. But Goofus said, “No, just leave it at the gate.”

    So they left their rental car in an airport drop off lane, with the keys inside. They made their flight. The firm paid a hefty, hefty fine. Neither Gallant nor Goofus was disciplined.

    1. Savoury Creampuff*

      Sorry – “Adam” in the first para is “Gallant” (luckily his name isn’t Adam – that’s just the first pseudonym I meant to use)

    2. AVP*

      Oh my god, I’m just remembering the time that my boss locked a hugely expensive piece of essential work equipment in a rental car when trying to drop it off.

      It was one of those 6am flights where the lot is unmanned and you put your keys in the box and walk away. Right after he did this, he Realized His Mistake. And that the desk people wouldn’t be getting in to fix it until long after our flight had boarded.

      To his credit he said he’d stay with the car and get it fixed while the rest of us went home. He got so lucky, though – he was sitting in the lot trying to call any corporate number that might help when one of the rental co employees drove by the lot on their way to get breakfast, saw him there, realized there was an issue, and pulled off to unlock the box! He made the flight by a few minutes.

  17. Fun Times At Nonprofits*

    Not so much a travel mishap as an organizational one, but: my boss and I traveled to a state capital for a meeting with a governor. It wasn’t one of those state capitals that’s in a real city, it was one of the ones where you fly to a real city, then have to get up at 6am to drive several hours to the capital. So that we did all that, and I was told at the last minute that they wanted to reduce the number of people in the room for the meeting. Cut to me taking “what career is right for you?” quizzes on my laptop under the capitol rotunda as I contemplated how my presence on the trip ended up being completely pointless (not to mention a waste of money).

    1. Fun Times At Nonprofits*

      Oh, I forgot a detail: this was early in my career and I literally bought my first suit for this meeting.

    2. Lab Boss*

      Oh I STRONGLY suspect I know which state capital you were in, with that length drive from the nearest real airport and the rotunda- if it’s where I’m thinking, at least you had a nice view of some pretty architecture in the capitol building (and some extremely flat sprawl in all directions outside).

          1. Not-So-New Mom (of 1 8/9)*

            I read an academic article once that showed that, taking the 50 states + every sovereign nation, Springfield is not only the worst-placed capital in the nation relative to the center of its region’s population, it’s one of the worst-placed in the _world_.

    3. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Says a lot about where I grew up that I can think of multiple states off the top of my head where that would be the case.

      1. Lady_Lessa*

        I was thinking Frankfort KY. I think it is about equidistant from both Lexington, KY and Louisville. But it isn’t flat in that area, rolling hills

      2. Whomever*

        I’m reminded of a friend of mine who is on the “Visit every country in the world” plan (something I’d love to do myself but it’s a lot harder with kids). He was complaining about tour companies that include the capitals of countries in places like Central Asia which tend to be some of the more boring cities in the place. I joked that he clearly needs to do a tour of the US, with stops in Albany, NY, Springfield, IL and Sacramento, CA.

        1. cabbagepants*

          Hey now!!! Albany NY is awesome!!! We have, uh, stuff!

          (In seriousness, we have relatively affordable housing and a lot of stable, decently-paying jobs with the state government as well as universities. Can you ask for more in this year 2024?)

    4. Heather*

      Perhaps “large city with a sizable airport” would be a better descriptor. Those of us in mid or small sized cities still live in cities!

  18. JuneBug*

    I was in my mid-twenties traveling to a conference with my fifty something boss. He could be odd and a bit awkward but never creepy or inappropriate. We were having dinner at the hotel restaurant when approached by a violin player obviously offering romantic musical accompaniment. I politely declined but my boss excitedly requested a specific piece. I then had to sit there awkwardly for several minutes while the violin player played his piece circling around us as if he was enhancing our romantic dinner. My boss smiled the whole time and afterward spoke about how lovely the music was as if he had no clue everyone was thinking I was his much younger mistress meeting up at with him at a hotel. We were both married to other people and after this we went back to discussing business.

    1. Lab Boss*

      Ah, nothing like the “Fun” of being assumed to be a couple. My sister and I look nothing alike and have received similar romance-enhancing attention when we meet up for a meal. At least we don’t have a professional relationship and can just laugh it off.

      1. Juicebox Hero*

        Same thing happened with me and my late brother. Even more funny, people always assumed he and our sister were married, even when my brother in law was with them.

      2. Shannon*

        Could be worse – my brother and I could pass for twins, and we get asked all the time if we’re married. Like, how vain do you think I am, that I went out and found a person who looked exactly like me to marry? And we’re not especially touchy-feely, we just have the same sense of humor.

        1. Scintillating Water*

          Meanwhile my fiancee and I, who look absolutely nothing alike, keep getting asked if we’re sisters.

          1. CeeDoo*

            We had a girl’s night out on 6th street in Austin, TX with about 6 of us. I was sitting beside my sister at the restaurant. The waiter came over and squatted by the table, looked at us, and the first word out of his mouth was, “lesbians?” We said, “no, sisters.” What’s especially funny is we generally get mistaken for twins.

      3. Anonymousaurus Rex*

        My stepdad is only 15 years older than me, and we used to take father-daughter adventure/camping vacations together. We have frequently been mistaken for a couple. It’s very ick.

        1. allathian*

          When I visited my ex-boyfriend’s parents for the first and only time (we’d been dating for nearly 2 years by then), his dad and he could’ve been mistaken for brothers. My boyfriend was in his early 30s and looked older than his age, and his dad was in his mid-50s, but looked younger.

          I was also 7 years younger than my boyfriend, and looked even younger than that. But thankfully nobody ever mistook us for a father and daughter, eek! The irony is that I ultimately left him because he was too emotionally immature for me.

      4. Beth*

        Two memories:

        Work party for a female co-worker, who was marrying her female partner. The restuarant staff figured out that a wedding was involved, so they assumed that the briode was marrying the only guy at the table. He was also gay.

        That one was funny.

        Not funny: a male friend of mine paid a passing musician to perform a folk song for me. The musician not only assumed that we were a couple, but acted as if the music was going to inflame us to the point of heading for a hotel together. I was *trying* to enjoy the music itself, but ugh. SO CREEPY.

    2. Problem!*

      This happened to me too!

      The travel group was myself and another mid 20s woman, and our two middle aged male colleagues. Our business trip was to a city in Florida that’s mostly high end resorts and every time we went out to dinner the wait staff would assume we were two couples. Most of them at least had the grace to look embarrassed when we all pulled out or business AMEXes to pay for our separate checks, but it was still super awkward.

    3. Butterfly Counter*

      *uncovered memory*

      I was at my first professional conference in a major city. I was walking in a group of people and was chatting to a fellow student a year behind me. A man selling roses came up to us and told the guy, “If she gives you a kiss, I will give her a rose for free!” I was young and game, so I kissed the guy on the cheek. The flower seller gave me the rose and promptly asked the guy for $5. Yes, I had the rose for free, but not my acquaintance. I tried to give the rose back, the seller refused to take it, so the guy paid the money.

      Ugh. Back into the vault it goes…

      1. Dog momma*

        Yeah, those free flowers aren’t free, they just don’t tell you that. We saw this pre Covid in Mexico

    4. Yvette*

      In a way that is kind of nice. Especially since you said he seemed clueless as to the romantic connotation . It was probably a favorite piece of music that he got to hear live performed right in front of him.

      1. JuneBug*

        Yes and I also think he wanted to show off his knowledge of classical music and appear sophisticated. He was one of those people who liked to pronounce French words with an accent as though he was fluent. He was not lol.

    5. Kiv*

      Something similar happened to me in high school when I ended up having dinner at a restaurant with a younger male chaperone after a group on a high school trip accidentally got split up. He was a very sweet and awkward fellow – we both just pretended it wasn’t happening.

  19. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    I was on a 6-month gig in our San Antonio field office, standing up a new project. We also got the chance to bid on some additional work in Houston, thanks to the new capabilities in that project. So the local office manager and I, along with some help from HQ, wrote a proposal and then I was going to take a quick hop on Southwest to Houston to deliver it in person.

    Weather was bad (thunderstorms), and the flight was delayed, so I was starting to get worried about getting there in time. We finally got into the air and it was a bumpy flight. I was in a window seat, right over the wings.

    When we got close to Houston, the pilot came on the PA with a classic, calm Texas drawl “Well folks, we apologize about the delays and the bumpy ride, but we’ll be on the ground shortly.”

    We came in low, I could see the flaps being extended, but then the pilot increased the throttle, retracted the flaps, and pulled up. “Folks, sorry about that, but approach control has informed me that there’s a bad thundercell at this end of the runway. So we’re going to circle around and approach from the other direction. See you on the ground soon.”

    3 minutes later, we’re coming down, flaps are out, I feel the thunks as the gear went down, and we pass over the fence at the end of the runway. Suddenly the pilot slams the engines all the way on and really pulls up hard.

    “Well, folks, as you can probably tell, we’re not on the ground. When approach control told me to come around from the other direction, they neglected to inform me that there was still another airplane on the runway. I have expressed my displeasure to approach control, and they have assured me that this time we will be able to land. I apologize again for the delay, and we’ll be at the gate shortly.”

    When he said “I have expressed my displeasure…” he didn’t raise his voice or speak any faster, but from the tone you just know that he raised hell over the radio to the tower.

    2. Which Susan are you?*

      OMG. As Dave Barry says, You are now free to change your underwear. I would have spent the entire time in Houston sloshed to the gills, trying to forget that near-death experience.

    3. Observer*

      Oh, wow!

      I wonder if this guy was ex-military. They are the ones most likely to be able to pull that off, but also to “express their displeasure” without spilling all over everyone not in the line of fire.

      1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

        Oh certainly a good chance of that!

        There’s a stereotype/trope that all airline pilots sound like Chuck Yeager.

      2. Jack Russell Terrier*

        Yup – that’s exactly what my ex-army boyfriend would have done. He flew helicopters, b

      3. Random Bystander*

        Yeah, I have read that a lot of AF pilots retire from the military and go on to fly commercial planes, so ex-military is highly likely (especially with the masterclass-level understatement with “express displeasure”).

      4. She of Many Hats*

        A friend who flies frequently can tell if the pilot is ex-Navy or ex-Air Force. Ex-Air Force tends to give you a gentler, long-angle landing. Ex-Navy tends to be “get landed now”.

      1. Alda*

        Here’s a low stakes one – my partner was in Chile for work, we live in Sweden. When he was touristing a bit on his own, he kept going in the wrong direction down streets. So he would look at the map, see “okay, I turn onto X street and head north” and then when he looked at the map again he would find he’d walked entirely the wrong direction.

        And then after a while he realised that this was because he automatically navigates by the sun (which I’m impressed with tbh because I can’t do that without a whole lot of thinking), but because he was on the other side of the equator, his usual internal settings for north/south based on sun position were now wrong.

        1. saf*

          I grew up in Rochester NY. The lake is always north.

          This causes problems when you are in Toronto.

          1. noncomitally anonymous*

            Ha! I lived in Los Angeles – the ocean is always to the west, and the mountains are always to the north.

            Then I went to Hawaii. The ocean is all around and the mountains are in the middle.

          2. Tinkerbell*

            I grew up in Manitowoc, WI (on the shore of Lake Michigan) and I do the same thing! I haven’t lived there for more than half my life now but my brain still always assumes any large body of water is “east” and maps accordingly!

          3. No Internal Compass*

            I live near Denver. The mountains are always west. Huge navigational problems when I was working in Albuquerque.

          4. Tupac Coachella*

            Interstate 70 runs right through the town I where live, so I navigate based on a combination of 70 East and 70 West and my position relative to my most visited cities in either direction. I learned that if I can get to 70 moving toward one of those cities, I can get home. Now that I travel frequently for work and can’t use those markers, I’m realizing that I have no internal compass at all.

          5. Distracted Procrastinator*

            I moved from the Mountain West to the South. I went from being able to navigate anywhere without issue to being completely lost half the time. It wasn’t just learning a new city, it was the fact that the trees and rolling hills meant there were zero landmarks to navigate by. (also, why don’t roads have a freaking shoulder here???) Drove me crazy and made me a bit claustrophobic the first year.

            I love the trees, but man, I miss the horizon.

            1. Elizabeth West*

              I moved from the Midwest, where many cities are built on a flat grid, to Boston, which is decidedly not. I practically need GPS to walk across the street. One of my coworkers who grew up here said he even has to use it! I can never tell which way I’m looking or pointing either, especially downtown.

              During the eclipse, a group of us went outside from the back (?) side of the building, down a couple of side streets, and out to an open corner where we could see it. It was not even two blocks from the office, but I had NO FRICKIN IDEA where the hell I was.

            2. OMG, Bees!*

              Amazingly, I have known some people from Texas who complain when visiting west that the mountains get in the way of the view! They ARE the view!

          6. Dog momma*

            saf
            I lived in Rochester/ Webster for 30 yrs. That’s what I was told as a newbie. Remember the lake is always noryh

        2. RW*

          I was just thinking about this the other day – I have a fairly solid sense of direction because I am basically a human sunflower, but I live in the southern hemisphere and would get SO LOST anywhere the sun is south of me

    5. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Damn.

      Scariest ride I ever had was when I was in first class, which means close enough to hear the alarms going off in the cockpit followed by the captain coming on and saying “Flight attendants sit down NOW” as we plummeted suddenly from 30,000 ft to 10,000 ft.

      There was a depressurization alarm so they were trying to get low enough so the masks wouldn’t deploy and then we flew at a nauseatingly turbulent 10K for the rest of the trip

      1. OMG, Bees!*

        Coolest airplane ride I had was in an 8 seater Cessna. No separation from the pilot and I had the same view out the cockpit he had, with window views effectively good left, right, and front of me. Only flight where I had to be weighed as well as my luggage. It was in Autumn and a bit chilly in the air; I highly doubt I could have handled a winter flight!

    6. Taki*

      If you remember the date and time of the landing, you might be able to look it up on LiveATC and listen to what he said to the tower/approach.

    7. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

      I was about to ask if this was Southwest and then I scrolled back up.

      We were coming back from a trade show on Southwest once and had a less-than-gentle touchdown in heavy fog. The pilot came on to assure us that yes, we had landed and no, we were not shot down.

      1. Dog momma*

        Coming back from a nursing conference in Vegas, to Rochester… in Feb, in a blinding snowstorm back in the 90s. I’d never heard people crying or praying on a plane before. We landed, but I was sure we were going to go off the runway. Brakes on but we weren’t slowing down. We finally stopped.
        My BIL picked me up, said it took him almost 3 hrs from Webster to the airport.. bc ya know, lake effect. Not as bad driving back bc by then all the plows were out. My sister still said WHAT TOOK SO LONG?? Its usually 30-45 min on dry roads depending on traffic.

    8. TheBunny*

      Similar but not quite as harrowing…I was returning to LAX from Nashville and they couldn’t get the jet bridge to connect to the plane so we could get off said plane.

      Pilot kept coming on with slightly more terse updates until the last one before they got it worked out was…sorry all. They still haven’t fixed the issue. I’ve asked for those rolling stairs and they said no. I told them they have 5 minutes before I see how many passengers are willing to use the emergency exit…they managed to get us off the plane.

      1. Kuddel Daddeldu*

        I had rebooked to an earlier flight on the same day, a Friday, as my meeting was done earlier than planned. A good thing as Munich was suddenly hit by a blizzard.
        The flight was now overbooked with lots of passengers jumped from delayed or canceled flights; the saving grace was that I was working for a subsidiary of the airline so I had the security clearance to fly on a jump seat (those folding seats may not be sold to passengers).
        They put me into the check pilot’s seat in the back of the cockpit. Not the most comfortable but it got me home without an unplanned overnight stay, and also quite interesting. Flight was still fairly chaotic on the ground but okay once airborne.

  20. Dr. Rebecca*

    While in the Minneapolis airport at the tail end of a business trip, I accidentally flipped my thick, braided hair into former senator Al Franken’s face, then eavesdropped on how he was almost Hilary’s VP running mate.

    I submitted an apology to the contact form on his website, under the subheading “transportation–air.”

    3. Ally McBeal*

      Al Franken as Hillary’s almost-pick for VP … I’ll admit I’m having trouble believing it. His background as a comedian and his very liberal politics would not have been any sort of complement to Hillary as she attempted to win swing states. Sounds like he was bloviating a bit. But what a story – I love that you apologized via official webform XD

      1. Dr. Rebecca*

        It was November 2016, and he was on his cell phone talking about how he had “gotten the call” and “was almost on the ticket” but when they discussed it, they both decided that Kaine was better for the overall ticket.

        There wasn’t any other way to contact him!! XD

      2. Princess Sparklepony*

        I don’t know, I think he would have been a great pick. He’s good enough, he’s smart enough and doggon it, people like him!

  21. starsaphire*

    Not mine, but my best friend’s:

    She traveled for business at the time three weeks out of four, and she usually stayed at the same hotel every time. There had been some confusion over one booking, where her company had booked her a day short, and she had adjusted it at the front desk on check-in. So everything was fine. Or so she thought.

    Until she stepped into her room after meetings on the final night of her stay, to discover that the front desk had not communicated with the cleaning service – and so the cleaning service had turned over her room and ALL of her things were gone. Clothes, luggage, everything.

    She was able to get most of her stuff back, but that was a pretty chilling experience, and it soured her on business travel for a long time.

    1. merula*

      How often do people leave EVERYTHING behind in a hotel room?? I feel like if I was in housekeeping I’d at least check with someone if I saw a suitcase and all kinds of toiletries.

      1. A Poster Has No Name*

        They probably did, but if the front desk didn’t record the extra day, how would anyone in housekeeping know otherwise?

      2. Distracted Procrastinator*

        yup. I once had a miscommunication with the front desk over a check out day and when housekeeping found all our stuff still spread out in the room, they called me! They didn’t just take all our things out and assume we’d somehow forgotten every single thing we’d brought with us when we checked out.

      3. Orange You Glad*

        This happened to me but it wasn’t even an issue of extending the room or a late checkout. It was the last day of a conference, I was planning to leave from the conference and road trip through a national park since I was in that part of the country anyway. I had gotten up early and loaded my suitcase into the car before breakfast but left in my room my other luggage and a lot of groceries/supplies I had picked up the night before for the road trip. I went from breakfast to the last conference meeting with the intention of then going up to my room to finish packing and check out by the normal checkout time. I get back up there and housekeeping is just finishing up and all my stuff is gone! I asked the cleaner what happened and she was confrontational about how I wasn’t supposed to be there. I pointed out that all my stuff was missing and eventually she pullout out my luggage bag from her cart to return it, but everything else was gone. I complained to the front desk and they didn’t do anything to compensate me, they just shrugged it off as housekeeping had the wrong list of rooms to service and it wasn’t a big deal. It was a big deal to me because I was about to leave to go to some remote areas where all the water and food I bought would be needed.

    2. Foxy Hedgehog*

      Oh, wow, that happened to me once–in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

      I think that because I travel light and didn’t leave my suitcase in my room–I had to use it to carry documents to my client–the cleaning person assumed I had checked out a day early? But some of my clothes and my toiletries ended up in the hotel trash (!) The front desk gave me some free toiletries and some bonus points, so I guess they did what they could to make up for it.

      1. starsaphire*

        There was an episode of Ace of Cakes where something similar happened… but with cake.

        The thing is, when they do the fancy cakes for a big event, there’s usually additional sheet cakes baked to serve to the guests. On this episode, Geoff was on his own in some big city – he went downstairs to take the first load of stuff down to the car, went back to the room, and the sheet cakes were GONE. Hours before checkout, too.

        I think they had to call a fellow baker to pinch hit on the sheet cakes? (Can’t find a link, but I think the ep was from like 2008 or so??)

        1. Mad Harry Crewe*

          Oh, that’s awful. Reminds me of my cousin’s wedding, though – after the cake cutting, he sidled up to me, somewhat tipsy, and muttered, “it’s all a sham, there’s sheet cakes in the back, they don’t serve the fancy cake.” Still makes me giggle.

    3. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

      How did her key work if they had turned her room over? Talk about chilling.

      1. Mad Harry Crewe*

        If it was keycards – those are switched on and off automatically within the hotel booking system, there’s no human interaction required. Her room was actually booked for another day, so the computer knew she should have access and granted it to her.

      2. starsaphire*

        The front desk had her still booked in the room, so her key worked.

        The daily cleaning docket had not been updated.

        She still grumbles about that dress, something-teen years later…

    4. LCH*

      the flip side is when the hotel gives you a key to a room, you walk in, and it is obviously still in use by someone else because their stuff is everywhere.

      1. Yeep*

        This *almost* happened to us, not on a work trip, but at a turnpike motel with real keys. We had just about gotten to the door to put it in the lock and the manager came running after us, yelling that he gave us the wrong room.

      2. piggy*

        One time I was traveling to do a project with a senior colleague I’d never met before. We arrived at nearly the same time and she checked in to the hotel a few minutes before I did. Imagine my surprise when I opened the door to “my” room and heard a panicked voice from the bathroom….the front desk had mixed up whose room was whose and given me a key to the senior colleague’s room instead of my own. That was a very awkward first impression!

      3. A Real Person I Swear*

        Something similar happened to us on a family trip to Vegas when I was a kid. Front desk gave us a key card to our room, and we opened the door to find another family still in there. Had to go back to the front desk and get another room.

    5. Katherine*

      What I don’t understand is motels throwing things away! When I’ve left things behind, theyve always offered to courier them back to me.

      1. Welp*

        Almost guarantee they didn’t “throw them away”… most likely housekeeping took the items they wanted. Especially brand-new unopened food like noted above.

  22. No Tribble At All*

    Two, on a two-week overseas trip, six months into my first ever job out of college:

    (1) I was working shifts and didn’t realize my hotel had a bar. I get off work Saturday night, and the hotel’s small parking lot is packed. I didn’t know the local language for Parking Garage, so I couldn’t read the sign pointing me around the corner to the garage. I was so tired, I double-parked a local and got an angry phone call from the front desk to move my car or it was about to be towed.

    (2) The company said it would pay for my hotel stay directly. They did not. At checkout, the hotel asked for my card, but since it was a *two week* stay, my card was declined, because two week’s worth of meals + rental car + the hotel stay was over my credit limit on that card (baby’s first credit-card-with-no-international-fees). Had to awkwardly call my manager in the lobby and put him on speakerphone with the hotel manager until they got it sorted out.

    1. Siege*

      Why do companies do this? I was once in a position where I almost had to charge an $800 dinner on my credit card, which … well, we would have been lucky if the charge had gone through, except I would have been unlucky, because the card definitely did not have $800 left on the credit limit due to a massive car repair. Fortunately the other staffer had a company card so she charged it (it was a spur of the moment thing when we realized the way to make up for an issue was to invite some of our company’s guests for a very nice dinner) but then when we got back home from the convention, her department tried to stick my department with the bill because they’d gone way over their budget on the trip. My boss, who was the nicest person on earth, ate them alive very politely and pointed out that the original issue was their fault and they would be paying for that dinner. But why would you send people who are early career out on travel without a card? Do companies assume everyone has a trust fund?

      1. iglwif*

        I worked for my first employer, which gave corporate cards only to people who travelled frequently, for so long that I started to think this was normal.

        Several times I put airfares, hotel rooms, and meals on my card because my early-career direct reports didn’t have room on theirs — that started to seem normal too.

        Then I went to work for a grown-up company that required all expenses to be on company cards, and friends, this is so much better.

    2. Kermit's Bookkeepers*

      Honestly businesses requiring employees to put expenses on personal credit is horrifying for specifically this reason; most of us don’t have a credit limit to sustain these kind of expenses.

    3. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      We almost lost a house we were buying because of the credit card thing. My husband got a job for a start up in Oregon and we were moving from Texas and the parent company was in California and he was working at the vendor site in Massachusetts until they had equipment in Oregon.

      He had to travel every week until we moved and both the reimbursements and his paychecks kept being sent back and forth between California and Oregon but never getting to him until by the time we finally got to 5 days before we closed on the house they owed us over $12K, all of which was flagging the mortgage company.

  23. (Former) HR Expat*

    I was invited to attend a leadership development training in the London suburbs that was being run by my company. I lived in Manchester, so it wasn’t too far of a trip. There were a couple things that went wrong- I think there was some disturbance in the space/time continuum or something.
    1-My company asked us to fill out a form with all our information so that they could set up reservations at the hotel where the training was being held. When I arrived at the hotel, I found out that I didn’t have a reservation and the hotel was fully booked. The closest hotel that had an opening was 10 miles away. I was the only one whose reservation wasn’t made.
    2-I woke up the next morning with about 50 messages from friends and family in the US asking if I was ok. The previous night was when the Manchester bombing happened at the Ariana Grande concert. I had traveled through the adjacent train station the day before. Because of the bombing, I spent my morning checking in on the team I supported and my business leaders to see if everyone was ok and what support was needed. I missed the first morning of the training.
    3- We were in the middle of settlement discussions for an employment law case, so I spent the 2nd afternoon of training on the phone with our lawyers working that out.
    4- Everything went fine for the rest of the week. But when I went home on Friday, I couldn’t get my car. I had parked in the parking garage for the arena and it was still closed off for the police investigation. Luckily, my work paid for a taxi home that night and I was able to get my car over the weekend.

    2. KT*

      I remember a work conference fairly early in my career. It was the local office, and 2 from other states that had come in for the meeting (I worked in the local office). Turns out everyone except me had been given hotel rooms for after the conference – including all the local people. There were discussions of all the fun to be had that night and the awkward moment when the people I was chatting with realized I was the only one excluded until I finally just slunk away.

  24. KD*

    Our (small) engineering team was traveling to a conference. We had a “set” budget for the conference and lodging. This meant our admin booked us in a tiny AirBnb where the power went out on the second day, one coworker had to sleep in a walk in closet, and I had to *share a bed* with the only other woman on the engineering team. We spent half the conference on the phone with AirBnb trying to get the power restored and missed several talks. (It was an illegal AirBnb so they didn’t want us to speak with the super.)

    Never. Again.

      1. A Poster Has No Name*

        I was gonna say, if the AirBnB was illegal, you should have all the leverage to get it fixed quickly (assuming you knew it was illegal at the time).

        And, seriously, people, if you run an illegal AirBnB, you really don’t want to give people stuff to complain about…

        1. Ally McBeal*

          Seriously! One “crime” at a time! If it’s an illegal AirBnB you (the owner) need to be doing everything in your power to make it appear legal. Maintain it well, provide lots of amenities to distract/entertain guests, etc.

        2. Charlotte Lucas*

          Someone in my building lost her lease for running an illegal Air BnB out of our building. It was a basement efficiency.

    2. OMG, Bees!*

      Wedding trip, not work, but 2 AirBnB stories out of it.

      For us, we had an AirBnB in Brooklyn and were told to get the keys from a bodega nearby. We arrive at the bodega around 9pm after flying all day and they had no idea who we were, no AirBnB, they suggested looking elsewhere; maybe we got the address wrong, they said. Multiple calls to the owner/renter of the AirBnB went unanswered and we thought maybe we got scammed.

      Finally, after the 5th call, someone answered, apologised, and said to mention Nigel to the bodega. Who change tune immediately and a loud and jolly “NIGEL! OH, HA HA HA! HERE IT IS, HERE’S THE KEY! NIGEL! HA” and a few minutes later we were on our way.

      Next day, I went to the same bodega for breakfast items, and someone there who recognized me, but wasn’t at the Nigel part asked if we found our room. I said yes, something about Nigel, and the same over-the-top “NIGEL! OH, HA HA HA!” again. Friendly after that…

      Another friend, for the same wedding, had an AirBnB in Manhattan, but no bodega for her. Instead, she had a scavenger hunt across a couple streets and a back alley to find various keys to get in at a similar late-ish night hour. For a reason I forget (but not AirBnB shenanigans), she had to spent a night at our rental.

  25. AVP*

    I was traveling for work A LOT with the same crew for years, and we all knew each other really well. We had a good hotel budget and preferred to stay in boutique type places, not chains, preferably in a downtown so we didn’t need to drive together every time we wanted a meal.

    We went to this one major US city pretty often, and it only had a few hotels that made sense. We had gotten sick of the W and so one time I opted for the “historic” non-chain place. Turns out that by historic they meant “has not been updated or renovated or had basic maintenance done since we opened.” In addition to being kinda dirty, the first time we tried to take an elevator it dropped a few floors! Slowly! No one got hurt but it did not inspire confidence! My boss was back at the W that night.

  26. Cow Mom*

    Years ago, when I booked travel for one of my managers. I didn’t realize it would arrive so late and that it was a smaller airport, that they would be out of rental cars. When he landed the rental car agency didn’t have any more cars and the guy running the booth offered to drive him to his destination (this was before Uber); the car was his personal car with trash in the passenger seat. When manager returned from the trip, he commented to me about looking back and wondering why he took the guys offer, since he didn’t know anything about him and only later thought that he might be a murder/kidnapper. We had a good laugh about it, but I paid more attention to flights and rental agencies after that.

  27. Lab Boss*

    In an effort to pack light, I took a single pair of pants on a trip to Europe (suitable for both work and casual wear). As I buckled my seatbelt on the first leg of my flight, the buckle caught on the button and popped it free, lost forever into the abyss of the plane. I skulked around my connecting airports holding my pants up by keeping at least one hand in my pocket constantly, looking like a big creep I’m sure- when I finally got to the hotel, I used my emergency sewing kit to simply sew the entire set of pants together permanently where the button had failed, it worked like a charm

    (Yes, today I would probably just go buy new pants. I had less money and was less willing to just buy things without finding a sale, plus I was already nervous about my first international trip and my problem-solving skills kind of froze up).

    1. Stopped Using My Name*

      Using the emergency sewing kit such that you did not have to buy new pants counts as excellent problem solving.

      1. Ally McBeal*

        Agreed! I stopped carrying an emergency sewing kit a few years back (mostly because my purse is heavy enough already and I need to stop treating it like a mobile command center) but now I’m gonna go throw it in my travel duffel.

      2. Lab Boss*

        Thanks! I guess I should say, in retrospect I definitely COULD have afforded new pants and the more sensible solution would have been to buy them. I was still thinking like a summer camp counselor, and not like somebody who had stores nearby and money in my wallet, but hey- it got the job done! (The pants, tragically, did not survive the trip. They profoundly ripped when I hoisted my bag off the carousel in my home airport and were given a dignified burial in the trash).

    2. ferrina*

      I was so broke in my 20s, this would have absolutely been me. Once I had money where I could cover stuff like this, it still took me a while to break the habit.

    3. Manders*

      I flew to Sweden for a work trip. I barely made my flight, my luggage did not. I stupidly decided to wear my knee-high boots on the plane, I guess so I didn’t need to pack them. I unzipped them on the flight, only to land and find that my legs had swelled enough that I couldn’t zip them back up.

  28. Ruby Soho*

    It was new hire orientation near Frankfurt. I couldn’t find the driver at the airport for like an hour, and when I did find him, he was just about to leave and was very unhappy with me. After a very fast ride on the autobahn, he dropped me off at my hotel. Which had a short twin bed instead of the expected queen size. So my trip was already off to a rocky start. The next day, we had training sessions at my company’s HQ. I don’t know what happened, but mid-morning I got horribly sick, throwing up and slouched down in the bathroom stall. Eventually I managed to get out of the bathroom and a coworker got me a cab back to the hotel. Except the driver didn’t speak any English, I don’t speak any German, and he had no idea where to take me. It took far too long to get me back to the hotel, at which point car sickness had kicked in.
    It really really sucked.

    1. Panicked*

      There are few things worse than being sick AND in a place where you don’t speak the language.

      1. Cathie from Canada*

        Always grab a hotel business card when you check in. Then you have something to show the driver if needed. A young friend spent his first evening in Spain searching in vain for his hostel – all he remembered was it was old and had large wooden doors, in a town where just about all the buildings are old and have large wooden doors. He was in despair until he spotted a Canadian flag – it was the consulate! So then a consular officer drove him around until they finally found the right hostel.

  29. LibraryAnne*

    On trip for a conference several years ago, I was staying at an AirBnB with two coworkers. It was a little bit far away from the conference and you needed to either take public transit or a rideshare/taxi. The very first morning, I decided to walk to the public transit. On the way, I stopped and picked up a breakfast from a Starbucks. I popped my wallet back in my bag and then headed to the stairs to get to the train.

    As I climbed the steps, I became aware of someone close behind me. Then I felt a faint tug on my bag, which had migrated to behind my back as I climbed the stairs. I shot a quick look behind me and the man stopped and looked at me in surprise. I ran up the last couple steps, started frantically looking in my bag and.. my wallet was gone. The man had pickpocketed me. I yelled, “That man stole my wallet!” and he took off running down the steps and away.

    Fortunately for me, I still had my cell phone and my notebook with all my passwords and phone numbers. I called the police first, then the bank. He’d already used the card in it to buy a bunch of gift cards at a nearby pharmacy, but the bank flagged them as fraud.

    However, I now needed a way to buy food/transportation for my entire rest of the conference. My coworkers were able to spot me some funds until I returned home. I banked with a local credit union that didn’t have any branches nearby, and I didn’t have ID anyway! Which was also a problem when I was trying to catch my flight home. I was lucky enough to have taken a picture of me holding my Library of Congress library card that I had got on a vacation to DC, which helped establish identity a little bit. But of course, I was subject to a pat down and all my bags were searched before I was allowed on my flight.

    I now take a picture of my ID before I fly anywhere, have my wallet match the color of the lining of my bag, make sure that I bring some cash and keep it in my luggage, and I push my wallet to the very bottom of my bag after every transaction.

    1. Bethany*

      I always travel with at least one credit or debit card in a separate bag. On the plane, I have my wallet in my personal item and the separate card in my carryon. Once I’m at the hotel, the card lives buried in the bottom of my suitcase until it’s time to go home. I’ve never had to use it, but it’s reassuring to know that it’s there.

  30. A Significant Tree*

    Three short stories:

    I had an international business trip (9 hour time diff) and proceeded to have wicked insomnia for the entire duration. I don’t think I slept more than an hour at a time, or more than a handful of hours overnight. I did all the right things for sleep hygiene and adjusting to the schedule, and I was okay during the business meetings, but when I finally got home I was wrecked for a week.

    Same trip – this was when US credit cards required PINs when used in the EU. I thought I had set up my PIN but my card was constantly declined and my ATM/debit card wasn’t accepted anywhere. I could not get cash or pay for anything! I had to keep borrowing cash from my coworker and keep a running tab to make sure everything was reimbursable.

    Another time, I had a business trip to Las Vegas – my flight had a late arrival so I was checking in around midnight along with a surprisingly large number of guests. A man in a suit walked up to me and asked if I was staying alone (!) but then introduced himself as one of the managers. Turns out they were about to reduce the reception desk staff by one – my line – and he asked me if I could tell anyone who tried to line up behind me that the line was closing after me. In exchange I would be upgraded to a suite. So I said fine, and I did have to tell a few people but if they didn’t believe me and lined up anyway the manager would eventually come let them know the situation. It was a little awkward but whatever, I didn’t have to enforce the policy.

    At check-in, I did get my upgrade, hooray! It was a very nice suite… with a connecting inner door to the neighboring suite. On day 2, some hardcore smokers checked into that suite and the smoke just poured under the connecting door. I kept jamming towels along the base in the evening and housekeeping would pick them up during the day. Really ruined the experience that I couldn’t leave the smoky casino smell behind me at night.

    1. me*

      On the second to last night of my last business trip to Vegas, I got back to my room and there was a SMELL. I could not figure what it was, until I realized that the smell was coming from me. Specifically, all the smoke from the casinos had gotten into my pores and almost everything I had with me. I went through my suitcase for anything that didn’t reek and fortunately found a dress and sweater that were both slightly too casual for the last day. Fortunately, my boss understood when I explained it to him. Also fortunately, I was able to get the smell out of everything I had with me, including the suitcase, once I got home.

  31. Fernie*

    On my last work trip, which happened just before the pandemic, I was scheduled to be away for two weeks over four legs to three different destinations. I packed my biggest bag with every favorite belonging and article of clothing because I was going to be away for so long.

    I departed from City 1 (midwestern US) on Airline A. When I was checking in, a youth choir was practicing an angelic, multi-part song in the lobby, and I remarked on it to the gate agent. He said it was making him sad, because basketball star Kobe Bryant had died that day in a helicopter accident. He gave me a stub from the bag tag and sent me on my way.

    I transferred in Chicago to Airline B, arrived in City 2 (Germany) overseas, and no bag. I filled out a claim and detailed everything that was in the bag, to the best of my recollection, and went to the hotel to wait for it to be delivered. In the meantime, I took a shower but the curtain didn’t fit well so the few clothes I had with me got soaked on the bathroom floor, and I had to drape them on the room’s radiator to dry. Still, I managed to be presentable at my meetings.

    Several days later I traveled to City 3 (Scandinavia). Still no bag. I called and filled out another claim with Airline A for good measure, again detailed the very many things that were in my bag. I spent the weekend in City 3, but the many hours spent talking to airlines ate into my planned tourism time, as well as shopping for ten-packs of socks and undies, and trying to use Google Lens to figure out which bottle at the store was shampoo and which one was conditioner.

    During one of the airline calls, we surmised that, based on the number on my bag tag stub, my tag had got mixed up with someone’s who was flying to Panama City, Panama. I contacted the airport in Panama City directly, and they replied with the kindest email, and a photo of my bag. It was found! I emailed them my complicated itinerary and hotel details, and they plastered the bag all over with thorough and highlighted instructions. Hooray! Maybe it was on its way?

    After the weekend, for the second week of my trip, I left City 3, giving lots of instructions to the hotel to hold onto the bag if it arrived there because I would be back in a few days, and few to City 4 (Germany), checking my previous carry-on and buying a tote bag (covered with pictures of Moose!) at the airport to carry my new belongings. I was awakened in the very middle of the night by a call from someone from Airline A baggage services in Newark, New Jersey, and tried to make as much sense as I could in my sleepy state, to confirm that it was my bag and where I would be.

    Returned from City 4 (Germany) back to City 3 (Scandinavia), still no bag, but now, when I tried to look up my case number or new bag tag number, my bag was not in the system at all any more, it had fallen off the face of the earth after New Jersey. I made do, hand-washing my new belongings, and realized how very much less stuff you actually need when you’re traveling. My colleagues praised me for my calm, because at this point I had become resigned to my reduced circumstances.

    I returned at last to City 1, and amused everyone with the story and my resilience. I thought the incident had turned into a funny travel story from my past and had moved on, accepting that all those favorite clothes and belongings were no longer part of my life.

    The next week, like magic, my bag appeared at my house! Newark had shipped it by FedEx, which is why it dropped off all the airline tracking sites. Airline B had a reimbursement program, so I even got some money back for my 10-packs of this and that which I had to buy. And that Moose tote bag and the one sweater I bought in City 3 are still some my favorite things I own. But I now pack much, much lighter and will never, ever check a bag again, no matter how long I’m going for! And I will always remember what day Kobe Bryant died.

    1. Myrin*

      Oh my god, I’m incredibly stressed just reading this – I gotta agree with your coworkers, I’m amazed at how calm you sound through all of this. I’m really glad your bag arrived at your doorstep eventually!

  32. Problem!*

    After a long, stress-filled few days on a business trip my colleagues and I were finally ready to fly home. Halfway through checking in the airline’s entire computer system nationwide went down. Every flight grounded, no one could get boarding passes, the works. The terminals were zoos of stranded passengers since this airport was a hub for that particular airline. During this ordeal we all started coming down with some nasty flu-like virus so imagine being stuck in an airport with your colleagues whom you’re friendly with but not actual friends, while all of you slowly decline in health, waiting to board a plane that’s delayed for about 8 hours. It was a bonding experience for sure.

    1. MsM*

      I also got the nasty post-trip bug right before a red-eye I’d scheduled so I could be there for an important Monday meeting. Needless to say, I went straight home from the airport and did not make the meeting.

    2. Minimal Pear*

      Oh man, was this in 2017(?) with… British Airways or something like that? I was in Scotland and showed up at the airport for my flight to London only to be confronted with Pure Chaos. (Of course I’m sure this has happened many other times.) I managed to BOOK IT and catch a train instead.

    3. me*

      1. This sounds stressful and not fun at all
      2. This also sounds like the setup for an amazing new zombie movie

  33. Sunshine*

    I had one miserable week-long business trip. I was the sole employee of a small business owner, and we travelled to a convention, where we spent a week tabling to connect with potential new customers. The problems were many:

    Introvert vs Extrovert showdown, Introvert lost. I had been clear about my need for alone time during this trip. We drove together one day there and one day back, spent each day talking with potential customers, and shared a hotel room all week. She said she would respect my occasional off-hours time alone to recharge. Nope. One night, she swore up and down that if I would get dinner with her, we could sit in silence. She talked the whole time. On the drive home she kept talking even after I pretended to fall asleep.

    The Incredible Changing Performance Review! She kept telling me she could never have managed this trip without me… until mid-week, with no new customers, when she asked me for the first time how much it was costing her to bring me on the trip. (I handled payroll.) Boss promptly panicked about the cost vs return, and spent the rest of the week telling me my work wasn’t good enough to justify my pay. Back in the home office, in a continued panic, she cut my hours from 3 days/week to only 1 day, effective immediately. Then she told me “I didn’t do right by you” and asked me to go with her to some self-help seminars, with no pay, to mend fences between us. Without even offering to go back to 3 days per week. (I declined to attend the seminars.)

    But the absolute piece de resistance? The [Unspecified Noun] Anonymous meeting… with an audience! One day as we were packing up our table to go back to the hotel, she suddenly told me she was going to this meeting instead, and I would need to go with her because she didn’t have time to drop me off at the hotel. I could wait for her in her car. I didn’t like that – but she had an alternative! I could go with her to the Anonymous meeting – and just sit in the corner! Which, if I were going to an Anonymous meeting, I would NOT want anyone to do. And I did NOT want to do it. I finally convinced her to deposit me at a nearby coffee shop.

      1. Sunshine*

        Not long! I started applying, I started a full-time office job a few months after the unfortunate business trip. I told this boss I was applying for full-time 9-5 work. After a few weeks, she asked me, “so when you start working full time, are you still going to work here?” Apparently at first she assumed I would do both.

        This was before I was very familiar with AAM. Now I would usually follow the advice to not tell your boss you’re leaving. But apparently, even though I thought I told her I was leaving, she didn’t get the message!

    2. Wombats and Tequila*

      Yeah, that’s not Introvert vs. Extrovert, that’s Normal Person vs. Manipulative Power Tripper Who Wants to See How Many Boundaries She Can Stomp

      1. Red_Coat*

        Seconded! I had a recent travel with an introvert (I’m an extrovert), and after several hours they needed Alone Time. They went on a little hike, I went deeper into the city and did City Things around People. We reconvened and it was great!

        1. Sunshine*

          Yeah, I certainly don’t think that her boundary-stomping was an extrovert characteristic! It was a separate problem.

      2. Ally McBeal*

        Seriously. I would’ve gotten up from dinner and walked away. I probably would’ve paid for my own motel room too and abandoned her to talk to the walls.

        1. Sunshine*

          These days I would do a lot of things differently, for sure. I weep for my younger self. At least I started a job search after that trip.

    3. Sunshine*

      I should add, I was there mainly to do admin work, she was there to sell. The “no new customers” thing was not a result of my poor performance. (Nor hers, really – it just turned out to be a different group than our target audience.)

  34. CTA*

    This is on the less dramatic side of things. IDK what happened. Human error. Technology error. But a few things could have been prevented if the hotel had made any effort to help. Rant incoming.

    I was on a business trip with 3 other colleagues. We were all staying at the same hotel, but arriving at different times. My grandboss’s assistant booked the hotel. She shared the confirmation email with all of us. The email listed the reservation in my grandboss’s name, but she said she had added all of our names to the reservation.

    My grandboss was the first to arrive and he checked in fine to one room. Then, my boss arrived and the hotel would not let him check in because his name wasn’t on the reservation. Boss had to call grandboss. Grandboss has boss added to reservation. He tells the hotel that two more people are checking in later and asks if he needs to give those names. The hotel says no. My boss said the hotel was debating which room to assign him. Boss didn’t know why this was an issue because the reservation was for 4 rooms all with king size beds (so no difference in room type).

    I arrive later. The hotel doesn’t let me check in because my name isn’t on the reservation. I have to call my grandboss. I did contact his assistant, too, but my grandboss’s name was on the reservation and he was the only one the hotel would authorize to let me check in. The assistant wasn’t on the trip. Assistant also seemed really confused when I said having the confirmation number won’t help me because the hotel said my name wasn’t on the reservation. The hotel didn’t even offer to call my grandboss’s room and see if he was at the hotel. They wanted me to call him. I guess to prove I wasn’t a fraud?

    My grandboss calls the hotel and adds me and our remaining colleague to the reservation. The remaining colleague doesn’t have an issue at check in because grandboss adding his name took care of that. Later that evening, my grandboss told me he tried to add us the first time my boss had trouble, but the hotel said he didn’t have to add our names.

    IDK what the hotel was thinking. Didn’t they wonder why my grandboss had a reservation for four rooms? Didn’t they wonder why he was only checked into one room? Did they think he was going to return 3 more times that day to check in 3 other people? I don’t know why all the names weren’t added to the reservation. Human or technology error. But the hotel had a chance to fix things the first time my grandboss had to call and add my boss to the reservation.

    1. Llama Llama*

      I have to wonder if the person who helped with your bosses check in thought they would just be handling the others and now they knew the sitch it was no big deal. Something happened and they were not the ones to check you in anymore.

  35. toomuchcringe*

    My wife went on a business trip once, had to share a hotel room and bed with her boss. Woke up spooning her boss and was told later that she was snoring the whole night.

    1. Rory*

      I genuinely can’t believe people are expected to share, not just a room, but a BED with colleagues. Just ewwwwwww

    3. LCH*

      ugh. i have an upcoming conference trip where I am staying in an AirBNB (fingers crossed!) with a coworker who is senior to me. it has a bedroom bed and a living room pull out bed. really hoping this works out not weird! our workplace is having budget issues so travel is no longer covered so senior employee decided to spring for this for both of us. i already know i snore sometimes, hoping she won’t be able to hear me.

    4. Turtlewings*

      If you force an employee to sleep in the same bed as you, you lose any right to complain about their snoring.

  36. Anon for this*

    There was the time I accidentally stayed in a love hotel on a trip to Japan. With my boyfriend. In separate rooms.

    I was going to a meeting in Tokyo, as was my boyfriend, a coworker, who was Japanese but living overseas. The hotel we’d usually use for work trips was booked up for some reason, so he did some research, and found a hotel one train station over, with decent prices. We hadn’t been dating long, and weren’t out to our employers yet, so we booked separate rooms – in Japan, prices for hotel room are by person rather than room, so it costs the same as sharing.

    We arrived at the hotel to check in, and noticed some other couples checking in, but without any luggage. The rooms were clean and comfortable, but on further inspection, it had a very eclectic selection of pay on demand video options, bubble bath, and a bathtub where the tap could be turned sideways, to more comfortably fit two people. At this point, we started to figure out what was going on. Other than that, it was a perfectly fine room in a hotel that happened to also rent by the hour, and had a set of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” monkey statues as decoration. I do wonder what the staff thought of the couple staying in separate rooms, however.

    1. A Poster Has No Name*

      That’s a great story!

      I imagine the staff thought it was some kind of kink, and since they’d probably seen it all, it likely didn’t even register as odd.

  37. Rincewind*

    My worst was when I (30 yo transman) was asked to share a room with my 19 yo female coworker.
    The worst part was that I don’t even think it was transphobic. When I pointed out that the ask was ridiculous, they didn’t say anything about sex/gender and instead came back with “well, you’re married and would be attending a work event, it’s not like anything is going to happen between you two!”

    It was bad enough that they made us carpool in her vehicle (I didn’t own a car at the time) and I was stuck in a car for 3 hours each way with said 19 year old. We were not friends by the end of the trip.

    1. Lab Boss*

      Carpooling:

      I was put in a company-rented car with two colleagues to drive about 5 hours to a conference. They both said they weren’t comfortable driving a strange car, so I drove the whole way out and back. On the way there they needed to study notes and mentally prepare for the conference. On the way back one needed to catch up on e-mail and the other wanted to sleep. So I got to drive a 10 hour round trip without being allowed to use the radio. Corporate carpools build anti-morale.

      2. Liz the Snackbrarian*

        I hate driving but I am also of the opinion that the person driving gets to choose what’s playing in the car, be it radio, audiobook, music, etc. IMO your oclleagues should have brought headphones!

        1. Lab Boss*

          Both of them were slightly senior to me and said it like it was just an obvious thing, to drive in silence- I was more conflict averse back then and would often just go along to get along. Now I would be pulling over to a gas station to let them buy earplugs :D

  38. Rory*

    OK longish one here

    Part of 2 week trip from UK to Asia for big internal conference. About a dozen of us were travelling from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur direct then connecting to Johur Bahru at tip of Malaysia. (side note – flight was 7 hours but my VP refused to allow us (which included Director levels) to fly business class even though was inside policy. There was like $200 difference – he flew business class on another carrier/flight)

    Night before flight we’re all at hotel and one colleague notices our (morning) flight is now listed as 6 hour delay. As we’re unsure if this will be real, we all go to airport early anyway. Cue frustrating search around BJ airport, including finding out way into “back office” areas of airport to find airline staff to understand situation and options

    Eventaully agree that we will fly to KL, they will put us up in airport hotel and connect to JB in morning (as now arriving to KL at 11pm or so)

    Arrive at KL and there’s zero staff/info about where to go. Despite a plane full of people which is 7hours late at their home airport, there is zero info o rhelp. Again we manage to badger our way into a back office with senior member to airline to get info. Get taken to line to queue to give info for shuttle bus to “airport hotel”. Except apparently “airport hotel” is an hour away and the bus hasn’t been seen for 90 mins

    We decide to jack our layover plan and get taxis!! Cue extremely cramped 4 hour ride through the Malaysian jungle at 1am with all our bags. Get to outskirts of JB and taxi drivers are lost – so they call a local taxi to guide them to the hotel. When we get there and are checking in the taxi drivers demand extra cash vs what we agreed. With patience wearing thin I gathered whatever US dollars we had and then gave it to them with a extremely loud directive to **** off now

    One of my all time epic work journeys.

    And here’s the kicker – the flight we took was MH371. The reverse flight (KL to Beijing) was MH370, which vanished a few months later…..

  39. H.Regalis*

    When I was a kid, my mom would go to work conferences during the summer and would take me along so it would be a work conference and a vacation. The ones she picked were always in August and were either in the Deep South or the Southwest. She’d drive us there (minimum twelve-hour drive from where we lived) and our car at that time did not have AC. I was too young to drive, so I couldn’t drop her off at the conference and go explore the city: I’d have to stay at the motel all day while my mom was at the conference.

    I remember being in Albuquerque in August, stepping outside the motel room to get a soda from the vending machine, and there being a 40-degree temperature difference between our room and the outside. For years afterwards I hated going on vacation because these trips were so terrible.

    1. Liz the Snackbrarian*

      With all the love in my heart, I am wondering if your mom is a midwesterner.

      3. Texan In Exile*

        The 12-hour drive (were there sandwiches, milk, and breakfast cereal in the cooler?) is the key.

      1. H.Regalis*

        I agree! These trips were terrible. Who goes to the South in August?!

        I also remember on one of these trips we had a 9+ hour drive that day, and my mom made us stop at this little tourist-trap roadside museum about an hour before close, in the middle of our drive so we still had at least three hours to go. I was a teenager by then and I was complete asshole about it the whole time we were at the little museum.

  40. Merry and bright*

    My brother just got back from a business trip where the airline lost his luggage upon the return flight. His response was that this was the least bad thing that had happened on the trip, so it qualified as a non-event. His luggage was eventually found and returned.

  41. Delta Delta*

    Was working at a nonprofit and was sent to a conference. It’s generally understood that rooms get shared. I had shared with Coworker in the past and we got along fairly well, so no big deal. Except one year Coworker and I were informed we also had to share with Newbie.

    Newbie proceeded to get shit-hammered drunk at the conference cocktail reception. We’re talking falling-down, flammable, outrageously drunk. Somehow Newbie ended up back in our room before Coworker and I did, and she proceeded to lock us out with both the chain and the deadbolt. We tried to get her to open the door, but she was drunk-sobbing and possibly naked (I mean, who knows at this point). We tried all sorts of things and in the long run, Coworker bunked with another person we casually knew who had extra room and I slept in my car.

    1. ConstantlyComic*

      Wow, that’s wild! Was Newbie able to look y’all in the eyes at all the next day?

    4. ferrina*

      I love the description of “flammable drunk”.
      Also seconding the firing (though maybe not while she’s flammable)

  42. Llama Llama*

    My grand boss was once on a trip and went to smoke on the balcony in a very tall building. Something fell in front of the balcony door making impossible to open. He was without a phone, keys and in basically underwear.

    Eventually he managed his way into the neighboring balcony (10 stories or so up!!) and slipped out of that person’s room. He had deadbolted the door so he had to go down to the lobby in his underwear to get someone to open the door for him. Of course this requires maintenance so it takes a while for it to happen. So it wasn’t just a quick fix.

    At this point he was late for the meetup with colleagues so he had to tell them what happened. Everyone in the department knew by our next department meeting.

  43. RCS*

    I was new to scheduling travel, the former admin left and I was trying to help out. CEO flew to California from the East Coast and I somehow reserved his rental car 30+ minutes away from the airport. I guess I was trying to save $ and this was a deal! He had to take the rental car shuttle to a really scary part of the city to get his car and the car ended up being old/halfway broken down. It became a running joke for the remainder of my time there. ‘Have R reserve your rental car, she knows all the best companies’ kind of thing.

  44. Lab Boss*

    Oh, this was only business-trip adjacent but I think it’s worth telling. After finishing the work part of my trip on a swing to Europe I had booked some time off to explore a nearby city. I arrived at my hotel at dusk to find a sheet of paper taped to the door announcing that they’d permanently closed 2 days earlier and hadn’t had time to contact everyone with a reservation, so sorry. I did at least speak the language, but my phone was not cooperating and was unusuable.

    I luckily remembered another nearby hotel I’d looked into while planning the trip and they were able to get me in, and were so kind and accommodating they’re my first choice on all subsequent trips to the city, but I can still taste the panic I felt standing there.

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      OMG had the same thing happen to me with a group of guys in southern France. We’d stayed M-F at this hotel for 3 weeks. The following Monday, we flew from Paris to Toulouse first thing, did 8 hours in the office, then showed up to a note saying the hotel was closed for “judicial liquidation” ie bankruptcy. This was way out in the country, pre-GPS. We finally found a business on this country road that was open, and had a fluent French speaker (but with an American accent) ask in his best broken French so they’d take pity on us.

      The silver lining is the hotel they pointed us to was better and cheaper than the one we’d been booked in before, with a great restaurant and right around the corner from a big regional park. We stayed there for another 4 months.

      1. Lab Boss*

        I, too, ended up in a superior hotel. Gorgeous view, free breakfast, an endless supply of complimentary baked goods that “the girls in the kitchen make” (AKA, constantly changing based on what they felt like making), and a receptionist who called me a “poor wee thing” and gave me a healthy discount so I wouldn’t think badly of the city.

  45. Southern law firm*

    When I was a paralegal in the mid-00s I took a trip with an attorney who was so mortifying that I went to HR afterwards. It was a on-site paper document collection with copying and some reviewing of documents and putting papers into file folders into file boxes. We were given a pretty big room that had a few tables in it and a couch at one end. When we ran low of supplies, this attorney walked around the company and found a supply closet and just pilched (stole!) supplies! I was mortified. Then we all went as a group and she showed us where the supply closet was so we could all go get some. She would tell me to just go and take some supplies! She definitely implied it was ok but I was skeptical. I tried to get out of it, I think if I did take some, I only took a few because she went back and took a lot. Then an employee from the company came to our room and specifically asked us if we had been going into the supply closet. I can’t remember if this was my fault – I’m pretty friendly and probably if I saw an employee, I would’ve admitted it straight out. I was young and could have played it off cute and dumb like “oh I didn’t know!” But this employee came specifically to the room where we were and I was on the couch – and he was definitely talking to the attorneys at the review table, but he was standing in the doorway and kind of loud, like we were all in trouble but he knew who the main culprit was. The attorney played it off like *she* had no idea and of course it wouldn’t happen again, just an honest misunderstanding!

    When I got back to my office, I made an appointment with HR and told them what had happened because I did not want to get in trouble for her inability to represent the company professionally. I wasn’t trying to report her, I was trying to protect myself. It was horrible!

    1. Karo*

      I may be missing something, but going to get more supplies if you needed supplies seems pretty normal/innocuous.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        As I read it they’re getting supplies not from their own employer, but from the off-site facility where they were working, which may well have been charging them for supplies and expecting them to ask for the folders etc so they could be properly accounted for.

      2. Ms. Murchison*

        It sounds to me like they were visiting a client to do document review. Still doesn’t seem like it would be a big problem if the work turned out to need more office supplies than what they’d expected. If so, it probably would have been best if the attorney in charge cleared it with the client first. But I’m also confused by why it triggered this level of concern.

        1. Southern law firm*

          Yes, the attorney was basically stealing supplies from the client’s office, without permission. To me it seemed like a big deal because the attorney did not have clear permission to get the supplies from there – in fact, we were told not to!

          Fair, though – I was young, perhaps I overreacted!

          2. ferrina*

            The fact that the attorney lied when she said she had no idea was pretty bad.
            If it wasn’t an issue, then why the lie?

            In general, going to HR when your boss lies sounds fine.

  46. SarahKay*

    Not me but a colleague. We were sent to some training in our Swiss site, which is located approximately halfway along the shore of Lake Geneva.
    Colleague stuck the site address into the travel planner and told it to find him a hotel within five miles of site. Sadly, he didn’t check the map. The hotel he booked was indeed within a five mile radius of site – but on the other side of the lake.
    Actual road distance – nearly 45 miles.

    1. Which Susan are you?*

      Couldn’t you take a boat? I’ve been to the Italian lakes and they all have water taxis that criss-cross them, so you don’t have to drive the terrifying half-lane road around the perimeter.

      1. SarahKay*

        I think there were ferries but they weren’t terribly convenient, or indeed noticeably faster than just driving. And at least in this case the roads round the lake were good ones, with two lanes in each direction.

    2. noncomitally anonymous*

      Ha ha! I once had an argument with a rental car rep who was confused about why I couldn’t get to a specific site to pick up a car that was only 5 miles away! Yeah, it was *on a different island*. I couldn’t drive there.

      1. Beth*

        An excellent reason to go to the bar and order Wrong Island Iced Tea. (There is, or used to be, an actual pub in the San Juan Islands, a short walk from the ferry terminal, that had that on its menu.)

  47. Coach*

    The opposite of a mishap, but I always considered it to be a karmic reward for all the toxicity i endured at this particular job. I used to be an assistant coach for a college athletic team. One of my administrative duties was to make travel arrangements for competitions. Usually we would stay in the same hotels in a particular city, but on this occasion I booked us at a new one because the old hotel had been falling short in various ways on recent visits. We were low profile sport at a big name school and I think the hotel manager was thrilled to be tapping into that university’s business. After checking in, I realized he thought I was the head coach. I had been upgraded to their best suite and was treated to perks like a fruit basket, tons of snacks and even a credit for the spa.

    The head coach was evil incarnate and I knew he’d lose his mind if he found out. Switching rooms before getting settled would not have been enough because the perceived insult to his stature of Head Coach would have more than he could handle. So I kept quiet and just enjoyed my suite and snacks. As with most business travel, we seldom spent much time at the hotel anyway. But as it happened, on day 2 the weather was awful and we were stuck at the hotel waiting out delays. So I got bored, and bold. Turns out the spa had an opening that was perfect for me so I booked it.

    When competition finally resumed, the rest of the coaching and training staff were super frazzled as we tried to get the team ready on the compressed timeline. The head coach was losing it. Snapping at everyone, forgetting important things, and just in no way in control of himself. As was always the case, his bad attitude spread to the rest of the staff like a plague. I, on the other hand, was relaxed and refreshed from my 60 minute massage, express facial, and mani/pedi. I almost got caught out when someone noticed my freshly painted nails, but fortunately the head coach chose the moment to have a temper tantrum about how he couldn’t find his stop watch, which was of course around his neck but hidden under his hoodie.

    1. Rara Avis*

      When very young, I was an assistant coach at a high school. The head coach wanted to take a team of 4 to a competition that required an overnight stay. I needed to come because of school rules about gender-based overnight supervision. The head coach reserved a room for himself and one for the athletes, but forgot to account for me. The hotel was full. I slept on the floor of the girls’ room. 25 years later I would have protested, but I didn’t feel like I had any options then.

  48. cuteshoes*

    I was traveling solo to a work conference in a big city. I was going to have to get straight off the plane and get to work, so I was in business dress, including a nice (thin) pair of ballet flats at the airport. The security line at the airport was particularly busy and the TSA agent particularly aggressive, so as I was going to collect my work bag off the conveyer belt, the agent pushed everything forward with enough force that my bag flew into the air and landed, with a surprising amount of force, so that the corner of my laptop hit my pinky toe. By the time I landed, it the toe was impressive shades of purple and quite swollen. For some reason, I decided not to go to a doctor (out of town, no time, didn’t think they’d do much i couldn’t do for myself). Unfortunately, I had only brought dress shoes with me. Also, to add insult to (literal) injury, I wasn’t staying at the conference hotel, but at a place about a 10 minute walk away. I spent the whole conference uncomfortably limping around, cursing my shoe choices and that TSA agent.

    1. Yeep*

      ugh, terrible. I stayed a 10 minute walk from a conference last fall. The comfortable shoes I’d bought, that seemed fine when going short distances, slipped a ton while making the walk back and forth to the conference. Bloody blisters the entire time. I actually started walking barefoot on city streets. That was my own fault, though!

  49. TRC*

    Four of us on a volunteer alumni board were sharing a hotel room in Orlando. Yes, we were sharing beds but didn’t think anything about it at the time. We’d all been overseas and it just didn’t register.

    After a session, we went back to the room and found cigarette ashes in our toilet. That’s when we realized there was a connecting door to the room next door and were shocked to find it unlocked. So someone had been in our room.

    Eventually we figured out who the person was in that room, we realized he’d been sitting near us during our midnight Waffle House run. And he kept calling our room asking for a date. Total stalker behavior. It would have been even more terrifying if there hadn’t been four of us.

    We made the hotel move us to a different room in the morning and they talked to the guy to leave us alone. So the guy backed off or left and we didn’t hear from him again.

    But I’ve never been a big Orlando fan and haven’t been back. There a big difference between the theme park-related hotels (which I’d stayed at several times previously) and those outside that bubble and we were WAY outside that.

    1. Yeep*

      That is HORRIFYING.

      My husband was in a training program for work in 2008. He would travel to different locations around the country and learn on the job/backfill for vacations. He was at a place in Georgia about an hour north of Atlanta. His hotel seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. He gets to his room and some guy keeps calling him for a booty call. He’d obviously seen my husband in the lobby or something but my husband has no idea who or where he was, but he deadbolted the room and didn’t sleep a wink that night.

  50. Not Cajun*

    I traveled to a Baton Rouge Louisiana factory to tell them about the water research my company had done. I presented a map with local parish, city, and geographical names on it like creeks and rivers and high points. I speak American English as a my native language and took about 6 years of French in school. I mispronounced every single Cajun place name I said. Eventually I just pointed to a place on the map, and the audience would read it to me. It was a little bit funny, later.

    1. Felicity Porter*

      LOL, I’m from Georgia and work at an organization that has locations across the south, but just got up and running near where I grew up. My boss is from a big northern city and likes to tease me when I mispronounce names of places in states where I haven’t been because he’s gotten familiar with them and I have no reason to (all my work is internal). I always retort that I can’t wait till he’s getting confused stares because he’s pronouncing one of my local words wrong.

      1. Suburban Experience in the US*

        Like Cairo, Georgia – pronounced completely differently from the one in Egypt!

        1. Shannon*

          My company has a facility in Cairo, GA, which is pronounced Karo. Its pretty much guaranteed that at any meeting at our corporate office, somebody will pronounce it like Cairo, Egypt, and there will be a chorus of “It’s Cairo, like the syrup.” But that’s Georgia – we like to name things after famous things, and then pronounce it differently, for flair! Looking at you Houston County, or Vienna, GA.

          1. Sled dog mama*

            Oh and don’t forget your neighbors who have Beaufort, SC and Beaufort, NC which are not pronounced the same.

          2. Avery*

            I’m curious whether these (mis)pronunciations are the same as the Illinois towns of the same name, which also differ from the original cities. Sounds like Cairo isn’t, though–Cairo, IL is “Kay-row”. Vienna, IL is “Vy-enna”, first syllable rhymes with “Why”.

          3. Dog momma*

            I’m from Rochester NY, & we have several of these also.. Lima NY like the bean, not the city in Peru. Ch “eye” lye which is a suburb, not Chili like the food, but we spell it Chili, Ahvon, not Avon calling, lol. Cha’ lotte, another suburb, not Charlotte, like NC. CliNton Ave, not like Cli*ton st ( I’m originally from Binghamton NY, we don’t pronounce the N..not sure why).

    2. I already forgot my name*

      Native Louisianan here! Sorry about that! Sometimes we just pronounce things the way we’ve decided to pronounce them!

      1. Person from the Resume*

        Yep! Also some very interesting (you’re not gonna figure it out on your own) pronunciation for names with indigenous origins.

    3. Ally McBeal*

      I live in Michigan and it is inexplicably the same here. Charlotte, Novi, Saline, Mackinac, Milan, Dowagiac, Gratiot… none of these are pronounced like you’d think, and I think they all have different etymologies (some are French, some Native American, some just people names) so there’s no trick to figuring it out, just rote memorization.

      1. Bissell*

        As a native Michigander, all those are pronounced exactly like I’d think!

        I recently met someone from Milan, Italy and had to keep (internally) correcting myself before talking about her hometown.

        1. TiredStudent*

          I grew up in Alaska near Valdez. It’s pronounced Val-deez. Spanish class was confusing for us all.

      2. JoAnne*

        Ha ha ha – Gratiot! We had someone fly into Detroit who was extremely confused as we all kept talking about taking Gratiot (a main road). The pronunciation is quite rude. Of course, we don’t notice it, in our heads we see the spelling. (gras-sh!t)

    4. Simon (he/him)*

      Yep, all the French place names here are pronounced at least a little bit wrong, lol. I took French in school for years and still can’t understand Cajun French unless they slow down a lot because it’s so different.

      1. Not Cajun*

        As someone from the American South, where “redneck” can be a point of pride, i affectionately now call Cajun “redneck French” and no one has corrected me on that point, at least.

  51. hodie-hi*

    I have two, traveling by plane from the same work site to home both times.

    The first time, my colleague and I were on the same flight home. He drove us in the rental car to the airport. I cannot remember the cause, but the maze of roads within the airport was gridlock, completely stopped, apparently for hours with no end in sight. So we–along with hundreds of other people–abandoned the car where it was and walked to the terminal, just barely making our flight. (This was before 9/11.)

    The second time, severe thunderstorms shut down all flights into or out of the airport. So we waited. And waited. It’s clearing out, we’ll board soon…oops, never mind. This was before cell phones were a thing, so I’d get on a pay phone to call home to keep spouse updated. As the hours ticked by and I called home with updates, spouse would relate to me the progress of the day, including the party that we were hosting. I finally arrived home after midnight. If I’d rented a car and driven the seven hours, I’d have arrived in time to enjoy my own party.

    1. Heather*

      I’m guessing the first few people who just walked away from their cars led to a delay, which led to more abandoned cars, etc

    2. ferrina*

      For your second story- I’ve had the opposite happen. There was a huge storm in my destination city, with no one getting in or out. My friend was supposed to be giving me a ride from the airport. My flight was supposed to land at midnight, but my friend checked the flight, checked the weather, and everything said I wouldn’t be able to get in. So she went to bed.

      Meanwhile I land. I know nothing about the giant storm- it’s just a bit rainy and windy. I guess my flight was the only one that made it in that night. I wait for my friend until 1:30am before calling. Luckily she turned off her Do Not Disturb, and she was shocked I had landed. She came as soon as she could, but it was almost 2:30am before she got there.

  52. Desk worker*

    I was packing for a multi- day and night work trip and, as per usual, my cat(s) were all over my suitcase. So, being the forward thinking problem solver I am, hung my black slacks up to pack last.

    I think we all know where this is going.

    Yep, no pants except for the jeans I wore on the plane. I worked for a company that had Very Strong Opinions on how we were to dress and look while on trips. Jeans did not cut it.

    Queue frantic store and transport searches (before Uber) to find a buy reasonably priced pants for the week, before our first scheduled meeting.

    Now I just close the suitcase between adding things. Like I should have been doing already. And definitely do now.

    1. RogueTrainer*

      This one is especially funny because of the industry- I was, very early in my career, a travel agent for a large company with many branches, one of which was travel. They decided to hold a conference for all the travel agents from all the various branches across 11 states, for one Saturday in Florida. We were all instructed to book our travel through the corporate travel department, who were separate from the commercial agents, by a certain date. Also, since it was a Saturday conference, taking the full day off on Friday was discouraged- if at all possible, we were to work a half day then head to the airport. Myself and the other agent from my office followed instructions and booked early, with flights that got us into the conference around 10 pm. However, the company did not account for the fact that only a certain number of flights that fit their booking criteria were available, and about halfway to the booking deadline, announced that so many people were arriving early, they were adding a vendor event on Friday night, complete with entertainment and drawings for prizes where you could put in your business card and the drawings would be done during the Saturday event. But, if you’d already booked your travel, you were not allowed to adjust your flights to attend this event. Also, they were only paying for one night at the hotel (Friday-Saturday), and the conference would definitely wrap up in time for the earliest flights and there’d be a shuttle service. So, by following their instructions, I missed the vendor event, wasn’t entered into any of the drawings, and the conference ran over time. Plus, since we’d only been allowed to book rooms for one night, we all had to check out the next morning before the conference events started and let the hotel store our luggage. There was so much luggage being stored it was insane, and the hotel stored by name, not departure time, so there were hundreds of travel agents standing in a sea of luggage frantically trying to find theirs so they could run for a shuttle that was running late and caused most of us to be running through the airport in danger of missing boarding for our flights home after being in the state for less than 24 hours. You know, the exact opposite of the good travel booking practices they were impressing on us to use for customers. It was a *mess* and a half.

    2. AnneCordelia*

      It’s ok, I went on a long trip once and forgot to pack any underwear. I think I had my clothes laid out in different piles and somehow missed grabbing the underwear pile. Thank God every city has a Target.

      1. JustaTech*

        When I went to see Hamilton through my husband’s work I managed to not pack any underwear. Thank goodness for Nordstrom Rack!

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        My wife did the same thing on her first post-pandemic work travel. Fortunately she made it to the Target in her destination city just before it closed for the night.

      3. EmmaPoet*

        I once went on a business trip and realized in the airport that I’d accidentally pulled the stuff bag with underwear in it out of my case before I left the house (I was looking for something and removed it, then forgot to put it back in.) There was no Target, but there was a department store nearby, so I scurried over the first night after our meetings ended and grabbed everything.

  53. Clearance Issues*

    3 of my coworkers were sent cross-country to an office that they were supporting, had a great time, and then due to flight issues were trapped in the airport for 48 hours and the travel department refused to answer their calls. they got home eventually…

  54. Elle B*

    My first “adult” job out of undergrad (I was 22) with a small IT consulting firm. I worked under the HR person, her boss who was the CEO, and her boss’s best friend/former college roommate the CFO. I was hired as a technical writer but it was almost exclusively administrative work.

    We (CFO, CEO, HR woman, and myself) went on a business trip to Orlando (the firm was based outside of DC). During dinner the first night we were there (all four of us), the CEO waited until I had food in my mouth before asking me if I was planning to have phone sex with my boyfriend when we all returned to the hotel.

    Everyone, including my boss, the HR woman, thought it was hilarious.

    I departed for another job shortly after arriving back home.

  55. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

    I used to work for a contract photography studio, and one of our larger money-maker jobs was doing out of town graduation photos, which the studio would try to bundle up into 2 or 3 shoots over a day or a day and a half, since those took a minimum of 2 people, ideally 3, and it was a pain (and more expensive to pay for mileage) to send 3 people out for just one shoot.

    So, I, our studio manager, and another photographer had one evening shoot, then the next day we would have a morning and then an afternoon shoot. First shoot goes fine, then we drive most of the way to our morning destination. To save money, the studio owner liked to book cheap motels in less populated areas. So we get to our hotel and get our rooms (coworker and I share a room since we’re both women, studio manager gets his own), it’s already after 10pm, and there is NOTHING to eat except a surprisingly crowded Waffle House as far as we can see, and we’re starving. We decide to drive into the little town to see if maybe there’s something faster, as we just wanted to hit a drive-thru and crash at the hotel.

    We drove into the town square, having seen no fast food or really anyone, and noticed a group of people standing around a truck and started to drive toward them to ask if there’s a McDonald’s or something when the light turned red and we stopped across the street from them…and then watched in horror as the people at the truck unfurled a HUGE confederate flag while we sat at the red light. We tore out of there as soon as the light turned green, and put as much distance between us and whatever was happening down there as fast as possible.

    Needless to say, we decided to go back to the busy Waffle House, and the studio manager had a word with the owner about his choice of hotel locations.

  56. Joyce to the World*

    Didn’t quite make it traveling for work, but the last time it was requested that I travel, I ended up getting a horrible case of poison ivy. My ticket was already purchased, so I was trying really hard to get to a point I wouldn’t look like someone with a communicable disease. It only got worse. Don’t follow internet advice which includes taking a bath. Nope. That makes it spread to more areas where you do not want it to go. The day before the trip I sent my boss a picture of my arm which looked just horrible and my face, where it was also all over. She was nice enough to let me stay home and attend the meetings virtually. They didn’t get refunded for the airfare. I was so relieved. I have horrible travel anxiety to begin with and I couldn’t imagine travel while I was so miserable.

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      Sometimes that happens – people get sick unexpectedly, if the company wanted a refund they should have booked refundable airfare.

      1. Iain C*

        I’ve done plenty of non refundable business travel. But the flip side of saving that money is that you have to be prepared to throw a ticket away and buy a new one. Still been overall a saving

  57. too many ohio c's*

    This one was my fault: I was presenting at a conference in Ohio. It was my first conference presentation and my first time travelling for work. I had *also* just given notice that I’d accepted another job and would be leaving a few weeks after the conference–which my boss was not happy about. Four days before the conference, I went to map my route from the airport to hotel, just to see how long an uber ride would be. Readers, I had booked my flight into Cleveland for a conference in Columbus.
    I was too embarrassed to just ask the accountant to change my flight, and didn’t want my boss to be even more mad at me, so I just said nothing. I rented a car on my own dime to drive the hour between cities. It was a tight turnaround, too, since I was flying out the evening the conference ended and hit friday afternoon traffic.

  58. Ann Onymous*

    I was 6 months into my first professional job and got sent on an international trip with several colleagues. It was my first time outside my home country, my first time traveling for work, my first time flying in business class, and my first time throwing up on an airplane. For context, I was not prone to airsickness as a kid, but became much more sensitive to it as an adult. I hadn’t flown for a few years prior to this trip so I figured I’d see how things went on the first flight (less than 2 hours) because I had a long enough layover to recover and take motion sickness meds if I needed them before getting on the second flight. The first flight wasn’t bad, so I didn’t take my meds and got on the second flight. Dinner was served about an hour into the flight. I took two bites and then puked. I spent most of the rest of the 9 hour overnight flight standing at the back of the business class cabin hanging out with the flight attendants because I felt a lot less sick when I was standing. This happened in fall of 2014 when there was an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and I swear every single crew member on that plane asked me if I was absolutely sure I hadn’t been to West Africa. I have not flown without motion sickness meds since.

    1. Silver Robin*

      It was my first time outside my home country, my first time traveling for work, my first time flying in business class, and my first time throwing up on an airplane.

      This is a brilliant sentence, thank you for the laugh

  59. pally*

    Back in the day (1990’s), the VP of the company would travel to Europe a couple of times per year (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy) for business. Each return yielded lots of great stories of the people, the food, places they stayed and things they did. Sometimes souvenirs were brought back as well.

    After one particular trip, the hotel reached out to the company to ask for the return of the key to the room our VP had rented. Added that a very hefty fee would be charged if we didn’t get the key back to them right away. Which we thought was oddly out of place. Don’t hotels have oodles of keys to their rooms? What’s so unique about this key?

    Turns out, this hotel where he stayed was a former castle and located in a very out of the way place. The key for the room was the only one of its kind. No duplicates. And they were unable to get into the room until that one key was returned to them.

    Well, VP was full of the “how do they know I have that key?” talk. But he soon acquiesced. The huge fee they threatened to charge had a lot to do with that as the CFO wasn’t going to let the company foot that bill. The key was returned. Turns out, the VP had fancied the key as it was very unique-looking and wanted to keep it. Thought he might get away with it too. That is, until the hotel called the company.

    2. allathian*

      Yikes, did the VP get to keep his job? I mean, he was caught stealing…

      At the very least, I hope they never booked that VP into anything more interesting than a standard business hotel where the keys are cards that can be deactivated.

  60. JR*

    We had a trip where:
    *the hotel we were staying in caught fire (minor damage thankfully)
    *power went out in the building we were conducting software training in
    *the toilets in the same building were leaking from the above floor (so you couldn’t use the restroom without having toilet water drip on you)
    *we missed the flight home
    *and ended up having to share a room that night because there were no hotels that had two rooms available.

  61. Annony*

    I was traveling once for business and instead of my company paying for travel, the organization I was visiting was paying. They were about a 3 hour train ride away so I suggested traveling by train since it was convenient and cheap. They told me no. They were only providing transportation to and from the airport, not the train station so I would have to fly. That’s fine. They are the one paying for the flight. But then it turned out that my flight had a layover in the exact opposite direction of where I was traveling. So instead of a one hour direct flight, I had a two hour flight, three hour layover and three hour flight. Never again. If that bizarre situation happens again, I will pay for my own cab to the train station.

    1. Lady_Lessa*

      Something similar happened to me, on a job interview trip. There was a direct flight between my West Coast city and the Midwestern city where the job was. They sent me home via a layover in Texas, in thunderstorm weather. Fortunately, I wasn’t offered the job. That may have been the same trip where I went to put my breakfast on the room, to make it easier for the company to pay. Not allowed.

    2. JustaTech*

      One time I was booking a flight from the West Coast to the Midwest and Concur (aragh) really, really, really wanted me to take a flight through Newark. Or Atlanta.
      Why, why why with the overshooting your destination by half a continent?

  62. ArtK*

    My wife and I sang in a choir. We had a concert scheduled in a city that was just far enough away from home to warrant a hotel room to avoid a 3 hour drive home after singing. I booked us a room at the motel that everyone else was using. After the concert we got to the motel and opened our room. The room smelled like an ashtray that hadn’t been emptied in months. Neither of us can deal with cigarette smoke (both grew up with smokers.) So I went to the office to ask for a change. The clerk *insisted* that when I made the reservation, I had requested a smoking room. I, on the other hand, clearly remember selecting a non-smoking room. There was no other room available so we ended up driving back that night.

  63. The Guilty Clogger*

    I was assigned to share a hotel room with a subordinate (both female) while attending a conference. Between the flights, airport food, and nerves, my stomach was a wreck and I was…backed up. The second evening of the conference my roommate said she was going to the hotel bar to socialize with some team members. This was my chance to finally use the restroom and relieve myself – hurray! I said I’d be down shortly, wanted to wrap up a few things.

    Then… I CLOGGED THE TOILET! Water and unsavory contents were swiftly rising and there wasn’t much in reach. I grabbed my toothbrush to wedge under the tank float to stop the water flow. Then I had to call down to the front desk to ask for Maintenance to drop off a plunger. Help arrives and I’m humiliated at the door, but they won’t just give me the plunger. They want to give the full service. I’m already DYING of embarrassment so I excuse myself to meet my colleague in the bar.

    Unfortunately she wanted to go freshen up and went upstairs to find the Maintenance man unclogging our toilet, so there was no way it could remain under the radar. I just fessed up, apologized, we had a good laugh, and I picked up a replacement toothbrush at the front desk. We no longer work together, but I think we ended up bonding over the humor of the situation and are still friends!

    1. ArtK*

      I’ve clogged a toilet while traveling. The folks at the B&B were very nice about it because that particular brand of toilet is *very* prone to clogging. I should have been more careful since we own the same brand and it gives us trouble regularly.

    2. oh no*

      Oh no. Reading these are bringing so many memories back. As an undergrad, I attended a conference and roomed with another student. We went to the hotel Applebee’s that night and I went crazy – the faculty thought it was fun to treat the students so they’re ordering appetizers and desserts and all of this food I don’t normally read. We get up to the room and within 20 minutes I am having the loudest cramptastic diarrhea in our shared bathroom. It was a literal sh!tshow.

  64. ZSD*

    My now-husband, then-fiance’ was in grad school in Southern California and went to a conference in Pittsburgh in January. For the plane, he wore his California clothes, but of course his checked bag had a coat, long pants, and naturally a suit for his presentation.
    As you’ve guessed, the airline lost his luggage. For the entire duration of the conference. He had to spend the full conference in shorts and a T-shirt, in January. He occasionally dashed across the street to get fast food. (Grad students can’t afford hotel restaurants!) His suitcase was finally delivered about an hour before he had to head back to the airport to fly home.
    The positive side of this is that every day, when he called for a status update, the airline kept giving him more and more flight credit, which was transferrable to another person. So a year later, he and I were able to fly to our wedding (in my home state) and on to our honeymoon for free.

  65. Texan In Exile*

    I was the only woman in a group of men at a three-day offsite meeting. They were all sleeping in a big house on the golf course together; I was in my own little cottage down the street.

    The first day, at our meeting in the big house, one of the guys was talking about how he had hit a golf ball into the smegma.

    I gasped as the blood drained from my face.

    He noticed my response and asked what was going on.

    Instead of pulling him aside and quietly explaining, I blurted out the explanation to the entire room. (None of the other men had reacted when they heard the word, which made me think they didn’t know what it was, either.)

    Then the blood drained from his face as he hurriedly said he had no idea. He had thought the word meant a clump of grass on a golf course. (I believed him.)

    Later that day, my boss said I should go back home – it was too expensive for me to be in a cottage by myself. And it’s only now – TODAY, MORE THAN TWO DECADES LATER – that I am realizing he probably sent me home not because of the expense but because I had explained what the word meant to all those present.

    1. ThisWitch*

      At the risk of sounding out of touch, I also don’t know what that word means, but I’m at work so afraid to Google it!

      1. Tinkerbell*

        In brief, the gunk that accumulates in your nether crevices if you don’t clean yourself properly :-/

      2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        Yeah, I just looked it up on wikipedia. Definitely not something to look up from an office computer.

  66. Borderline*

    For about 10 weeks and International ferry ran across Lake Ontario from Rochester, New York (USA) to Toronto, Ontario (Canada). Collegues in Rochester took the ferry to Toronto for a training class. (Ferry took about 3 hours, drive is about 3 hours).

    Before the class was over, the ferry company declared bankrupcy and closed. Fortunatly one person took a car on the ferry so they could drive back when the class was over.

    1. Dog momma*

      Borderline, will assume you’re from Rochester.. but for those that don’t know, that was the biggest money breaker for the City of Rochester. Millions of dollars wasted..thanks Mayor Johnson!
      The port is in Charlotte ( prompt Cha’ lotte), and there is nothing there.. I believe the 2 eateries closed on the port closed. No taxi, bus, nothing, and you can’t walk ” to town”, its about 10 miles. There’s nothing there but the lake. Instead of being the Fast Ferry, the mayor wanted it to be decked out like a cruise ship.. total disaster.

      https://rocwiki.org>Fast_Ferry

      https://wblk.com>rochester>Toronto fast-food rye any

  67. Anonymouse*

    This is highly identifying to anyone who was there, so I’m gonna change my pseudonym…

    But in 2023 we had a “marketing summit” in the city my company is headquartered in. The first day we had some meetings, then socialization in the evening – pizza making, cocktails, so much wine, and then the VP of marketing held court at the hotel bar for as long as people could stay awake (I retired to my room around 8:30 because I was done peopling). She is known for liking a good time and being free-flowing with the drinks at happy hours.

    The next morning, we’re getting our coffee, settling in for meetings, and the VP is nowhere to be found. She stumbled in over an hour late, claiming her alarm didn’t go off. *After* the guy who also overslept, having put two bottles of wine in his cargo pockets the night before…

  68. HR Chick*

    Attended my first business trip back in the 90s when I was in my 20s to New Orleans. I came home and could not stop vomiting. My mother had to take me to the hospital to be treated for dehydration caused by the flu. I was in an out of the hospital in one day (two bags of IV fluid later). Everyone thought I drank one too many Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. LOL.

    2. ArtK*

      My first business trip/conference was to NOLA as well. For some reason, nobody told me that there was a mandatory meeting every morning, so I spent the mornings in the French Quarter eating some great food.

      Same trip, I would go out in the evenings to enjoy the food, paying well over the per-diem; I didn’t mind spending the extra. The sales guys, on the other hand, were eating at McDonald’s in order to make money on their per-diem.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        I had a business trip to NOLA where they made it very clear that there was a mandatory networking dinner every single night, plus they served lunch. (This was an internal all-company offsite across our multiple locations). We had NO good food in one of the greatest food city in the country.

    3. Urban Fervor*

      This reminds me of the time my husband had food poisoning in his early 20s. We lived together at the time but I was working non-stop double shifts so we barely saw each other for a few days. I knew he was sick but I didn’t realize he wasn’t able to keep anything down for DAYS. He eventually visited his university’s health center where they promptly sent him to the emergency room. The hospital kept him overnight because he was so dehydrated! I felt like a terrible girlfriend for not realizing how sick he was.

      To this day his mother doesn’t believe this wasn’t simply a hangover, no matter how many times we try to set her straight. She thinks we’re just embarrassed about drinking too much.

  69. ArtK*

    Another one: I was sent from the US to the UK to train some folks. The nice thing was that my ex and our sons were there, so I took an extra few days to take the boys around. Things went south when I went to the airport (Heathrow) to fly home. That happened to be the day that British Airways ground crews went on strike so nothing was flying. The airport was full of people whose travel arrangements just got messed up badly. I was able to call BA and get on a flight the next day, but where could I stay? Corporate travel was useless since tons of people suddenly needed overnight accommodations. So, I called my ex’s ex boyfriend, who lived in London, and he put me up for the night.

    1. MsM*

      …I realize it’s probably not wise to ask for more detail, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to live without it.

    3. Texan In Exile*

      Don’t even get me started on company-funded strip clubs and prostitutes.

      That is, company funded for male employees to take male clients.

      I wonder why the women didn’t get the good accounts?

  71. theothermadeline*

    Is it a travel mishap if it’s actually just terrible business practices? My first business trip ever was two weeks in New York City assisting on mass hiring for a big sports and entertainment event that my national company was a partner for. I was based out of Kentucky, so my hourly rate was at the very Kentucky level of $17 an hour. We were given a $35 flat per diem for all food, travel, etc. in NEW YORK CITY. They also put us in a hotel that did not offer continental breakfast OR have microwaves in its rooms. I complained a lot about it with the woman who was 30 years my senior who they HAD ME ROOMING WITH FOR TWO WEEKS.

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      I worked for a city years ago and was sent to Banff, at a hotel out of town. I could get into town for dinner but was stuck at the hotel for breakfast and lunch. Policy was $5 for breakfast unless it is provided (this was a LONG time ago), and they provided coffee and pastries so that counted as breakfast provided. $6 for lunch and $15 for dinner. If I could have moved the money around and ate a less expensive dinner, or was allowed to use that $5 from the breakfast bucket, it would have worked. But for $6, all I could afford at that fancy hotel restaurant was the soup.

      It sounds like all you could afford was soup.

    2. oh no*

      We *just* changed our per diem to GSA rates. For years I took a bath traveling to DC on $33/day.

  72. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    Not a horror story per se, but some travelling mortification.
    Mid twenties. Taking a business trip as part of some market research for a new product line and I was tagging along. The new product line boss loved spending his start up funds so off we go to the Ritz Carlton in Philly or wherever it was. (He claimed we had a perfectly good deal on the cost.) I walk up to the counter and act like I knew what I was doing … and pulled out the white plastic souvenir wallet that my friend got at a highway rest stop years before and which had a puffy dinosaur sticker and packing tape holding it together. Why yes, here’s my gold card.
    Sigh.

  73. Bruce*

    I had a close call: It was the Friday around noon before my first trip to India, I was going to fly out that Sunday. One of my coworkers heard me chatting about the trip and he asked: “Bruce, do you have a visa? You won’t be able to get in without a visa…” Reader, I did not have a visa! If anyone had mentioned it before I did not recall. I made some panicked calls, the consulate was going to close for the weekend and I was going to be out of luck. At that point an engineer who worked for me came up and said “I’ve heard you talking about needing a visa, let me check if I get get some help.” She came back in half an hour and said “I talked to my dad, he called the consulate. You should go in on Saturday and ask for Krish, tell him you need an emergency visa. They’ll be expecting you. ” It turned out her dad was a retired diplomat and had friends… Saturday I went to the Indian Consulate… I entered through an open door, and found the lobby was being demolished by two dusty guys… The larger of the two hefted his sledge hammer and barked at me “What do you want???” I replied “I’m here to meet Krish, I need an emergency visa” He scowled at me, and said “I’m Krish, you wait over there for now” pointing to the least dusty section of the lobby. He went to the back, and another person came in to wait. She said her father was in the hospital and she had to travel immediately. Krish came back out, talked to both of us… he was very kind to the lady, but was grumpy with me for using the emergency process. “We’ll help you this time, BUT DON’T DO THIS AGAIN!” An hour later I had my visa… 20 years later I’m still in touch with my former employee, I enjoy watching her progress in her successful career :-)

    2. Urban Fervor*

      Wow! I’ve travelled to India for work and the visa process took weeks, maybe even months!

      1. Bruce*

        Her dad was a pretty senior person when he retired, I had no idea until she asked him to pull strings for me.

  74. Mirve*

    This was decades ago so no cellphones or easy access to email on your phone.
    I was interviewing with companies as I graduated from college and had become a little blase that the travel arrangements would work, so didn’t have extra cash or anything with me and no credit card yet because college student without a job.

    The company had flown me from LA to Santa Barbara (which could have been just a 2 hour drive instead) on this tiny prop plane. Probably took longer to get to LAX and so forth than to drive, but whatever, they made the arrangements. Rental pickup, no problem, get to the hotel and they have the reservation, but no payment. It is also about 6 pm at this point.

    I was considering the options of 1) sleeping in the rental car in the hotel parking lot or 2) driving back home and then back in the early morning when luckily someone was working late and answered the pay phone call from the hotel lobby and was able to get it straightened out with the hotel.

  75. ThatGirl*

    I just got back from a work trip – which thankfully I don’t have to do very often. There were about 25 people, mostly sales reps, a few other people from my company, and the hotel was also hosting a few other business groups. We’re in the lobby waiting to walk literally across the street for dinner. Two sales reps got caught up talking to some random dudes, got on these vans that were waiting for them, and got all the way to TopGolf before realizing they were with the wrong group.

  76. BellyButton*

    I never knew sharing rooms and beds (gah!) was a thing people did until AAM. I will count myself lucky that no one has ever suggested that any place I have worked. I don’t even like to share a room with friends on holiday!

  77. bamcheeks*

    CHARACTERS:

    Me, trainer who travels all over the country, based in Manchester, three hours/£300 from London by train
    Admin who books the travel, who is 22yo and German, and out to disprove every stereotype about German efficiency you’ve ever encounteredm, based in London

    Me to admin: “Hi, I’m due to come down to London day after tomorrow and I saw you’ve booked my train tickets but I’ve not received the tickets yet. Bit worried! Any idea where they’ve got to?”

    Admin: “You’re not coming into the office to pick them up?”

    Me: “I’m not — no? I’m not coming to London in order to pick up tickets that I need to travel to London? That’s not– I couldn’t–um.”

    Admin: “Ohhhhhhhh. Um.”

    Anyway, another time she accidently booked me First Class from Aberdeen down to London, so you know, sometimes her cluelessness was excellent.

    1. BellyButton*

      I read this in Hugh Grant’s voice. Especially this “I’m not — no? I’m not coming to London in order to pick up tickets that I need to travel to London? That’s not– I couldn’t–um.” It reminded me how he responded to his bumbling roommate in Notting Hill.

      1. bamcheeks*

        That’s what I sound like when I’m thinking, “You’ve been so incredibly daft I don’t know how to point out the daftness without sounding mean”!

      2. Storm in a teacup*

        I used to work right near where Hugh Grant lives in London so would often see him out and about.
        Once was in Pret grabbing breakfast from the shelf. I turned around and slammed straight into Hugh, who promptly said ‘oh um I’m so terribly sorry. Are you, uh, alright?’
        My entire response: a giggle and I was too awkward to make eye contact (his eyes are incredibly blue). I must have come across as a right idiot.
        But I felt I was in an actual Richard Curtis film for 5 seconds.

  78. Cheezmouser*

    That one time our VP was at a major industry conference and called security to file a noise complaint against a room down the hall, and it turned out to be her boss, the company president. (It was nearly midnight, and there were like 25 employees hanging out in his hospitality suite.)

    The funny thing is that she didn’t back down. She gave him a dirty look and he sheepishly closed the door and told everyone to quiet down. This has now become a story we tell new hires to inspire the appropriate awe in our VP.

    1. A Poster Has No Name*

      I imagine there were a number of people on the floor that night grateful to your VP, even if they didn’t know it.

  79. Llama Llama*

    My company changed its street name 10 years ago. We are in a small town adjacent to a relatively big city. Uber doesn’t recognize this 10 year old address and instead brings up the same address in the nearby city. When we have visitors they often have accidentally selected this address (thinking we are in the city…) and it brings them to a really sketchy area.

    1. Lurker*

      One time Lyft tried to take me to the records department of my university, no where near my actual university. My university literally has its own zip code. Idk why their address keeping is so bad.

  80. NervousYolk*

    I went to an out of state conference on diversity as a diversity resident, so basically the lowest seniority in my organization. All of the other people from my organization that attended were department managers, directors, and institution leadership. All of them were white except for my department manager and the HR director. Strangely enough, they were the only people from our institution I saw around the actual conference, but we all kept to ourselves (or at least I did) and ate meals/spent off-time separately. There were no restaurants other than a Joe’s Crab Shack-esque place and the hotel bar within a reasonable walking distance and I have a shellfish allergy, so I was taking the bus or using rideshare to the next town over for meals. So maybe they were all getting cajun shrimp without me. Except for the last day of the conference when I set out to the nearest bus stop (20 min walk away) to figure out lunch, when I almost get run over by a car leaving the hotel parking lot. A rental car with all of the directors and institutional leadership I hadn’t seen during the conference, including my department manager and the HR director lol

  81. NMitford*

    In my Big Five accounting days, I was late inclusion for a tax managers conference my employer held at a large resort in the Phoenix, AZ, area. Because I wasn’t asked to go till the last minute, the resort didn’t have a room for me in the main hotel for the first night and instead put me up at an adjacent timeshare resort that was a good three miles from the hotel where the conference was taking place. They explained that these were literally brand-new units that weren’t even on the rental or sales market yet, but the unit would be so much bigger and better than a standard hotel room that it would be a big treat for me to stay in one. I think it may even have been the show model for that timeshare unit (the one-bedroom style). Ok, fine.

    Lower level employees were not authorized to have rental carsd for this conference, so the front desk would have their shuttle driver take me to the timeshare unit and said to just call and ask for the shuttle to come back and get me. So, after dinner the first evening of the conference I collected my luggage from behind the front desk and the shuttle driver took me to my timeshare unit three miles down the road.

    I took a long soak in the jacuzzi tub that night, which was nice, and then went to bed. The next morning, I got up, packed my suitcase in preparation to transfer back to the hotel, and went to call the hotel to have the shuttle come get me only to discover that the timeshare unit was so new that the phone in the unit didn’t actually work. There was zero dial tone.

    No problem, I thought. I’ll just use my cell phone. Alas, I had no cell signal in Arizona in those early days of cell phones. I tried inside the unit, I tried standing on the balcony, and I tried from the parking lot. No signal.

    So, here I was, stuck in a timeshare in what seemed to be the middle of Nowhere, Arizona, with no way to call for the darn shuttle. There were no cars in the parking lot, but I knocked on the doors of adjacent units anyway. No answers.

    Finally, I decided that I was just going to have to walk to wherever I could find a working phone, so dressed in my nice work clothes, pantyhose, and a really good pair of pumps, I started walking thru a deserted timeshare development that seemed to still be under construction toward the main road I hoped would lead me back to the hotel. Pulling my roll-aboard bag behind me. In Arizona. In July. Because the firm liked to save money by holding its big conferences at times/locations where they could get off-season rates. Think Chicago in January (brrrrrr!) and Arizona in July. I was also hungry, because I had no food with me at the timeshare, and didn’t have a water bottle with me to carry water on my walk.

    I got probably half a mile down the timeshare development road when a car pulled up and the driver asked if I needed a lift. It turns out one of the senior partners had also been marooned in the timeshare development for the night, in a bigger model unit elsewhere in the comples but, because he was a senior partner, he had been allowed to rent a car for this trip.

    Thank goodness for him, because I’m not sure how far I would have had to walk otherwise. I still was a hot sweaty mess when we got to the conference, though.

  82. Miette*

    A friend of mine is an airline pilot. As he was checking into a hotel in Atlanta, he was asked by multiple people who he was cosplaying–there was a Dragon Con happening in the same hotel.

  83. Pretty as a Princess*

    Have a colleague who was traveling by plane to a place in the US with a name that is pretty common. Like “Springfield.” And there is more than one regional airport by this name. Yay for unique airport codes, right?

    Colleague no kidding winds up getting off the plane and realizes only then that they are in the wrong Springfield, in the wrong state, for a client meeting the next day.

    The admin assistant working for this person was told “Call the travel agency and get me a flight to and a car & hotel in Springfield.” The admin assistant was unaware there were multiple Springfields. Why would they know that? The travel agency never called back and said “which one?” Or “There are Springfield airports in these states.” That is on them – but then when the itinerary came back, the assistant asked the traveler to please review it for correctness and confirm it was correct. This was a standard part of the workflow. You had to *specifically* approve the itinerary cut for you, because we had a 24-hour window where we could cancel.

    Traveler clearly never read the airport code & location on the itinerary. Or the address printed on the itinerary for the hotel. Just approved it, never looked at what the agents sent over at any point. Just got on a plane, made a connection, and wound up in the wrong Springfield.

  84. Goose*

    My first conference was a day pass in my home city that we got comped tickets to. So fun! When I got an email about registering for the next year in a different city, I immediately registered, booked flights and an airbnb. And then went to ask my boss about reimbursement. She very kindly walked me through the approval process, and how it usually takes place *before* anything is booked. I was 23.

  85. sofar*

    My friend and her colleagues (who all worked for a non-profit) arrived at a hotel for a convention only to realize their employer had screwed up the booking and they had no reservations. It was late at night, and, when they called the boss, she said, “Just use someone’s card, we’ll pay you back.” My friend had the highest credit limit out of everyone and put the reservations on her card and then had to fight her employer for reimbursement (which she finally got). But she made peace with it, due to the fact that she’d gotten a TON of rewards points.

    Until … her crazy boss started interrogating her about the points she’d gotten and how she needed to use them for work travel ONLY. My friend quit soon after and used those points for a well-deserved vacation.

    1. BellyButton*

      HAHA people have audacity. We use a travel booking site and encourage everyone to put their own membership numbers in to get points. If we expect them to travel we want them to at least get something out of it. We also allow people to use our discounts to book vacations or extra days onto either side of a trip or bring their spouse along, and we just to deduct it from their paycheque.

      1. mli0531*

        I still have an OldJob’s discount code in my car rental account. I haven’t worked there since 2015.

  86. GythaOgden*

    Finding out the hard way that for smaller hotels the company issues us with a credit card number to use to pay on the spot rather than being paid through the central corporate system run by an online travel site. I turned up and was asked for money — and paid it out of my own pocket. When I got to my room I turned on my work phone to get my email to find a virtual card attached to the travel confirmation email and instructions on how to use it.

    I should really have claimed it back but I felt like such a wally I just ate the cost. Now I use larger chain hotels when booking travel because generally by the time I’ve gone seven rounds with the British rail network and have had to eat Wetherspoons pizza for dinner, I’m in no mood to try and explain what’s going on with a gnarly corporate card to a hotelier juggling customers at the bar and with his infant slung over his shoulder; he was just as frazzled as I was so I didn’t want to make his day worse. I generally go up the night before an on-site day — I got that as a reasonable adjustment because of my dependency on public transport and my need for a walking stick, and it prevents a lot of hassle in the mornings, but it still takes a lot out of me as well. I mean, it’s no-one’s fault, it just means I need to stick with the chains.

    And yeah, I’ve been to the same hotel three times in four months and I’m about to ask them if I can leave a wash bag and a nightdress with the lovely folks at reception there. Obviously I’m joking, but I know my dad had to live at a resort hotel in Scotland for 18 months while working on a project, only coming home (to London) every weekend, so although we got two family holidays out of visiting him at the nice resort, he got rather sick of it. Like me, he’s an introvert, but even we get lonely at times, particularly when you’re used to being around your own family rather than in an impersonal hotel. And that’s before one of the managers I report to made a remark about having a busy week with meetings, a conference and recruitment duties meaning he was at a different hotel every night for a full five-day week. The downside of having an interesting and varied job like property management is that it’s very spread out and some of us actually live some distance (in UK terms at least) from where we live.

    So it could be a LOT worse.

    1. No Internal Compass*

      – And yeah, I’ve been to the same hotel three times in four months and I’m about to ask them if I can leave a wash bag and a nightdress with the lovely folks at reception there. Obviously I’m joking –

      Except that that is a thing. I work three to six month projects rotating in and out of another city one week out of every three and I frequently leave a bag at the hotel between stays.

  87. Someone Else's Boss*

    I used to travel from one US coast to the other twice a month because the team I managed was located on the West Coast and I’m settled out East. Most times, this travel occurred without issue, which is to say that my company was honesty often reasonable. But one trip coincided with a big event, and the company decided to double book rooms to save some money. We all got our own beds, and the hotel rooms were pretty big, so while I wasn’t thrilled, I planned to suck it up. Except the woman they paired me with was a prospective employee, not a current employee, and she was treating this more like a vacation. She knew ahead of time that there would be two beds in the room, but no one thought to tell her she was sharing the room with me. When I arrived, the front desk gave me a room keycard and I headed in. I knocked on the door before opening it, because I knew she already had a key, and she said, “Come in!” In the room was this woman, her boyfriend, his two small children, and her mother. I introduced myself and casually asked where they were staying. After a little game of “Who’s on first?” we realized that she thought this was just her room, and she completely, totally freaked out. I backed out of the room and called the travel coordinator to ask if she could find me another hotel room, which she did fairly easily. I returned to the room to let the woman know I’d sorted it out, and she lost it. She screamed at me that I “had no right” to “ruin” her job prospect and I should have just paid for another room myself so that no one would know she brought her family. Before I could explain that I actually hadn’t even told them what happened, and had only said there was a mix-up, she shoved me to the floor and kept screaming at me. Luckily, her boyfriend seemed as confused as I was. He helped me up, thanked me for letting them keep the room, and blocked his girlfriend while I left. Two days later, someone reached out to me to ask if I’d had the chance to interview her and if I thought she was a fit. I told them I’d avoid hiring her. So I guess, in the end, I did ruin her job prospect.

    2. GythaOgden*

      As they say, you didn’t get her not hired, she got HERSELF not hired. (I had to say that to a colleague recently and it helped them get over that guilty aftertaste we all get in these situations.)

      I don’t blame her about the mix-up over the room. I blame her for being a complete idiot about it. To be honest I’ve paid for single occupancy before out of pocket and I’d do it again very quickly, but that’s just wild and I’m sad for her in a way that she never learned ‘respond, don’t react’ as a way of conducting business relationships.

    3. Zona the Great*

      She shoved you to the floor?! My glob I would have called security immediately. Those poor kids!

    5. Rhamona Q*

      This person really assaulted someone who was supposed to be interviewing her?? Wow. I’d love to have seen her reaction when she learned that information.

  88. Zona the Great*

    Several years ago. Huge cohort of folks from around the country coming to Phoenix (!) in June (!!!!) for a weeklong networking event. That entire week happened to have temps above 119 for 7 straight days. Those folks were stuck here as the planes could not ascend in such heat. I’m sure they still have not recovered. For anyone not familiar, you cannot even get cold water from your tap in that time of year. The pools feel like swimming in a hot tub. No relief.

    1. Bruce*

      Flashing back to being a groomsman in Phoenix… in July… 115 F in the shade… wearing top-coat and tails, with patent leather boots. First thing I did when the reception started was take off the coat, sit down and take off those boots!

  89. Medium Sized Manager*

    I learned the hard way that Delta closes their doors 15 minutes before boarding. We missed a flight WHILE IN THE AIRPORT because we thought we had time for breakfast. We did not. The only other flight that day took us to a city ~5 hours away, so we had to book a rental car to drive us to the right city in time for training the next morning.

    I also went on a work trip to another country where my manager booked a return flight for the wrong day and had to re-book a same-day flight for a few thousand dollars. It was the middle of the night back home, so we couldn’t get pre-approval and just had to hope she would be reimbursed (and she was!).

  90. Kate*

    I did all the right things for one business trip:

    -filed the travel approval forms
    -booked the plane tickets
    -booked the hotel
    -set up meetings on the margins on the conference

    …Got to the airport and realized that I had forgotten to register for the conference itself *facepalm*

    They were thankfully very understanding.

  91. ThursdaysGeek*

    Several of us went to a conference in Chicago. I and others flew commercial, but the company owner and one guy took all the equipment on the boss’s personal plane. The conference was uneventful, until Mayor Daley decided to destroy the runway at Meigs Field. The plane was supposed to take the boss and the other guy and all the equipment to another trade show in California. Instead, the guy had to buy a last-minute ticket to the next trade show, lug several laptops and other equipment on a commercial flight, while the owner waited to find out how he could get his plane back.

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      What on earth! For anybody else who never heard of this event – Chicago’s mayor in 2003 literally had bulldozer crews out in the middle of the night to destroy the runway of the small downtown/lakefront airport, because he wanted it closed. Planes were stranded.

      1. Chicago, where the C stands for corrupt!*

        Ahh, Mayor Daley. I lived in Chicago when that happened. His reasoning was that Meigs was right in downtown and because it was not terribly long after 9/11 he didn’t want planes flying that close to the buildings in the Loop/downtown. I think he asked the FAA for permission and they denied him so he just had it done in the middle of the night.

  92. True Crime Motel*

    I have to travel for work and one of our sites is in a very remote area where there’s a small Mom and Pop B&B and a motel that I’m positive is the next set of American Horror Story. Company policy says we can’t drive the three hours home on field days because we’re exhausted, which is true. Field weeks are two teams of three, so six of us usually take up the whole B&B. We have a contract with them and they love it. It was a great relationship until something happened at the administrative level, saying we were spending too much on lodging, so out of the blue we were booked at the creepy motel.

    Admin had broken our contract with the B&B and made a new one, that was much more expensive, with the motel owner because it was part of a chain we supposedly had an agreement with. Admin was appalled we were using a small business for lodging, and not a chain hotel. We tried to fight it but didn’t get far, as our boss accused us of being “pampered”. Our field rotation came up and after a very long day in awful weather, we checked in to the crappy motel. They hardly had six habitable rooms and I just knew this wasn’t going to go well by the look of my room. And I am a germaphobe so I wasn’t going to touch anything in there if I didn’t have to. We had disposable painter’s suits in our trucks, so I left my overnight bag in my truck, stripped down in the bathroom of my room, immediately put my clothes in a plastic bag, sealed it, and took it back to the truck. The team laughed at me for wearing two disposable painter’s suits but everything about that room told me not to even put my toothbrush down.

    All of us were exhausted so we just crashed for the night until my team lead woke me up a few hours later, asking if I was okay. I’d stretched out two big plastic bags on my bed, plus the double layered painter’s suit. I was fine, but the rest of the team were covered in bites. From bedbugs. The team lead told us to load up and leave, breaking the no driving rule. I asked if anyone wanted help securing their clothes and he said no, and told us to collect all our luggage and clothing and put it in his truck. Everyone stopped at an urgent care on the way home to document the bedbug bites, which for one guy was really bad. Boss took all our clothing, the urgent care reports and dropped it ALL off in our boss’s office with a detailed note about the bedbugs.

    The next field rotation was booked back at the B&B and we didn’t hear anything about being pampered again. Also corporate had to pay for pest control for the few unlucky team members who ended up spreading it to their homes. And also the trucks had to be fumigated. The bedbug thing was so bad I almost forgot that one team lead found used needles in his room, two got head lice, and another team member ended up with a rare type of skin infection from mold.

    I really love that little B&B. For many reasons.

    1. Not bringing them home*

      Oh lord, that reminds me of an awful trip where I ended up sleeping in the lobby of a different hotel after I found a bedbug and exited my room quickly, but couldn’t raise the teammate with the keys to sleep in the van. One of the other trip attendees tried to convince me the next day that bed bugs aren’t a big deal because they don’t kill you.

  93. Spacewoman Spiff*

    I used to work for a nonprofit that assigned shared rooms for staff at its annual conference. One year, I was assigned to room with a woman I’d previously met a couple times at other conferences. We were in a brand new hotel–I think we may have been its first guests–and they clearly hadn’t perfected their design yet because our bathroom door had an almost full-length sheet of CLEAR GLASS built into it. When you sat on the toilet you could look right out into the room, and your roommate could look right back at you from their seat on the bed. (I checked with others and they all had frosted glass doors. Lucky!) We couldn’t be moved to a different room, so we rigged up towels to cover part of the door (not the most important part!!) and made an agreement that whenever one of us had to use the bathroom, the other would sit facing in the opposite direction.

    (Thank god I no longer work for a company that requires shared hotel rooms.)

    1. Spring*

      This reminded me about a time I traveled to Connecticut to work at one of my company’s offices. There was a freak blizzard, and I had to work from my hotel room (this was before it was common to work from home). The weather was so bad that my boss couldn’t get to the office either, so she came to my hotel room to work (I can’t remember why she didn’t just work from home). The hotel was brand new and not quite finished – my room didn’t have a bathroom door. When I was the only one there, it didn’t matter, but with my boss there all day, one of us had to go out into the hall every time the other one needed to use the bathroom. It felt pretty weird, and I’m glad the hotel was completely finished by the next time I stayed there.

    2. Bob*

      The exact same thing happened to me at a conference in Europe. 2 Double beds with a roommate and 100% clear glass into the shower and toilet area. When we arrived the beds were also pushed together. The hotel bought 20 large rolls of brown butcher paper and taped it up for us. We had most of the place booked.

      1. Spacewoman Spiff*

        Weirdly, I’m comforted that I’m not the only one who’s had this experience! This still cracks me up, in part because my roommate and I were young enough that neither of us thought to ask the hotel to find a way to cover the glass.

  94. Secret Identity*

    Once I went to a massive conference in a major city with basically a delegation from my internet-company employer. Said company was hosting a side event with a keynote speaker from the entertainment industry. Said company was to comp the keynote’s hotel room.

    I got to town the evening before with the delegation, went to the company & partners dinner, got back to hotel around 8 PM and one of our conference/event team was waiting and waylaid me and my marcomm manager – who I was very good friends with, mercifully.

    It was at that point that we were told that someone forgot to book the hotel room for the keynote speaker. Who was going to arrive at the hotel ANY MINUTE. And as we were young single women known to be close friends, would we mind giving up one room and sharing? OK, fine, I am in my 20s and this person on the event staff was the stuckee who was in a hard spot. Not happy about this, but she’d probably be in a world of hurt with her boss if she couldn’t solve a problem she didn’t create. We agree in order to help her out.

    Then we arrived in the room and it had one double bed. And some fancy chairs. And so my colleague and I slept in the same bed.

  95. ForestHag*

    I attended a major conference a couple years ago, where I was invited to some vendor dinners normally reserved for high-level clients. I was hoping I could network at this event, so I put a lot of effort into preparation so I could look and feel my best – and then I got poison ivy on my face the week before I left. I was able to see my doctor and got some medicated cream for it, which helped for a few days, but then it counteracted with another one of my face medications while I was on the trip and my face turned into a pepperoni pizza from hell the first day of the conference. I was in a lot of pain due to the inflammation, and weepy blisters had broken out. I wore a mask, but it didn’t help much because the itching was terrible and the blisters were soaking through the mask, plus the mask didn’t cover my upper face area. So I spent the majority of the conference in my hotel room doped up on antihistamines and watching the session live streams. I tried to attend one dinner and made a horrible impression, because I looked pained the whole time and kept restraining myself from scratching my face, so I bailed on that early after some of the other dinner guests kept asking if I felt alright. The only good that came out of it was that I had some top-notch room service meals for those few days.

  96. Director*

    Flew from the west coast to the east coast for my first time presenting at a conference. I booked my flight to arrive in time for dinner the night before so I could practice and relax before my morning presentation. However someone had a medical emergency on the flight and we had to land in Denver (they ended up being ok – they were able to walk off the plane). They told us we would be there for about 45 minutes and if we wanted to get off the aircraft to stretch out legs we could, but that we’d need to stay on once we returned. The airport was mobbed and I didn’t think I’d have enough time to grab something to eat, so I walked around a bit and then went back to the plane. Where we proceeded to sit for THREE MORE HOURS. By the time we arrived on the east coast it was 2am and there was nowhere open to eat either at the airport or near the hotel. It was well after 3 by the time I got to bed and I was VERY over caffeinated for my 8am EST presentation.

  97. mcl*

    In 2010 I was 26 and had traveled to Paris, France to accompany my sister’s business trip. While I was in Europe, I had decided to do some pre-work for a program in Germany that I was planning. After my sister and I parted ways, I tried to travel by train from Paris to western Germany, where a family friend lived. Everything fell apart because of a storm that turned turned out to be Cyclone Xynthia. It was a horrendous wind storm that brought travel to a halt and actually caused some fatalities – trees down everywhere, nobody was moving. After sitting in Alsace-Lorraine for hours, we finally chugged into a station in Germany. I tried to catch the next local train, but it was gone… and my original train also left. While I was huddled against the station wall out of the wind and trying to figure out what to do, a very nice German woman came outside to offer me cocoa. She led me inside to what turned out to be the station Mission, a religiously-affliated network of groups who help travelers in need. Readers, I was in need! A group of us (a German family, a mom and kids who only spoke French, and me) all figured out we were heading in roughly the same direction and decided to get a taxi together. All was well, until one of the German kids got violently carsick inside the taxi. We all piled out, the taxi driver was a pro and mopped up, and I finally made it into my destination about 12 hours behind schedule. It could have been worse!

    Today, I would have cut my losses and just found a hotel near the station I was stuck at – it was a city that had options nearby. But it ended up being really helpful to know about the Missions – I had a need for assistance for a travel partner with a disability and they really, really, really helped us out when we needed them.

  98. Awesome Day*

    A colleague registered for a conference in another state. He flew to the location, stayed overnight at the hotel and in the morning arrived at the venue. Turns out it was cancelled – sometime after registration he’d marked their emails as spam.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      This is why you should never ignore emails from organisers of events for which you’ve registered. I appreciate that some go over the top with email frequency, but sometimes they really do contain important information.

  99. Alan*

    The travel department of my employer booked me on a very time-critical trip to a government facility but (without telling me) never paid for it. A nice airline person educated me on the difference between “reserved” and “ticketed”, and I stood there for over 20 minutes while she tried to figure out how I could still get on the plane. In the end she was able to take a personal credit card (which my employer by policy does not allow for plane tickets) and I got to the gate just before they closed it. When I called our travel department, they thought it was the funniest thing in the world (I was livid), but at least they paid.

  100. anonprofit*

    Oh perfect timing haha, I can freak myself out about my first ever business trip, which is coming up soon!

  101. CzechMate*

    Not necessarily a mishap, but something my coworker and I still laugh about.

    We’re Early Career Professionals™ at an international conference in Denver, CO (think, the Association of Niche University Administrators). After the daily sessions, a partner company hosts a cocktail hour at a bar next to the convention center. My coworker and I go over, but as we have no purchasing power, we can’t do much at the cocktail hour except eat, drink, and mingle. I’m happy to sit with my free glass of wine and unwind, but my coworker says, “We shouldn’t. We’re at a conference. We need to go NETWORK.”

    Why shyly walk up to the bar and ask some of the other conference attendees what they do for work. One of them VERY animatedly tells us ALL about the RECORD NUMBER of student deaths at her university, how that gets handled with the student health insurance company, and the logistics of repatriating human remains. This monologue goes on for maybe 30 minutes.

    Afterwards, my coworker turned to me and said, “You know, maybe we should just go back to the hotel.”

  102. Mags*

    A coworker of mine got stuck in another country coming back from a business trip. He thought the layover was 2 hours, but instead it was 26! Since he didn’t have the proper visa for the country he was stuck in, he had to stay in the very small airport the entire time. This alone was enough of a travel horror story, but management decided to make an example of him at the next monthly meeting. They went on about how he made an error when booking the flights, he wasted money, he stressed everyone out when he called to try to rectify the error, etc. Here’s the thing: he didn’t book his flight, the travel office did. And who gets final approval before the tickets are purchased? Management.
    (this is one of MANY examples of why I was glad when that manager left)

  103. I am the one who eats crackers*

    Not sure this counts but one time my roommate/coworker (not directly. we both worked in distant departments of a huge company) invited me to join him on a business trip. Our mutual employer was paying for the room and rental car, all I needed was my own flight. Turns out he flew to San Jose and I flew to San Francisco. I rented a car to drive to him which, because I was under 25, cost more than the flight. So much for a cheap trip! There were lots of other shenanigans and mishaps that weekend, but I guess it was memorable. (Well, the parts I remembered, anyways…)

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      At least it wasn’t a San Jose, California vs San Jose, Costa Rica confusion!

  104. Soprani1*

    For your entertainment I recount the tale of the Worst Day of Business Travel Ever:
    I was scheduled as a speaker for a conference on the US West Coast so I booked my travel from the East Coast to land me in the destination city with 5 hours to spare to attend the speaker orientation.
    I am not a morning person, but I dragged my bleary self out of bed at 2 am to make my flight. As I awaited boarding at the airport gate a boisterous banshee arrived at the gate 5 minutes after I heard the “close the door” notice on the gate agent’s walkie talkie. The banshee proceeded to wail about missing the flight and demanded the doors be opened. The gate agent called security and the banshee was escorted out of sight.

    Boarding prep for my flight begins. Just as everyone is lined up, an announcement is made for a delay, and another delay 15 min later. After 45 min it is announced that the flight is canceled due to a dead battery with no new battery available for hours. Pandemonium ensued for hundreds of passengers to rebook. I called my company’s travel agency to be told they can’t help. I later found that this was incorrect and our travel manager was incensed. I waited in line for another hour for the gate agent to book me on a new set of flight departing in 4 hours.
    As I waited for my new flight time I cooled my heels in a less busy section of the terminal. While there, I witnessed a lady face plant and bloody her nose after tripping on her suitcase. I helped her up, flagged down a passing security person and watched the disoriented lady be rolled away in a wheelchair. I thought to myself, what a dramatic day.

    I boarded my flight with no issues, but at my connection I realized the gate agent booked me on a flight boarding on the other side of the airport at the same time my flight landed. Cue mad dash through the airport. Trains, people movers and one wrong turn later, I managed to make it within moments of the door being closed. Whew!
    Finally, I arrive to the conference hotel at 12 midnight local time. I had been awake for 24 hours at this point. I was supposed to be set with electronic kiosk check-in, but their system was down. The check-in line was long and slow and took an hour to get to the desk.
    Finally, I have a room key!! I find the elevator and make my slow, half witted way to the room. My key works on the door, but the inside latch is engaged. I find a courtesy phone and call the front desk. Oh, they made a mistake and gave me the wrong room number and a key to the an occupied (!) room. I have to go back down to the loooooong line and get a new key.
    I had been awake for 25 hours now, so I no longer gave a fork. I stumbled past the line, tossed the wrong key on the counter and barked at the person behind the desk that “things needed to be fixed”. A new key was made and a new room number was provided.
    Finally, I made it to my room with a beautiful champagne and strawberry welcome display.
    After having been awake for 26 hours straight I fall asleep in the clothes I had worn all day.

    The terrible, no good, very bad, worst business travel day ever was finally at an end.

    1. Elizabeth West*

      I thought you were going to open the door to the wrong room only to be confronted by the boisterous banshee. :D

  105. ThursdaysGeek*

    A bunch of us travelled to Cincinnati for training, and at the end of the day, the boss took the trainers and several local employees out to a really nice restaurant. There were probably at least 12-15 of us at the table. The boss got the bill and was then one of the first to leave. As the last of us were heading out, the waiter came out in a panic: “Is one of you bossman? You forgot to sign the receipt!”

    We looked among ourselves, and then one of the guys said “Yup, that’s me,” and he scribbled his fake signature. Even the waiter knew it wasn’t him. I was young at the time and was in awe that this could work.

    1. SarahKay*

      That definitely depends where you are. I’m in the UK, where (before chip and PIN) credit and debit cards were held by the staff until the receipt was signed, and they then checked the card and credit slip signatures matched.
      I still remember about twenty years ago, I was at a business lunch with a US visitor who said he was paying. The waitress took his card to the till to swipe, and came back with the receipt to sign; visitor looked surprised that she didn’t give his card back to him immediately. My boss stepped in and explained that this was standard so she could check the signatures matched.
      Visitor said, in a horrified voice, “But what if they don’t?”
      Either the waitress took pity on him, or they matched, because she took the slip and returned his card with no problems.

  106. Blanked on my AAM posting name*

    T/W – animal death / travel accident / dark humor

    I was booked to attend a conference in a city three hours away by train and caught the train in the early afternoon of the previous day. About an hour into the journey, with the train travelling at over 100mph, there was a THUD, a terrifying period of shaking and bumping, screaming brakes, screaming passengers, and finally silence as the train shuddered to a halt and all the lights and the air conditioning cut out.

    As everyone remembered how to breathe, the tannoy clicked on and a slightly shaky voice announced “umm… we seem to have hit a herd of cows. Please sit tight while we find out if the train is still working. We will be coming round with free steaks shortly.”

    The train was not working, and it took until around 10pm (with the intervening hours spent with no food, water, air conditioning, or working toilets) before they finally to got it to limp back to the station we had passed through many hours earlier. (Although the cows were of course far worse off. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone working on the train that day has been vegetarian ever since.) I finally got to my destination at 2am, and sleepwalked through the conference the next day.

    For the rest of the time in that job I was the subject of regular jokes about cows and, worst of all, I never did get the promised steaks!

    1. Silver Robin*

      Poor cows, poor train workers, and poor passengers, that does suck! But I did laugh at the steak comment,; no need to let it go to waste!

  107. Scott D*

    A business trip of mine included an end-of-day tour of a working oceanography lab as part of the wind-down after a long couple of days. A working oceanography lab is NOTHING like an aquarium that would be open to the general public–it’s messy, there are cables and tubing everywhere, dishes and tanks with various types of fish, shellfish, etc. in different configurations with notepads attached tracking the experiments, etc.

    There were three pans of shrimp side-by-side with different codes that meant something to the scientists but not to us. The shrimp weren’t moving so a co-worker said “I wonder if these are alive” and put his finger in the pan. Well, the shrimp were alive alright and once one of them leaped up out of the pan all the others did the same, landing in different pans and, presumably, contaminating the experiment.

    Then, being a tall person, I hit my head on a PVC pipe, breaking it and dousing myself with water that was being pumped in directly from the ocean. The workers scrambled to put the pipe back together. I got soaked. My coworkers got a good laugh at my expense.

    I don’t think we’re going to be invited back

        1. Nina*

          It takes maybe two seconds for an idiot to stick their hand in a shrimp tank. It reads to me like there was a tour (so, not unsupervised) and the scientist/s took longer than two seconds to notice the idiot sticking their hand (their hand???) in the tank of live shrimp in a working oceanography lab where presumably people who are not idiots don’t need to be told not to touch things.
          ‘If it’s not yours, don’t touch it’ is… kindergarten stuff where I live.

  108. giraffe*

    My spouse was booked from New York city to San Jose CR instead of San Jose CA. it was at a time where the airports were constantly changing what ID they would accept, so he was annoyed they wanted a passport, but it was within the realm of possibility. He got tipped of when they started distributing duty free on the plane. He managed to get off before the plane left. He’s not the one who made the error.

  109. PhyllisB*

    Not for work, but years ago my hubby and I decided we needed to get out of town for a weekend. We like going to the Gulf Coast (MS) so we decided to try the Emerald Beach Resort in Biloxi because we’d never been there. I called Directory Assistance (this was before googling was a thing) and got an 800 number. Called and talked to a lovely reservations clerk with a delightful British accent (didn’t think much about it because coastal areas always have a varied population.) Confirmed details then one of our kids had a MOM EMERGENCY so I told him I was handing the phone to my husband to get driving directions.
    Readers, this was Emerald Beach in the BAHAMAS!! After it was sorted out hubby and clerk shared a good laugh, and of course it took years for my spouse to let me live this down.
    Sadly, when I tried to locate the Biloxi one, I found out it had been destroyed during a hurricane.
    Now for those wondering how I made a mistake like that, before the days of cell phones and such, a lot of hotels had 800 numbers for reservations. You called 800 directory assistance and told them the name of the hotel you wanted. I don’t remember if I forgot to specify city, or if operator didn’t pay close enough attention, but there you go.

  110. Dr. Doll*

    We went for a multi-day visit to a conference at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. It poured buckets the entire time. I forgot my wellingtons, so went barefoot most of the time (until I stepped on a giant thorn). We wore trash bags cause no one had raincoats. Everyone was camping, so that was fun. I took my sleeping bag into a greenhouse and slept on one of the benches, but didn’t realize that the roof was leaking over part of the bench and woke up drenched anyway. I assume there was a lot of pot and other stuff being smoked, but I was a Very Good Girl then, so I wouldn’t have been into it (still not). I was in my mid-20’s, so this was more a lark than a disaster, but it sure would feel disastrous now.

  111. Pauli*

    My company has offices in several big international cities, and travel budgets for hotels in each of them. The budget for NYC is $150 per night and they were shocked that none of us could find appropriate hotels for that amount (the finance department and management is very much not based in NYC). It’s since been increased to $250 per night, which is still a struggle because they always confirm these trips only around 1 month in advance.

  112. ArtK*

    Reading the comments here is getting traumatic. I keep remembering travel mishaps that I had tried to forget.

    Flew with my boss and one other guy to Maryland to visit corporate headquarters. When the meetings were done we went to the airport (BWI) to fly home. We’re booked on the last flight for the day to Los Angeles, on US Scareways. When we get to the airport they tell us that the equipment, coming from La Guardia was running late. A storm had blown through and held up a bunch of departures. What they *didn’t* tell is was that La Guardia only had one runway open and our equipment was something like 83 in line to depart. In any case we wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, around 10 or 11 PM they tell us that the equipment had left New York *BUT* by the time it got to Baltimore, the crew would have been awake too long to fly to LA. So they gave us blankets; but of course BWI has those seats with fixed arms so you can’t lie on them. They also gave us vouchers for food, except that everything was closed! The Burger King had a few pre-made (and cold) burgers so that was dinner. The next day we flew to Philadelphia and then on to Los Angeles.

    I *think* this was the same trip where my boss (a VP) bought us some fast food because we got into Baltimore quite late. He made the mistake of not keeping the receipt and he and the accounting department argued for *weeks* over reimbursing him about $30. Given his salary, the argument probably cost them several hundred dollars.

  113. Tangentwoman*

    I was staffing my CEO (my grandboss) for a few days of meetings in another city, built around a Very Fancy Evening Event that the CEO attended while I watched it on TV in my pajamas from my hotel room. CEO arrived to check in at the same hotel after the event, around 11:00 p.m., to be told they were oversold and had given away his room. CEO calls me from the lobby, explains the situation, and…is silent. It takes a few beats for me to realize that I am fully expected to give him my room, but that he will not actually ask me to do it.

    I luckily have a friend who lives on the other side of the city (probably a 45-minute drive) who agreed to put me up for the night, and we ended up having a great time with our impromptu slumber party. (We still text each other every year on the day of the Very Fancy Evening Event to reminisce.)

    After the fact, my CEO was really embarrassed by his behavior; he apologized profusely and sent flowers to both me and the friend who hosted me. He was overall an awesome person, leader, and mentor, so I’ve long forgiven this one misstep (and never spread the story around), but I’ve clearly never forgotten it.

  114. NMitford*

    I’d like to share a positive story too.

    I was working onsite for weeks on a big proposal at one of my company’s regional offices near a naval base in Maryland. I was there for so long that, one weekend, my husband drove down to spend two night over the weekned with me and bring me more clothes, etc. On the Saturday night we went to the nicest restaurant in town for dinner (everything else in town was either dive bars or generic chain restaurants like Applebees).

    When we walked in, it was clear that the restaurant, which wasn’t large, was expecting a big party. Many tables had been pushed together to create one big table in the center of the restaurant, leaving limited seating around the perimeter, and we ended up seated right next to the swinging kitchen door.

    We were eating our appetizers when the big party came in — it was a very nice former employee of the company and his wife and their family celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary. My husband and I went over to say hello, catch up a bit, and wish them happy anniversary, then went back to our meals.

    At the end of our meal, we asked for our check and that’s when the waiter said, “The gentleman over there has paid for your meal, because you ended up with the worst table in the house,” and pointed to the former employee. Such a lovely, and completed unexpected, thing for him to do for us.

  115. Helvetica*

    This is where I confess that when I was a 22-year-old assistant, I made the travel arrangements for our team for a study trip to another country, and made everyone share rooms (not beds!). To be clear: we were financed from a grant where there was enough money to get everyone their own room but I…wanted to save money.
    My boss – whose assistant I was – was also on the trip and actually chose to share a room, even though I had booked her her own room and therefore, I got the single occupancy room.
    I still think about it every time a question arises here about hotels and *shudder*. Why did no one tell me??

  116. Borgney*

    I had a job installing software for hotels, and went to a different hotel every week. It could have been anywhere in the world. I live in the US.

    Who knew that Bank of Montreal conference center was in Ontario? I didn’t check the address. I caught that the Thursday before Sunday travel and changed my ticket.

    I always worked with another vendor’s installer and was in Vancouver waiting for her on Monday morning. She was in Chicago. She’s dropped a week from her travel scheduling. She was supposed to be in Chicago the next week. She arrived on Tuesday.

  117. Will Lee*

    A former coworker (who’s still a friend) and I developed a good rapport and used to always request to room together when traveling for work trips. While we were on different teams and had different supervisors (our supervisors reported to the same director), we worked together frequently and became friendly outside of work. On one of our last work trips before I left for grad school, we roomed together for a conference. While I was talking to other colleagues at the hotel bar, I noticed my coworker slipped away. Imagine my surprise when I came upstairs to our room to find him engaged in “adult” activities with my married supervisor! Thankfully it was my last work trip before I left. I have no idea what came of my supervisor and her husband, but my coworker claimed he didn’t know she was married at the time.

  118. The Formatting Queen*

    I used to book travel regularly for the directors in my department. One of them, an LA-area resident, had once been burned by his previous admin who booked him departing from LAX, but returning to the Long Beach airport. He had parked at LAX. He always checked his tickets carefully after that.

    The only other mishap I witnessed was my when my boss flew from Boston to Los Angeles on a Monday afternoon for some executive meetings the rest of the week, but somehow the rest of the executive team wasn’t aware he’d be there in person. They called him Tuesday morning (at like 5am PT, cause they thought he was still on the east coast) to fire him and wouldn’t meet him in person even when they realized he was right down the street. He got right back on the first flight back to Boston. Sucked for him but I’m pretty sure one of the reasons they let him go was because he had spent so much of the company’s money on unnecessary travel expenses.

  119. Ann O'Nemity*

    Early morning, on the return flight the wheels on the plane wouldn’t go up. The flight was redirected to closer airport – in the opposite direction we were supposed to go. We had to fly low and slow because the wheels were down and it was SO LOUD! Like, worst headache of my life LOUD. Babies are crying, people are cupping their ears, everyone on edge about the landing with broke ass wheels.

    Then of course we get stuck in the new airport trying to get on a different flight home. Spent all day trying to get home with standby waitlists, weird connections, and layovers. And all this was after working three hellish 16-hour days on the business trip.

  120. AnotherJen*

    I worked for a group doing a weirdly specific sort of business consulting, and I was part of the training group. As was a slightly weird guy with a last name that was very, very similar to mine: think “McDonald” and “Macdounald”, both pronounced the same. Also, this was in 1995 or so, so hotel reservations were made over the phone. I think you can figure out where this is going…

    So, we show up to the hotel late the evening before some out-of-state training, to find that they’d assumed we were a married couple that wanted to share a room. Uh, nopity-nope. Not even a little, tiny bit. Then they claimed that they were full. I told them I’d be standing in front of the desk until they found, booked, and paid for a room nearby, and transported me there. (Amazingly, I think they did find a room in the same hotel. I might’ve been young, but I was pretty steamed, and I’ve been told I have a rather scary face when I’m furious…)

  121. Not My Best Work*

    Once, while an office worker, I was sent on a trip to do fieldwork, in actual fields, where the man leading the trip seemed to think that meals were optional, bathroom stops on long drives were unreasonable, breaks only needed to occur when convenient, and work went sun up to sundown. The group was actively resentful that on the last day, after we finished, I needed a break to eat lunch (they allowed me 15 minutes to make a PB & J sandwich from the cooler) because they’d all decided without me that we were skipping lunch to go play tourist. To say I was woefully unprepared for the conditions of that trip is an understatement. I work out regularly, but I am not used to walking through dense brush for hours and hours, alternating with riding in a tightly packed vehicle for hours.

  122. whimbrel*

    I had just wrapped up a contract on my first real job, and was traveling home with a connection in Copenhagen. My flight back to Canada from CPH had been cancelled and I’d been rebooked for the next day, but I didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night, and the airline wasn’t helpful. (And this was back in 2008 when I didn’t have The Whole Internet In My Pocket and finding available wifi was challenging at best.)

    So I went to the Hilton attached to the CPH airport, which was FancyTM and had a room – for somewhere above $350CAD, which was a shocking amount of money at the time for new to the job market me. I thanked the desk clerk and said I would see what else I could find, and ended up wandering the foggy and damp streets of Copenhagen until like, one in the morning, when it was finally evident to me that every hostel/hotel in a reasonable radius was booked and I was not going to find a cheap room and I just cracked. Tears and snot everywhere. I cabbed back to the airport, still in tears, for $$, took the room for more $$$, showered, crashed for four hours, dragged myself out of bed and went back to the airport where I caught my flight.

    It was a super comfy and indeed fancy room, though – marble everywhere in the bathroom, really fancy fixtures and toiletries, and a TV and one of those phones next to the toilet which are always hysterical to me. :D

    1. Percy Weasley*

      Long, long ago, BCP (before cell phones) I would call my BFF from every hotel bathroom that had a phone, so we could giggle about making/receiving a phone call from the bathroom. For someone who didn’t do much business travel, it happened often enough to be A Thing for us.

      1. whimbrel*

        I absolutely LOVE this and I hope you call them the next time you have a land line bathroom phone :D

  123. jh*

    When I worked for the U.S. government, I was scheduled to leave for my first work trip with my boss to two East African capital cities starting on a Sunday. While leaving work on Friday, I stepped off a curb and into a pothole and heard a sickening pop in my ankle. I hobbled home on public transit, but by Saturday morning it was clear that something was truly wrong. I went to urgent care and they confirmed that I’d snapped a ligament and broken off a piece of my heel bone.

    I texted my boss an FYI that I would be at the airport on Sunday, but with crutches. She told me I didn’t have to go …but I was so excited to go on this trip that I brushed off her gentle hint and figured out how to use one crutch and my rolling suitcase to get around. Having only practiced in my tiny apartment, I had no idea how exhausting it was, but by the time I got to the airport I realized I’d made a huge mistake. I persisted, and my boss ended up rolling my suitcase for me for a good chunk of the trip, assuring me that since she had three kids she was used to navigating airports with extra baggage. I still cringe thinking about how awkward and uncomfortable it was–I know I was a huge inconvenience and she should not have had to act as my luggage porter! I hadn’t even thought about all the work of getting in and out of taxis, going through embassy security, and getting to meetings on the second- and third- floors of buildings without elevators (never mind the one that took place in an actual garbage dump).

    The silver lining of the story is that when the deputy director of our agency found out, she authorized me to upgrade to business class on the very, very long flight home. Because the agency had booked last-minute, refundable tickets they were very expensive anyway and business class was only $15 more. When my boss found out the marginal difference, she paid the extra herself and we toasted with our champagne across the plane as the flight home took off.

  124. History Nerd*

    I was on the first trip with a new coworker. He was driving and we were chatting. First, he ignored the very large signs on the side of the road indicating that the highway ahead was closed to through traffic. Then, when he couldn’t go any further that direction and decided to find another route, he found another route – where he ended up behind an Amish Horse-drawn cart going about 3 MPH. The three Amish people in the cart kept looking behind at us so I could tell they were expecting us to pass, but my coworker was too afraid of spooking the horse. I insisted that they were smart enough not to bring a skittish horse on roads that cars might drive on. Finally, he went around (the Amish people waved like “it’s about time”) and slowly got back up to a normal speed for the rural highway we were on. We arrived at our destination almost an hour late.

  125. Autumn leaves*

    ot of college, I worked for a photography company. We would be sent various places and sometimes overnight. We were all young adults and they would tell us to stop off at a hotel and grab a room. A lot of times, we were mixed sexes. At the time it didn’t shock me but looking back at it now, it wasn’t okay.

    And then the owner got upset that there was hanky panky going on during these trips and that he forbade it. he was a piece of work

  126. Not A Girl Boss*

    I was a brand new baby professional in a male dominated industry, on one of my first business trips for work, trying to make a good impression with the 6 guys who took me out to the local sports bar in their redneck town.

    I genuinely am a whiskey drinker, but also know that that’s a thing that tends to impress guys, so I ordered a bourbon. The bartender squealed that my order was “so cool” and, apparently thinking she was doing me a favor(????) brought me a literal pint glass of straight bourbon with maybe2 ice cubes.

    So now I’m in a real pickle. Because I made this move about ordering bourbon, and I can’t back out now.
    Friends, this 120lb practical-child… finished an entire pint of bourbon at the rate these guys finished their beers. My entire tactic for getting out of this pickle was that I pretended I had to leave due to an early morning before the alcohol could hit me too hard, pulled my rental car into the next parking lot, crawled in the backseat and slept there overnight because I couldn’t drive to my hotel.

      1. Not A Girl Boss*

        The regular price! (Which was a relief, because we regularly took advantage of the caveat that you can’t technically expense alcohol, but you don’t have to give receipts for items under $25).

        Thinking back now, I wonder if she was in cahoots with the guys who took me out and this was some kind of hazing ritual.

    2. mcl*

      Hahaha, my dad went to a rural bar in a rural part of the state once. He likes a whiskey every so often so he ordered one. This particular bar is really more of a “bud or bud light” sort of a place, but the server dutifully dusted off a whiskey bottle and served my dad A PINT GLASS full. He recounts this story with great delight. (I realize not all rural bars are unfamiliar with spirits, but this one was.)

    3. Silver Robin*

      Not at all the same, but it reminds me of my first corporate job at my father’s old fancy firm supporting his old team; so all the folks remembered him. Fortunately, they had really liked him so I got treated like a child they were fond of rather than a child they resented. Every summer Friday, at 3 pm, it was beer hour. Usually that meant beers at work but once they invited me to go drinking at a nearby bar. Ordered a beer, came in a very tall glass, and they joked about me being able to handle the whole thing. I chugged it. They were delighted.

      I drove home once I metabolized the single drink, no worries there. Funnily enough, it was my first job in the career I ultimately ended up choosing, but I am in an entirely different field now.

  127. Just a Poster*

    Not me, but a colleague from several years ago…on a 10-day trip (from the U.S. to Europe) with a small group. The participants had all been provided an advance to cover travel expenses, meals, lodging, etc., for the duration of the trip. One person used ALL of the advance money to support her small business and brought $0 on the trip. She sponged off everyone else the whole time.

  128. Harper*

    I have two:

    One of the first flights I ever took was a work trip to Mexico, with a layover in Houston. We landed in the middle of a horrific thunderstorm, and hit turbulence so severe that a flight attendant flew up and smacked her head on the ceiling of the plane. I almost kissed the ground when I got off that plane.

    The second one was also in Texas during storms – torrential downpours that canceled the last flight out of Waco for the day. There was a group of kind strangers in the same predicament, and we went in together on an Uber to Dallas. After a 90 minute drive, I got booked on a flight out that evening – YAY! And then it was delayed…and delayed…and delayed some more until it was finally canceled well after midnight. Then there was a mad rush to fight hundreds of other stranded travelers for a hotel room. I got about 3 hours of sleep that night, and the only shuttle back to the airport was at 5:00 AM for my 10:00 AM flight the next day. Worst trip ever.

  129. zebra*

    I was on my first big international trip with my boss–he traveled all the time but it had been a Big Deal that he was finally allowing me to tag along. Boss, his partner, and I were all going to be arriving in the country after midnight and needing 2 hotel rooms. I had emailed back and forth with this hotel a half dozen times and confirmed that since we were arriving at 2 am on Tuesday, we needed the rooms for Monday night. Several times they had assured me that all would be fine and there would be rooms available for us overnight when we arrived. Of course, when we showed up at the hotel at 2 am on Tuesday, our rooms were not available because the reservations were starting on Tuesday night — and also, we are fully booked now so there are no rooms to put you in. My crappy boss assumed that it was all my fault and I hadn’t done my job properly, even though I had a whole email thread showing that I had asked for Monday reservations. Then the hotel thought I was the daughter of my boss and his partner, and could we all share a room for the first night?
    I don’t actually remember how it got resolved, I’m sure my boss threw some more money at them and they magically found two rooms for us, but it was absolutely horrible to be sitting there in that hotel lobby at 2 am knowing that it wasn’t my mistake but not knowing how to fix it.
    (Don’t worry, I have left that job long behind and am in a much better place now)

    1. Llama Llama*

      A proper hotel should have found. a room for you whether there or at a another hotel at their expense.

  130. Found the local color...*

    I had a trip that involved a stop over in Memphis and we decided to see some of the sights, including the Civil Rights Museum. When our AirBnB host, who had been perfectly lovely the first day, heard that we’d gone to see the museum, his expression darkened and he told us not to believe the narrative at the museum. Because in the town where he’d grown up, there was no racial discrimination and everyone got along just fine. Yes, he was white.

  131. So that's eight lives left, then?*

    I fell into a sewer, and survived (obviously). Through a combination of luck in caution, I managed not to catch any illness(es).

    I (American) was on a business trip through several cities in India. One of those cities had open sewers of varying size along the side of most streets. Some streets had sidewalks and some didn’t.

    I was walking to dinner with a colleague (Indian, from another part of the country; this was his first ever business trip, first time on a plane, etc. His first time around open urban sewers too). We were walking down a dark, narrow street, and when a car was approaching, I hopped over a curb onto what I thought was a sidewalk… and . just . kept . going.

    I landed mid-thigh-deep in sewage, with the walls of the sewer just above head height. In retrospect, that went as well as it possibly could have and I was so, so lucky: I didn’t fall over, I didn’t hit my head on the way in, my hands were raised and didn’t go in the muck, I didn’t have any cuts or scratches on my legs for germs to get into, it didn’t splash up to my face, my genital area missed getting soaked by barely an inch…

    My colleague helped me climb out, and I spent about 45 minutes in the shower meticulously creating a sterile gap between me and the muck (good thing I practiced those skills in 2020 before we understood the true vectors of Covid19), threw away my pants and socks, etc. We headed back out to dinner — I commented “hopefully with fewer mishaps this time” and my colleague replied “what mishap?” To my knowledge, he’s never told anyone else at work this happened, which I doubt I’d have been able to resist in his shoes.

    1. Ann O'Nemity*

      Ok you win. Falling into a sewer has got to be one of the worst possible things to happen on a business trip.

  132. Galsan*

    I worked with a team of ecologists and was traveling with my boss to a remote location on the other side of the world for field work. It was a long journey of many flights, including something like a 12 hour layover in Beijing. We were already exhausted by that point and still had a long ways to go, so my boss proposed we get a room in the in-terminal hotel at the airport so we could nap and freshen up. We get to the room and discover that there is a full length window—completely transparent—between the bathroom and bedroom. Even though we were about to spend weeks together in very close quarters in the field this was rather too intimate for us, but there wasn’t much to do except tactfully avert our eyes from the window when one of us was in the bathroom.

    That was >10 years ago now, but when I recently found myself in another hotel room with a window into the bathroom (frosted, at least) I texted her immediately and we had a good chuckle over it.

  133. JustaTech*

    On my first ever business trip (I was relatively fresh out of undergrad and went to a technical training course) the fire alarm in the hotel went off in the middle of the night, so I got to stand out in the (thankfully mild spring) night with hundreds of senior scientists and veterinarians in our pajamas (or towels) while we waited to be let back in. This is why I always pack “presentable” sleeping clothes on a business trip – something that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen in.

    On another trip to another conference I had a connection in Chicago O’Hare (my mistake) and my connecting flight was delayed and delayed and finally we were circling our destination (Madison WI) when the pilot decided we weren’t going to land and we were going back to O’Hare (it was midnight at this point). The whole plane groaned (since the only possible outcome was sleeping on the floor of O’Hare since this was weather-related) and I called out “Who wants to share a Lyft to Madison?”
    This was *such* a popular idea that there ended up being several groups of women who shared Lyfts (or Ubers) on the three hour drive (in the pouring rain) to Wisconsin. (We tipped extremely generously.) At least it gave me a fun icebreaker story to share at the conference.

    1. mcl*

      I have more than once been on the Van Galder bus from Chicago to Madison. Way cheaper than a lyft if you’re by yourself, but probably comes out the same-ish if you’re splitting a rideshare.

  134. BookWyrm*

    My old department had an admin, “Jenny” who was, even by her own admission, a little gruff. But she got the job done and her institutional knowledge was unparalleled. Jenny was easy to work with if you did basically professional things like say please, thank you, and respect her time. Jenny and one of our consultants “Elizabeth” did not get along and it was like the Hunger Games when they got going. From my perspective, Elizabeth could be really entitled and Jenny could hold a grudge but there were times it felt like Elizabeth’s personal life goal to get Jenny in trouble for every little thing.

    Our field one huge annual conference that changes cities each year. One year it was held about 45 minutes away from our city, which was great and cut down on stressful travel time and costs for all of us. The one issue was that the city names were common like Columbus, Ohio and Columbus, Georgia. Jenny booked everyone for the conference like she did every year and Elizabeth was livid that Jenny didn’t book her flight or hotel. Me and several others did tell Elizabeth that there was no reason for flights or hotels this year as it was being held one city over but she was so angry and focused on getting Jenny in trouble that she booked her own flights and hotels. To the wrong city. Where the conference wasn’t being held.

    I don’t know all the details but I do know Elizabeth missed the first three days of the conference because she flew to the wrong city. She got back mid-week and didn’t speak to any of us for the rest of the conference and we got a department-wide email reminding us that the company doesn’t pay personal expenses made in error. I do know that Jenny was in a very good mood for a few weeks after that and Elizabeth quit later that month.

    2. HoneyBee359*

      Wow. Who would want to take a flight to somewhere 45 minutes away. I live out in the country, that’s like me taking a plane to go to Wal-Mart

  135. Turns out sleep is important even in your 20s!*

    Not quite screaming at night but…
    Back when I was still ok with sharing rooms with coworkers at conferences, I got matched with a woman from another branch whom I hadn’t met before. She was an absolutely lovely person, but at night I discovered that she snored louder than I’d thought was humanly possible. Literally, prior to that night, I thought humans needed an amp to get that loud. She’d apparently forgotten how loud she was because her husband had adapted. When she saw how exhausted and unwell I became from literally no sleep, she got herself a different room on her own dime.

    1. I Have RBF*

      She probably needed to book an appointment with the sleep technician from earlier this week. (Heavy snoring is a sign of sleep apnea.)

  136. Goose*

    Arrive for the first day of a five week international work trip and realize I left my new debit card on my desk at home. No matter, every place should take a card and I have some emergency cash.

    >Immediately use the emergency cash on the first cab who didn’t take a card.

    Thankfully 95% of places did take a card, but that was a rough few weeks. I found about $20 in local currency on the ground that I was able to use in addition.

  137. NotHannah*

    Two brief stories.
    1. In the fall of 2004, I was in a role that required me to attend an annual tourism conference for our state. These were always held at a grand old hotel in the north. During this particular conference, the keynote — someone with expertise in wine, if I recall correctly — began speaking while attendees in the outer rows of tables pulled in televisions on wheels from — somewhere. Our state was part of Red Sox Nation and the Boston team had just begun to look as if they’d win the World Series, breaking the 86-year “curse.” Literally everyone in the room but the speaker was watching the game before the keynote was halfway done.
    2. I was at a new job in higher ed, and we had an alumni event in Boston. I was tasked with riding back to our campus with the new president of my university. She had a university-issued hybrid vehicle and was new to the area. She was adamant about using GPS. A trip that should have taken less than two hours stretched into nearly four as we took more and more back roads. We nearly ran out of gas and had to stop in an area with a tough reputation in order to gas up. I kept saying that I was no whiz on directions, but I was pretty sure there were no dirt roads between Boston and our campus, and I was pretty sure it shouldn’t take THAT long. Little did either of us know, she had it set to “avoid major highways.” Little did I know, she was also curious to see how long the car could travel without getting gas. Fortunately, we could laugh about it later.

  138. Lazy Cat's Mom*

    I live in the Maryland-DC area and there are 3 airports in a reasonable distance. I usually fly out of Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) since I used to live near there.
    A few years ago I had a business meeting in Texas. I booked my flight a few months ahead, put it on the calendar, and didn’t think about it again.
    The day of my flight, I was really proud that I managed to get to BWI two hours ahead of my flight. But self check-in wouldn’t work. I went up to the the counter and was shocked to find I had accidently booked myself as flying out of Reagan National Airport.
    The man at the counter insisted I could still make that flight. It was rush hour and knew I wouldn’t make it. I decided to take a chance and go to the nearest subway since it did stop at the airport. After getting back to my car, driving to the subway and taking an hour-long subway trip, I got to the correct airport.
    The entire time I was filled with anxiety about how I would have to explain this to my boss.
    As expected, my flight had already taken off by the time I got there. Luckily the man at the counter at Reagan National was kind enough to get me on another flight two hours later and at no extra charge. My boss never knew.
    Thank you Southwest.

      1. Cat Lover*

        Same. I live 20 from IAD but occasionally have to fly out of DCA for certain airlines and/or destinations. I have nightmares about going to the wrong airport.

        1. piggy*

          I’m in the Bay Area and once I got a call from some friends asking if I could pick them up from SFO and drop them off to their car at OAK. Apparently it was significantly cheaper to book a trip out of one airport and back to the other, and they’d completely forgotten about it until they were in the airport on their way back looking at their return tickets.

    2. Mad Harry Crewe*

      A Southwest ticket agent saved my bacon once too – flying home for Thanksgiving sophomore year of college, and somewhere in the process of price comparing Oakland vs San Jose, I’d managed to book myself to… Sacramento. I discovered this Wednesday night when I went home to pack for my flight on Thursday. There was a seat left on an SJC flight the next morning, so I packed, stayed up, and hauled out to the airport absolutely first thing. At the ticket counter I explained what happened and could I possibly get rebooked on the open seat for the flight in a few hours, which he did. When I asked what the change fee was, he said no fee, happy Thanksgiving. I just about cried.

    3. Physaliphorous*

      I recently had a business trip where the conference was in a hotel right next to DCA. We had to book all travel through a government travel agent after a lengthy approval process which took up until a week before I was supposed to leave. On the call with the travel agent, I very explicitly stated multiple times I had to go to DCA not any of the other airports. Finally received my last minute tickets and sure enough, my flights landed and departed from IAD. At least they paid for the 45 minute Uber rides both ways.

  139. Didi*

    A trip from the US to a satellite office in the UK. No rental car, because I was leery of driving on the opposite side of the road, and I was assured that the hotel was within walking distance to the office. It was – but required me to play chicken with constant traffic in a roundabout. I nearly was hit to the office and back to the hotel when the day was over. The next day I decided to take a taxi this short distance. I approached taxis as they were dropping people off, but I was told they couldn’t take me? I guess they were private car services? I asked the hotel to call me a taxi, but it never showed up. Finally, a hotel employee took me in the hotel van to the office. From then on, a co-worker gave me a lift.

    1. londonedit*

      Yeah, outside of official London black cabs and Uber etc, most taxis are pre-booked only. So you can’t just flag one down.

  140. blue ink pens*

    I had a disaster of a business trip once at an old job. It wasn’t really my main area, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, nobody actually trained me on what I was supposed to do, and I was like 23 and didn’t know how to ask for more support. I worked for the state which had some really complicated travel agent system for booking travel, and this was the one and only time I used it. I went to downtown Chicago for a whole week by myself where I was completely out of my depth, not doing what I was supposed to be doing…it was not fun. My flight home was early Saturday morning.

    On Friday night, I took myself to some random Irish pub near my hotel for dinner and a beer. Chicago being the midwest, everyone was so friendly! The random woman sitting next to me at the bar immediately struck up a conversation and when I told her what a crappy week I had had, she decided to buy me another beer. Cut to, this random woman and her boyfriend became my new best friends, buying me drinks for the rest of the night (in a nice way, not a creepy way). I remember the bar had karaoke and my new best friend dedicated a song to me. It was the nicest anybody had been to me all week and I stayed for way too many free beers.

    Cut to Saturday morning, waking up in my hotel room with a massive hangover. I was really hurting. There was no way I could make it to the airport. However, I also realized …. I had no idea how to change my flight. I remembered someone telling me once that flight changes were really complicated in this byzantine state travel system and I was supposed to call someone. But it’s Saturday morning, and not only do I not know who to call, I don’t even know how to go about finding out who to call in my current state and on the weekend. So I had no choice but to make it to the airport. I threw all my stuff into my suitcase and staggered downstairs for my SuperShuttle. I managed to hold it together all the way to O’Hare but had to jump out at the very first stop even though it wasn’t my terminal yet. I made it to a trash can at the curb and puked in that. I slowly made my way to my gate, puking in several other trash cans and bathrooms along the way. Luckily, the puking phase had passed by the time I actually boarded the flight and I think I managed to sleep the whole way back to the West coast. I never went on another trip again while I worked there.

  141. Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men*

    My co-workers and and I participated in a conference of sorts that our client was hosting for their end customers. The conference had two sessions during back-to-back weeks in Chicago and was held at a beautiful, brand new hotel right in the middle of downtown. After the first week, realizing that there really was no need for us to be present on the last day of the conference, we updated our travel arrangements to return Thursday night instead of Friday during week 2 (why cut into the weekend when you don’t have to, right?).

    On Thursday of week 2, my co-workers and I spent the day checking our flight status with increasing anxiety as tornado warnings for the Chicago area prompted flight cancellations left and right. Our flight noted a slight delay but remained on the schedule, so we proceeded to O’Hare, through security, and even boarded our plane thinking we’d gotten lucky. After two hours waiting on the tarmac the universe confirmed otherwise and we were deplaned.

    With our flight out of Chicago rescheduled for a 5 am departure the next morning, we didn’t want to deal with extra transit time in the morning, so we frantically called the airport hotels and were able to secure the last room at the airport Hilton. We were not in an industry where room sharing was a norm, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and we were all women in the same age range and relatively friendly with one another, so we decided not to take our chances at losing out on the room and having to travel back into town. Surely it would be fine for the approximately 8 hours we’d even be in the room.

    It was not fine… During check-in we learned the room only had one queen-sized bed, and there were no roll-aways available. There were three of us, and one of my co-workers was pregnant. When we arrived to the room, we discovered it only had one working light bulb. We called the front desk to request replacement light bulbs, but we did not receive any by the time we departed at 3:30 the next morning. Staring into the tiny, barely lit room, a quick and silent consensus was reached. My pregnant co-worker was left to try and claim what sleep she could, while my other co-worker and I turned and wheeled our suitcases to the hotel bar to take up residence for the evening.

    To add insult to injury, our flight route had to be changed when our trip was rescheduled. Our new itinerary took us even further west than our home city, where we waited for 6.5 hours for a 40 minute flight to our final destination. It would have taken only 4.5 hours to drive home were we not thwarted by absolute exhaustion. We ended up landing back home less than 2 hours earlier than if we’d stuck to our original itinerary matching the first week of the conference.

    I think of this trip and the shitty airport Hilton every time we get a letter about sharing rooms with co-workers.

  142. DCLimey*

    Quick business trip from DC -> Boston.

    On the first night I went to the hotel bar with my client (we in were in town doing some tech stuff for their client). Turns out I can hold my liquor and he can’t. I found out at the morning meeting (which he arrived to late and disheveled) that he stayed for an extra drink after I left, and was so drunk that he couldn’t find his room. A hotel employee found him at 5am, asleep in a chair in the hallway 2 doors down from his room!

    Luckily, no repercussions – just a funny story to be trotted out at meetings over the next few years.

  143. Stella70*

    Forgive if I have told this one before.
    I was traveling with two female co-workers. We were government employees, and required to share one room, which contained two beds. As it was a five-day stay, we had a lot of belongings with us. We each staked out a corner of the bathroom countertop for our toiletries.
    I also placed a small can of air freshener spray near the toilet, clueless of how truly diabolical that gesture was.
    Lady #1 became visibly angry when she noticed the spray, and demanded to know if I assumed her [bowel movements] would be [offensive]. (As this is a family website, I am cleaning up her language.)
    Lady #2 was equally horrified, although it seemed as if she was just trying to bond with #1.
    I explained that the spray could be used – or not – by anyone, and no offense was intended.
    Unsatisfied, they decided not only would they not use the spray, they would also not close the door while using the bathroom, nor would they flush. “EVER!”
    I said little in response because it was dawning on me that they were nuts and we were about to be roomies for five days.
    To their credit, they stuck to their guns (BMs?) and didn’t even accidentally shut the door or flush over the course of the week.
    At some point, they also decided I was such a snob they didn’t want to share a bed with me, so they slept together in one and I, in the other…until the middle of the first night, before I fled to the bathroom.
    See, both #1 and #2 were afflicted with the worse snoring I have ever experienced. Picture someone dropping 100 anvils into a running jet engine. It was twice that bad. Making it much worse, I am an insomniac blessed with extremely good hearing – I truly can hear a butterfly fart.
    I tried to sleep in the same room, but soon felt I had no choice but to curl up in the bathtub. This action was deemed more offensive than the air freshener, even though I lied and said I slept best on bare porcelain.
    On night #2, each claimed a bed, thereby affirming my tub dwelling.
    On night #3, they realized they had been remiss in not peeing or pooping during the night, given I was inches from their tushes. (I had said if they needed the bathroom, I would be happy to move.) They laughed while I scrambled out of the bathroom (and by the way, who can poop by sure will?).
    Why, you ask, didn’t I just get another hotel room? I was young and broke. Which brings me to the final nail in my travel coffin. We were all given cash per diems to take with us, for meals. I had placed my pets in a boarding kennel, so my per diems were used to pay for their stay. That meant I had to eat peanut butter sandwiches in the hotel room morning/noon/night for five days.
    The ladies felt it was not a sign of poverty, but another example of me thinking I was too good to associate with them (and frankly, wasn’t I?). On day #3, one “accidentally” sat on my loaves of bread, turning them into instant pitas. I pretended not to notice.
    I believe if you squint, you can find a silver lining in any misfortune, and mine was that – upon returning to work – I secured approval for all employees to have separate hotel rooms when traveling. The sacrifice my nose, eyes, ears, and taste buds made that week was but a small price to pay for the future comfort of my peers. And that’s my story.

    2. Hlao-roo*

      another example of me thinking I was too good to associate with them (and frankly, wasn’t I?)

      You are, unquestionably, far too good to associate with them!

      I am laughing at the “I sleep best on bare porcelain” lie XD

    4. Katherine*

      Who could be SO BANANAPANTS as to be angry instead of grateful that there is air freshener in the bathroom (other than someone who is allergic)?!?!?!

  144. southern interloper*

    Husband was on a business trip with his older male boss to a U.S. city near the Mexican border. They go out to dinner, and then as they start to Uber back to the hotel, the boss asked if he minded if they made a quick stop at a pharmacia across the border. To buy Viagra. Husband was a bit taken aback, but said sure, no problem, but did politely decline when the boss asked if he needed to purchase any of the pills for his own use.

  145. Parakeet*

    This one is from my days as a master’s degree student who was working full-time and going to school part-time. I’d had a paper that was a term paper for a class project accepted at a conference that was located on a tiny Taiwanese island located a little ways from the major island of Taiwan. Given my circumstances (not being a grant-funded full-time PhD student or anything) I was arranging my own logistics. This may have been a mistake. Note that at the time I did not speak any Chinese languages.

    There are two airports in Taipei. There was the one I arrived at, and then the one that ran flights to the island I needed to get to. This requires a bus ride across the city. I had been assured beforehand by a number of people that everyone in Taiwan speaks English. This might be true of highly educated white-collar professionals, or academics, but it turns out not to be true of bus drivers and random people taking the bus. I was nearly in tears on the bus before someone who did speak English saw me and helped.

    When I got to the other Island, I went to the B&B I’d booked. I booked a B&B because I was paying for it and it was a lot cheaper than the conference hotel. The very nice lady who ran the B&B spoke only a few words of English and we mostly had to communicate with gestures and pointing at things.

    I don’t drive, and even if I did I probably wouldn’t try it in another country, so I rented a bike at the island tourism office. On the day of my presentation the island was getting the edge of a typhoon. I biked the two miles to the conference in the typhoon.

    My presentation went fine. It was actually a pretty cool experience on the whole to visit a place that very few people, especially Westerners, have visited. I got some amazing souvenirs. It was a good CV booster when I applied for full-time PhD programs. I got a backpack as swag that I still use. It is, however, a good example of the risks of semi-feral grad students in their mid 20s who have never done business travel before handling all their own logistics for international travel.

    1. Silver Robin*

      “semi feral grad student” is a perfect descriptor and hit a little too close to home. Been there!

  146. Anonymousaurus Rex*

    I was sent on a business trip once as an unpaid intern from NYC to Boston for a conference. The org I was working for sent the actual employees on a plane, but wouldn’t pay for my plane ticket, only a $12 Megabus ticket. They also wouldn’t pay for my hotel room, so I had to get up very early, take the first 4-hour bus to Boston, attend the conference all day, and then take another 4 hour bus ride back to NYC. My colleagues flew in (some business class!), stayed the night in a conference hotel, and flew back the next day.

  147. Willem Dafriend*

    My first business trip after I started using my wheelchair was to a conference in a cool historic building. As you can imagine, this… didn’t translate to accessibility. I have a lot of stories from that week (airport security hell, missing the first session because I couldn’t figure out how to get into the building, etc) but the highlight? Lowlight? Was the final day of the conference, when my chair got stuck in the weird narrow vestibule on the way out of the bathroom.

    There wasn’t enough room for me to change angles so I could get back through the door, and the door was too heavy for me to move on my own. I scooted back and forth like a roomba making a 20 point turn, blocking the doorway, while a growing audience of mortified colleagues trying to get into the bathroom looked on.

    Someone finally had to hold the door and help me drag myself out.

    I laugh about it now, but damn that was a nightmare.

      1. Willem Dafriend*

        Thanks! And yeah no it was embarrassing at the time, but it’s happened so many times since then that it’s just funny. I was waaaaay too jetlagged and exhausted to figure out an actual solution for Door Tetris, so I just kept doing the roomba thing of turning a little, bumping into the wall, turning a little…

  148. Tempest*

    Trying to leave at the end of a conference, the hotel was locked down due to a speaking event and corresponding protest happening outside. (2016 election season) Had to wait hours to be let out, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make my flight. The Uber arrived, I’m trying to rush, but my coworker is convinced that Ubers are all driven by serial killers and insisted on checking the whole vehicle (trunk, under the seats, etc.) before she would let me leave in it. Luckily the driver was a long time cab driver and knew all the shortcuts, and got me to the airport just in time.

  149. Tired Introvert*

    At a previous job, the staff was split between two offices roughly a 3 hour drive apart. The fiscal year kickoff meeting was always a big production and always held at HQ, and everyone at the other office (that included me) would have to come into town for the meeting and stay overnight.

    The first year I worked at the company, the higher ups decided to put all of the out-of-towners (30-40 of us) in 1 vacation rental home near the meeting site and chartered a school bus to drive everyone out. I had a car at the time, so I drove in with another coworker who didn’t fancy being stuck in a bus for 3 hours with the entire office.

    When I got to the house I discovered that me and my female team members would be sharing 2 sets of bunk beds in one room, and our male team member had been put in essentially a closet the size of a twin bed.

    The meeting included dinner, drinks, and dancing on top of the business stuff, so most of the staff staying at the rental house were tipsy-to-drunk by the end of the night and walked back to continue partying in the hot tub. Me and my team all tried to go to bed earlyish (maybe midnight) but between the partying and hearing my bunk mate moving around above me, I slept for about 4 hours and barely got me and my colleague home safe in the morning.

  150. Salsa Your Face*

    I have, on more than one occasion, been prevented from travelling home by several days due to inclement weather and delays at my home airport. One of these occasions was quite pleasant – I called the airline each morning to check for available flights, was told “nope, sorry,” and then I got to spend the day sightseeing in a large American city. On another occasion, I wasn’t so lucky. For three days, I went to the airport at the crack of dawn, got on standby for every flight I could manage without getting lucky, then scrambled to find another hotel room to stay in that night, knowing I would have to repeat the entire sisyphean task again the next day. I eventually made it home, but left some of my sanity behind.

  151. Anon4Nudity*

    I traveled with my boss and grandboss a lot in a former job. One trip I arrived midmorning, got my hotel key, and then headed straight for the meeting in the hotel meeting space. It was a hectic day and I stayed a little late, gathered my belongings including grabbing my key which had fallen under another chair, looked at the key envelope for my room number, and went to my room. I walked into the room and there was my grandboss….naked. I screamed “what are you doing in my room?” While he screamed “you’re in my room!”…and then TRIPPED OVER THE BED trying to run away and was sprawled out buck naked on the floor.

    The key and envelope I picked up were his! The room had two keys he’d had one in his wallet and didn’t know he’d lost the other. My key for my room was in my purse all along. He insisted on formally documenting in a letter to HR that he had not attempted to “lure me” to his room and was not “propositionally me professionally or personally”. I wanted to die.
    PSA that’s why you should NEVER keep your key in that hotel envelope with the # written on it. You don’t know who is coming to rob or humiliate you.

    1. Mallory Janis Ian*

      Omg why couldn’t he just shut up about it?! Dear HR, the misbehavior that I did NOT commit is RIGHT HERE.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      This and the sewer story win the All-Time Business Trip Disaster Awards.
      I am very impressed that you’re still alive, because I think the sheer embarrassment of this situation would make me drop dead (or at least pass out) on the spot!

  152. PDB*

    I wasn’t a traditional business traveller, I was a rock and roll roadie and every story you have is multiplied by 10 when you’re traveling with 8 or 10 band members. My best one is, unfortunately, novel length but it involved cancelled flights, band members quitting in airport and a gun drawn on a long haired hippie in a Texas gas station.

    3. Anonomatopoeia*

      My kid occasionally goes and does Roadie Things with a couple of bands he follows, who are of the size/type of band to drive from show to show all over the US, one gig a night, usually in places that can have maybe 50-150 or maybe as many as like 500 people show up.

      So a few years ago he texts me. It’s January. It’s like 1am where I am, so 3ish where he is because they played the set, tore down, and drove away because they’d rather get there then sleep than the other way around.

      Me: Where are you?
      Him: Nebraska. Also, somewhat uncomfortably under [Tim]
      Me: …Um have you and Tim discussed whatever you’re doing? Shouldn’t be uncomfortable and also this seems like a weird time to text your mom.
      Him: Ugh, mom, not like that. We’re sleeping in the van.
      Me: The weather said the midwest is in a deep freeze. *checks phone* My phone says it’s minus 8 degrees in the vicinity.
      Him: Yes, that’s why we’re all in the one van. Toasty. And stinky, but w/ev.
      Me: You know what is a thing? Hotels. Toasty, and they have showers to mitigate the stinky.
      Him: Nah. Too much hassle. We were too tired to drive in the dark so we’re sleeping til the sun comes up, then we’ll drive on.

      Me: I have never been young enough for this activity.

  153. theblues*

    While early in my career, I went to a conference with 3 other colleagues, who were also all young women. A few weeks before departing, we all met to discuss our plans for our ample free time, and started suggesting ideas for fun dinners and excursions. Nothing too extravagant, just things like small museum tours and restaurants. One of the other girls, Ali, kept saying no to every single thing we brought up – in this weird judgmental tone. We were getting pretty fed up, when another coworker said “Okay, Ali, we’re just trying to find something we can do together, but obviously you don’t want to do any of this. Let’s do our own separate things instead.” The other girls and I agreed on a few places to visit, let Ali know in case she wanted to join, and I thought that was the end of it.
    Well, Ali went to our manager and CRIED that we were excluding her because she couldn’t afford the museum tour and restaurant (the price was like $7 for the tour we picked but whatever). Our manager, who was not great, said we should cancel the tour & restaurant reservation so that Ali wouldn’t feel bad. We explained that money had never come up in our discussion, but we agreed to cancel.
    Well, fast forward to the trip. We had nothing fun planned because of Ali’s outburst. The other two girls and I wanted to go to a little coffee shop, but we realized that we couldn’t find Ali anywhere. We called, she didn’t pick up. We texted, she didn’t answer. We got worried. Finally, hours after the last time we’d seen her, she called us back: she was on a freaking HELICOPTER TOUR and would soon be heading to a luxury restaurant. Flabbergasted, we asked how she managed this when she wouldn’t even let us plan for a $7 museum ticket! She told us her parents paid for it, and said she’d see us in the morning.
    We were LIVID. Our best guess is that Ali had planned all along to do the helicopter tour, but also didn’t want us to hang out without her. It was wild. She didn’t last long in the job.

  154. Lemonlime*

    My company was doing some extended emergency work out of state- we booked all of our hotel rooms at one particular hotel, which became our ‘headquarters.’ As you can imagine, this involved hundreds of rooms- thousands of dollars, over the course of a year. I was in charge of coordinating with the hotel and our staff check-in/check-out hotel room stays. Near the end of the program, our CEO was flying in to meet with everyone. I made sure he had a very nice room, coordinated dates, checked and rechecked we were good to go.
    Well, being a busy CEO, he didn’t come in until really late. At Midnight I received an irate phone call from the CEO as he had arrived and been turned away at the front desk because all rooms were booked and they sent him to a sister hotel back by the airport (where he had just driven in from and now driven back to -about an hour each way). The front desk clerk did not realize/check that he was with our group and just said there was no room. Of all the people to turn away! I wanted to scream and/ or disappear into a black hole at that moment. 1) They turned away the 1 person I wanted to arrive seamlessly. 2) Why didn’t the CEO call me while in the hotel – I was literally upstairs in my room. *sigh *

  155. Mallory Janis Ian*

    At my old university department a few years ago, a disgruntled spouse — from the conference they were currently attending — emailed our department head, the dean, all the staff members he could find on the department’s website, AND the chancellor and several other members of the upper administration.

    According to the email, one of our Distinguished Professors (their academic rank) who apparently is the most-cited scholar in his field, asked the LW’s spouse to collaborate (or according to the spouse, “collaborate” nudge-nudge, wink-wink) on a research project with him.

    I never did figure out whether the collaboration was for real and the spouse was just jealous, or if the professor really was out there hitting on people under the pretense of research collaboration.

  156. Si? No.*

    Business trip to several sites in a Spanish-speaking country. I don’t speak Spanish. I was on different flights than the rest of the group. They thought it was fine to have a non-English-speaking driver pick me up alone at the airport in the middle of the night. He had a sign with my name and I had no way to even ask questions as we drove away.
    My last night, I was booked into a different hotel than the rest of the group, who were staying on. The scheduled driver did not show up in the morning to take me to the airport. I couldn’t reach any of the trip organizers and no one in the hotel spoke English. I still have no idea how I got home. All I remember is trying to communicate with cab companies over the phone and crying a lot.

  157. Cannon Fodder*

    A good decade ago, my (wonderful) boss was transferred overseas and asked that I come and temporarily work for him in Foreign Country – my flights, hotel, meals, etc all covered by company

    I’m thrilled and excited ’til I tried to book my 12+ hour flight – company insists I fly coach, I begged to be upgraded to Business

    TWELVE PLUS HOURS! And I was temporarily relocating halfway round the world at Company’s request

    Nope – I was a lowly EA, not an exec, so coach it was

    Boarded flight – I’m in last row of coach (arrgghh), aisle seat (thank you, travel gods)

    Next to me was mother with infant (uh oh) and sleeping toddler – I said fervent prayers that sleeping toddler would continue to sleep for even a few hours of the twelve hour flight

    We took off and moments later, the lovely flight attendants began giving out drinks and snacks – mother WOKE UP THE TODDLER so toddler wouldn’t miss out on mini-bag of pretzels and juice

    For remainder of the flight, toddler bounced (literally) around the seat – there was laughing, there was screaming, there was crying (that may have been me, actually) but twelve interminable hours later, we arrived at our destination

    Readers, never wake a sleeping child!

  158. SusieQQ*

    I had just started a new job and was offered the opportunity to accompany my boss to a conference that was about four hours away by car. I was happy and quickly said yes, but did not anticipate how nerve-wracking it would be to spend four hours in a car with my new boss. She was nice, but she could also be blunt and she exuded this confidence that I found completely intimidating. I was awkwardly trying to make small talk with her, and asked her if she had any pets. She gave me a weird look and said “My cat just died.” I was mortified and just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.

  159. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

    Two colleagues and I flew to a conference on the opposite coast and let’s just say, the airline gods were not with us. We were on different flights going to the conference. I got there just fine, one colleague ended up spending the night in Houston as her connecting flight was canceled, and the other colleague ended up flying a different airline as his first flight was severely delayed. Colleague #1 arrived the day of the conference but her bag didn’t so she had to make an emergency run to a department store for underwear and a couple of shirts. Her bag arrived the day left. Colleague #2 got to the airport for his return flight and discovered the airline had cancelled the return flight when he didn’t take the original flight he was scheduled on. He was stuck there for 2 more days before he could get a flight home. Colleague #1 and I were on the same return flight but were delayed by thunderstorms and had to spend the night in our home airport as we had missed the last shuttle to our college town.

  160. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    My job had me flying from Austin to Minneapolis and back almost every week. My company had a contract with a specific airline and we were required to use that airline if at all possible.

    Every Friday I boarded a plane in Minneapolis and flew to Memphis where every Friday the plane from Memphis to Austin was cancelled for “mechanical difficulties” and we would be rebooked on a different airline to fly to Dallas and then Austin. It added about 6 hours extra to my trip. On more than one occasion there was no room on the flight from Dallas to Austin and my option was to spend the night in the Dallas airport waiting for a standby flight option, or my spouse would drive from Austin to Dallas to get me – 6 hours round trip.

    Every week for months the plane had “mechanical difficulties” . It got to the point where the same 6 of us (otherwise strangers) would hand our boarding passes to one person to stand in line and get the Dallas connection sorted while the rest of us stood in line at the bar.

    Requests to book the direct Minneapolis to Dallas to Austin flight on the other airline were denied every week because “mechanical difficulties” can’t be predicted. (Note the flight would not have mechanical difficulties on the rare occasions it was a fuller flight. Our best guess was 25 passengers was the cut-off)

  161. OrigCassandra*

    I want to tell a business-travel story that could have been a horror story but fortunately wasn’t.

    In 2010 I traveled to the UK to do a conference talk… days before the May eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, which shut down air travel back to the US for a week or so. As one does, I emailed my boss at home and let friends and family know on social media that I was stranded but otherwise fine.

    One of my social-media friends had a friend in the city where I was stranded…

    … and that friend had another friend who was serendipitously in the process of moving in with her partner…

    … and this friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend agreed to meet me and if I wasn’t an ax-murderer or anything (I’m not!) lend me her still-mostly-furnished apartment for the duration of my strandedness. Which she did. And would not accept a single penny or pound in payment. (Of course I bought her a nice gift, I’m not an animal!)

    I spent a lovely six days touristing in the city before my rescheduled flight home. People can be absolutely amazing, truly.

    1. Baldrick*

      That volcano caused all sorts of issues! Mine was very tame in comparison to most, yet I did have a couple days in Portugal to be a tourist.

      1. Retiring Academic*

        I was flying back from Portland OR to the UK via Amsterdam. Looking at the map on the flight we did seem to be taking an unusual route but I assumed it was just weather. Reached Amsterdam and we’re not going any further. Fortunately I have friends who were teachers in Brussels at this time so I phoned them and got a train to Brussels. But for some reason the airline couldn’t unload our bags, so I had nothing but the clothes I stood up in. I had to borrow some clothes from my friend and her husband kindly bought me some underpants when he went to the supermarket. After a couple of days I was able to get back to the UK by Eurostar. It was a bit inconvenient, but nice to see my friends!

  162. Luanne Platter*

    Not mine, but some colleagues at a work summit I recently attended. We’re remote-first, so although these colleagues are on the same team, they flew into Houston from many different US cities. They made a plan to fly in around the same time and one member would rent a car they could all share. It wasn’t until they all landed in Houston that they realized there was more than one Houston airport, and half the team was at the other airport across town. It took about $150 in Uber expenses to gather everyone at the summit location.

  163. Carmen*

    I was a new grad student, and my research advisor offered to take me out to lunch. I was desperate to impress her, but as we stood in line waiting to be seated I took a step backward and felt the back of my leg touch something. I turned and looked, and there was a toddler laying on the ground. I HAD JUST KNOCKED OVER A CHILD. Luckily the kid was fine, the kid’s parent shrugged it off, and my advisor didn’t really seem to notice. But at the time it felt like the worst possible thing that could have happened.

  164. Baldrick*

    My indecisive boss planned for our group of 20 to do a 2-day off-site at an interesting city 4 hours away. All of us were happy with this, until he looked at the budget and made us carpool. He asked one of us to arrange the car seating by location, so people from nearby parts of our city would travel together and avoid extra travel time. There were a specific couple people who were boring extraverts, one of whom lived near me, so I quietly suggested to the coworker that our boss be the one to drive them and save the rest of us their company. My coworker looked shocked by this suggestion and said that he’d never do such a thing. I was resigned to my fate until the carpool lists were sent out and both those coworkers were in boss’s car!

  165. librarymouse*

    When I was a college student, my professor arranged for another student and I to present at a professional conference in our field. We arrived to the hotel late at night and the front desk refused to give us the two rooms we booked (one for the prof and one for us students) because we were younger than 25 and apparently needed our professor to babysit?? It was so late and they wouldn’t budge even when my prof vouched for us and offered to personally pay for any damages two nerdy introvert undergrads who didn’t drink might incur (lol) so we ended up taking it. The other student and I were actually close friends and we had a really good relationship with our prof, but we could tell our prof was definitely feeling uncomfortable, and we were uncomfortable too.
    I called my mom the next morning to say we got in and ending up getting into the ridiculousness of the situation, but she wasn’t having it and called the hotel. I found out my friend also texted her mom about it and she did the same. With the power of two angry moms united, the hotel ended ultimately gave us the second room, but only because I was 21 (my friend was 20). My prof was so relieved and we were all able to have a great time.

  166. Jack Russell Terrier*

    How I didn’t have a work trip to St. Louis, even though we knew in advance it wouldn’t work out.

    I live in DC and had driven to Richmond to spend the day doing research at the Richmond Historical Society. I’m a historian – this was historical expert witness work.

    Got a call from a Supervisor the big boss had hired but generally had nothing to do with me. He told me to fly St. Louis that night to go to Archive the next day (don’t remember which, this was in the early 2000s).

    I called Archive and for Reasons I couldn’t access their collection the next morning – you had to make an appointment or something. Called Supervisor, he told me to go anyway. I asked why he thought it would work out, didn’t go over too well.

    I shrugged, left a voicemail for big boss, who I knew well and booked a ticket and hotel room.

    After driving to Richmond from DC and putting in a full day of work there, I drove through insane traffic, got on my flight, got my rental car and drove to my hotel room in St. Lous. Crashed about 11pm.

    When I went to Archive the next morning and Surprise – I couldn’t review documents!!

    By this time, the big boss had called me back, and with a sigh told me just to come home

    So that’s how I shouldn’t have had a work trip to St. Louis, but went there overnight anyway.

    PS the Supervisor person didn’t last long.

  167. Brain the Brian*

    We booked an AirBnB for several of us traveling to the same conference. It supposedly slept eight people, each with their own bed. What wasn’t obvious from the description is that two of the beds were in one private “master” suite that occupied an entire floor of this house with no door between the bedroom and the attached bathroom. As the only staffer of my gender, I wound up in this absolutely palatial, full-floor suite while two of my coworkers had to bunk together. At least there was a couch one of them could use so no one had to share a bed.

    Oh, and none of the kitchen appliances worked. We did not leave a good review.

  168. HungryLawyer*

    One of my first “real” post-grad jobs was working as a consultant at a large tech company. My job mainly consisted of traveling locally and around the country to meet with customers on-site. I was ~1 year out of school, had no money, and had two maxed out credit cards. Cut to the second week of my training when my boss told me I’d be shadowing a senior consultant on a trip to Los Angeles, and since my corporate card hadn’t been mailed yet I should book the trip on my personal card. I then awkwardly pointed out that I didn’t have a personal card available for this. My boss said “no problem,” and then used his corporate card to buy me a hotel gift card for the $750/night hotel I’d be staying at. Um, BIG PROBLEM because when I arrived at the hotel, they did what hotels do and required me to put down a card for incidentals during my stay. I had no choice but to use my debit card, and the colossal hold they put on it meant I had literally $50 to my name for the rest of the trip. And of course, I lost my phone charger on the second-to-last day and had a pathetic moment of trying to decide whether I should buy a charger or a sandwich to last me for the final 18 hours. One of the most anxiety-inducing weeks of my career so far.

    1. Sharpie*

      Tip from a seasoned traveller (not me) – you can ask to borrow a charger from the hotel lost property, so long as you return it.

      More travel tips to be found on the Wolters World YouTube channel.

  169. Fluffy Initiative*

    I (30’s F) was on a work trip with a fairly new coworker (50’s M) that involved flying into one city, driving to a few locations several hours apart, and then flying home from that same airport a week later. By the end we were pretty burnt out, and since I was driving I asked him to find a restaurant where we could grab lunch before our flight home. He googled around and found what sounded like a decent sports bar/burger place about 2 minutes from the airport. Perfect!

    As soon as we walk in, it becomes clear that it is a sports bar/burger place with a heaping side of scantily clad waitresses in the style of a low-rent Hooters.

    Our waitress was very nice and the food was good, although it was tough to converse with my colleague who by this point was avoiding all eye contact with me, the waitress, other patrons, and I think hoping that a hole would open in the floor and remove him from the embarrassing situation of having chosen a half step up from a strip club for a work lunch with his much younger, female peer.

    Once we got to the airport I didn’t see him again until we were back in the office five days later, and at that point I found out he had been frantically texting other coworkers under the table asking if he should make us leave the restaurant, apologize to me, ignore the whole thing… It was a few years ago but remains one of my funnier work stories, especially because he is NOT the type of guy to frequent those type of places, especially with a coworker!

  170. Prorata*

    Two stories – 25 years ago, work group goes to “Southern City” from another “Southern City” to work on integrating acquisition into our company. Colleague and I go to dinner at local Benihana-clone.

    Colleague makes clear to chef she is allergic to eggs.

    Chef’s response – “No problem”.

    You probably know where this is heading. Colleague’s food was cooked separately from the rest on the flattop. Except other food with eggs was cooked, and flattop was not scrubbed down, so enough egg residue remained to contaminate Colleague’s dinner.

    Big problem.

    Second story – Mrs. Prorata travels on business fairly often, and for extended duration on site.

    Extended Stay venue in the Midwest, winter season. Suites have apartment-grade kitchens; range top, ovens, etc. Couple of times a week, someone would start cooking, get distracted, or show they aren’t that good a cook, and trip the smoke detectors. Mrs. P, having been in and out of this Extended Stay for about 6 months, was friends with the staff (New Years Eve, she is making sausage balls for the front desk and whomever else was on duty wandering by). Fire alarm is going off, it’s 2am – staff would, once it was clear it was cooking smoke, knock on her door and tell her to go back to sleep, it’s the id10t in room X tripping the alarm, no need to go outside in Midwest January nighttime weather.

  171. katydid*

    I traveled to small hospitals all over Minnesota to train people for a while and some of the hotel options were just so bad. One of the assignments, I stayed in a Country Inn and Suites that had only recently made all the rooms non-smoking. They hadn’t done any mitigation of the smoke damage and so I woke up the next day with my eyes almost swollen shut. Thankfully the hospital had Benadryl for me. Enough of us complained that we were given another option – it was a Super 8, most often used by truckers. Relatively clean, but all the rooms had a recliner in them. I never sat in the recliner!

  172. Hannah Lee*

    I was on one project with a team of about 12 with lots of travel and a few mishaps and some good moments too.

    – on a trip to Paris with the overall project manager, I along with another team member, Linda, were so excited on our first day, happy that after morning presentations we had the whole afternoon free to explore, that we insisted the 3 of us walk all over the place, down the Champs Elysee, through parks, over to Notre Dame again and back again. Linda and I were enthusiastic travelers, spoke some French, loved French culture – this was our JAM!
    Fred, the Manager? not so much. But we cajoled him into exploring, and then exploring some more. Usually aiming at something that was “just a short walk that way”

    Linda and I didn’t clock that though WE were dressed in layers and casually enough that the Paris heat and sun and walking wasn’t really bothering us, Fred was in a suit and tie, for some reason didn’t take off his suit jacket … and though he was sporty, he wasn’t a big “trek across the city” guy. But we were like IT’s PARIS!!! and just kept going as he started slowing down. We’d pause for him to catch up and then head off again. Until he finally collapsed on a bench, nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. Took about a hour and several bottles of water doused on his head before he felt up to standing and hobbling to the taxi we flagged down.
    Sorry Fred!!! (But It Was Paris!)

    I got my payback from Fred towards the end of the project. (Though he was just Fred being Fred) Trip to NYC for more presentations – all day Wednesday, out for dinner see the town Wednesday night, presentation Thursday morning then back to Boston Thursday afternoon. Wednesday afternoon, Fred said “change of plans” he and the guys on the trip decided that “dinner and see the town” would be Steak Dinner, Martinis, and Strip Club. And therefore the 2 women on the trip, me and Lacey would be heading back to Boston so it could be a guys’ thing. (Yeah, not good Fred. Sexist much?)

    So off Lacey and I go to the airport, our flight got delayed, had lots of turbulence, had to circle for over an hour and bonus! Lacey got airsick and spent the entire flight heaving and puking into a bag right next to me. It wasn’t my worst flight ever, but it was close.

    Oh and a few years later Fred and Lacey got married.
    I’m betting they wound up being a big Road Trip couple vs hikes or flights abroad.

  173. Uhoh*

    Not me, but my spouse has a type of parasomnia where they are both awake and dreaming at the same time. This makes for lots of seeing things that are not there. They once pounded on the door yelling “Help! Get me out of here!” in a sleep episode and their roommate had to ask if they were OK. They groggily woke up, said yes, and went back to bed.

  174. WantonSeedStitch*

    I was at a conference in New England in spring, when the nights are still rather chilly. After a day of conferencing, I went out for dinner and karaoke with some folks I was friends with through our volunteer work with the organization holding the conference, and some other folks who got attached to our group. Karaoke was fun, drinks were had, and at the end of a long evening, I went to go find the (rather new) jacket I’d put down on my seat and go back to the hotel. It was not there. I looked EVERYWHERE in the bar, but it was simply not to be found. There was another black leather jacket that definitely was NOT mine, but that was it. I was pretty livid that my jacket had been stolen, and was FREEZING as I walked back to the hotel. Next morning, I called the bar to ask if anyone had found it. Nope. I also asked the hotel and the registration folks at the conference to keep an eye out. A few hours later, I found out that one of the folks in my group had grabbed my jacket by mistake and left his own behind. Readers, I am a rather curvy woman, and this was a rather skinny guy. I don’t know how much he drank, to mistake my jacket for his! Anyway, he came up to me later to apologize, and we both had a good laugh about it, and have remained friends since. But it was a while before I let him live it down.

  175. Jackalope*

    For health reasons related to COVID I hadn’t traveled outside of driving distance at all for the last few years. Recently I went on a work trip that was also one of my first flights since pre-COVID. One of my coworkers (for our very small group) offered to purchase my ticket while he was getting his, because it was easier for him for logistical reasons. Then he went and purchased a non refundable ticket in the cheapest bracket possible; no change could be made to the tickets, no seat reservations, nothing. It was also booked a few hours earlier than what I’d told him my earliest acceptable flight time was (there were about 8 different flights throughout the day so this was easy to accommodate). That’s when I discovered that the previous mild discomfort of sitting in a middle seat had morphed during the pandemic into a full Huge Deal. I spent the next couple of weeks having panic attacks off and on, unable to cope somehow. I upgraded my seat to a Premium seat, but that too was only available for middle seats; both window and aisle were all booked. Finally the day came to fly out, and I got to the airport utterly exhausted from getting up at 4:00, got on the plane, and was stuck in a nightmare situation. The gentleman with the window seat was large; I don’t mean fat, but the kind of build many Samoans have – very tall, large-boned, and sturdy – and he couldn’t help but overlap into my seat. The woman on the aisle was determined that she would have both armrests and kept elbowing me or asking me to move. I ended up spending the whole flight on the edge of panic, telling myself not to scream because we were up in the air and I didn’t want to cause issues for the whole plane, and with my body turned sideways, perched forward, and with my shoulders and everything pulled in as much as I could (the guy with the window seat was doing the same thing; he at least understood how the space was too small and was trying to respect my bubble). I arrived for my conference exhausted, in pain, and just about on the edge of my coping ability.

    The flight home was better, and I wasn’t on the edge of a panic attack the whole time. But I had the mostly unrelated responsibility of rewriting our financial policies not long after that and I took great satisfaction from stating explicitly that while we encouraged economy seating, going for the cheapest option was not required and we could go for the option that gave us seat reservations. (I also added one so that it would be official policy that we had the option of upgrading at our own expense if we wanted, that same-sex attendees would not be required to share a room as had previously been the habit, and so on.)

  176. Yes Anastasia*

    This one wasn’t terribly dramatic, but I’m still irritated about it. Some years ago, I attended my first-ever conference for a creative field in which I’m active. These types of conferences are fairly prestigious (and in some cases have a “pay-to-play” vibe in terms of gaining access to professional opportunities). We were given the opportunity to share hotel rooms to reduce costs (normal for this kind of event), but the conference center screwed up all the room assignments, and as a result scores of attendees discovered on arrival that they didn’t have beds and/or were being double-charged for their stays.

    Everyone was eventually accommodated, but people were waiting in the lobby for hours. I ended up on a trundle bed and, due to my delayed check-in, never met one of my roommates by the light of day. (She is a well-respected professional in this field, but I could never bring myself to network with her after the event, feeling that “you don’t know me but we slept in the same room one weekend” is an awkward conversation opener.)

    The conference was also in the mountains, and most of us were suffering from some degree of elevation sickness throughout the event. Additionally, the catering was super disorganized, and the only on-site sit-down restaurant featured $40 entrees. I’m still glad I attended, but I’m happy to file it away as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

  177. Marshmallows*

    Mine isn’t that exciting but it was my first solo business trip so it was eventful for me! Relevant info: this was pre-smartphone, but I had a cell phone, I am female and was in my early 20’s at the time.

    Went to a training in Houston, TX. Chose the hotel that was recommended by the training people. Which was my first mistake as it was clearly only for proximity not quality. The hotel was in a sketch part of town and shared a parking lot with a Burger King and a strip club and the windows were all barred.

    I tried to order food from a local chain with the intent of going to pick it up and eat ay the hotel. Since the Internet was sketchy then, I was limited on finding food near me. I ordered then typed the address in the gps and tried to drive there. The gps said “you have arrived”, but I was just under a bridge in a sort of industrial area. There was no food there. So I drove a little and reset and it just put me right back under that bridge every time. So I called the place and they had someone direct me to the foods (she was able to help with some landmarks and street names of where I was).

    Then I got back to the hotel and as I was trying to walk in, two guys stopped me in the parking lot. They had some sad story about how they were “trying to get to a job interview in Louisiana tomorrow but didn’t have enough gas, and we don’t want you to give us money, just ride with us to the gas station, pay for the gas, and we will bring you back”. Thankfully, my stranger danger radar has always been pretty good, so I declined and went inside the hotel and they called the cops, of course they were gone by the time the cops came.

    Anyway. I survived but was on edge the whole trip since I was very far from home and alone.

  178. Oof and Ouch*

    I, an American, was sent on a fairly last minute business trip to Northern Ireland. I was ecstatic until I realized that I would have to drive on the left side of the road. Still I figured I would power through, how hard could it be?

    Then I got to the car rental place at the airport. The woman working the desk said “oh, you’re American… I guess you’ll need an automatic.” Yes, yes I would. Unfortunately the only automatic they had available was a van. That I had to drive from Dublin to the small town where I was staying a couple of hours away, and then on a very very narrow coastal road (and by coastal I mean alongside sheer clif drops into the ocean) in the dark at rush hour back and forth between my hotel and meeting site every day.

    I was a nervous wreck the entire trip and probably didn’t perform at my best, but I survived and didn’t crash the car or kill any sheep (which was a genuine concern a few times) so I considered it a win.

  179. Cricket*

    I used to work in a field that required a lot of travel and often staying in hotels in varying levels of rural areas and manual labor in fields/woods. Accommodations were often two to a room (which was its own issue) but I was often the only woman and got my own room.
    On one trip, the head person decided that instead of booking boring hotel rooms, they would get us cabins at a nature retreat. There was much complaint on the lack of cable and apparently no realization that people that did manual labor all day probably don’t want to zip line after.

    This involved staying in cabins on the property and the group of six was split up into a three bedroom, a two bedroom and me all by myself in a one bedroom cottage.

    Each cottage was at least a mile from the main center, where the only internet was. No phone. No cell reception. The crew had two vehicles, which were kept at the 3 and 2 bed cabins. No lights other than on the cottage and in the middle of the woods. Got there late enough I couldn’t even figure out the heat system the first night (it was late fall). The head person thought I would be uncomfortable in a cabin with my own room but with male crew (or they would be I suppose), so he put me in the opening of a horror movie instead.

  180. ArtK*

    I swear I don’t travel that much, but I collect stories…

    My luggage has gone AWOL twice on business trips. It took two times for me to learn a couple of useful lessons.

    Trip 1; Meetings in San Jose, CA, followed by meetings in Toronto. No direct flight available, so booked through LAX with a *very* short layover. Arrived at Terminal 1 and left via Terminal 7 (or 8, Air Canada.) LAX is my home airport so I had no problem making it across the airport. My luggage wasn’t so lucky. (T1 to T7 requires going *around* all of the terminals.) It took Air Canada 2 days to find and forward my luggage. Slept in my underwear and then quickly washed it each morning.

    Trip 2: LAX to Frankfurt via Heathrow. Flights from the US and flights to the Continent leave from different terminals. Again, a too-short layover. I was on the bus from one terminal to the other and saw my distinctive bag sitting on a curb waiting for the baggage handlers to take it. Dear Reader, it did not make it. Fortunately, it only took 1 day for it to catch up with me.

    Lessons: 1) *Always* keep pajamas, toothbrush and underwear in your carryon. 2) Refuse any layover shorter than 2 hours. Not sure why it took two tries to learn these. Ah well.

    1. lbd*

      I too had a too-short layover in Heathrow. My arrival at the departure terminal was greeted with “You’re Annony? Your gate is #, run! Run!” My gate turned out to be behind a pillar/in a corner/tucked away, and I overshot it, but a crew member snagged me as I rushed past, and pulled me down the gangway. Everyone else had boarded and had their seatbelts fastened, the pilot was revving the engine, and the cabin crew said, “Sit here, fasten your seatbelt, we’ll stow your carryon!”
      My luggage was delivered to my destination the next morning, and I was happy that I had packed essentials in my carryon, just in case!

  181. Snax*

    My first job out of college was as a journalist-and-admin for a think tank. We wrote about international issues, so we did a bit of traveling to conduct interviews. These trips were often to far-flung, difficult places (think war zones and natural disasters). We had a decent budget, but most of these towns don’t have a five star hotel for any price.

    My boss was (and probably still is!) a huge man-baby. On my first trip with him, I booked a hotel and made reservations for food and ground transport with the nicest, most well-reputed businesses in this tiny, remote city. He steps into the hotel lobby and loudly proclaims “wow! Is this some kind of drug front? What a shithole.” It’s… a perfectly lovely, clean, safe hotel. I’m confused, but I assume he’s making a joke. He isn’t. He repeats this declaration to anyone we meet (“we are staying at the XYZ Hotel. Who owns that place? It’s a dump!”) and the locals are equally confused – it’s a nice hotel by any standard. I’m humiliated both because I booked the trip and because I’m trailing around after this boor, totally unable to apologize to our contacts and hoping my horrified expression says enough.

    A few days into the trip, I notice Man-Baby is getting really grumpy around the same time every afternoon. On a hunch, I offer him a granola bar I had in my purse. He inhales it and asks how many more snacks I have; I give him another granola bar and his mood immediately improves. I begin carrying candy and snacks with me, and feeding him between our meetings. It’s not like I hadn’t scheduled food breaks – we had 3 meals together every day, ugh – but apparently he needed me to physically hand him a snack to stave off his mid-afternoon hanger. Every. Day.

    I’m not saying he’s why I don’t have kids, but… I’m not cut out for parenthood of my mid-50s boss. All my stories from that office would make more sense if my boss was a particularly insensitive 8-year-old.

  182. EttaPlaceInBolivia*

    My school district put tiny little 22 year old me on a bus full of students in January of my first year teaching and sent us all to a debate tournament a 4.5 hour bus ride away. One of my students (let’s call him K) had several disabilities and some behavioral concerns, but the special education department did not give me the full extent of his behavioral needs. I asked if he would be safe to travel to the tournament and got an “I guess, I’m sure he’ll do fine.”

    Well. We pull up to the junior high where the tournament is held since the high school in this town had burned down the previous October. K’s friend J found a lighter on the ground somewhere and gifted it to K. K proceeded to start a fire in a clogged toilet in the boys’ bathroom, 4.5 hours away from home, without parent chaperones, and other than the bus driver, I was the only adult with my school. Fortunately, the other coaches gave me big hugs, advice, reassurance, and grace. My bus driver that day was the real MVP–he sat with K for the two hours it took to get all the rest of the kids ready to go, and he was K’s personal one-on-one minder for all stops on the way back to our hometown. After that, I learned that I can say NO when I’m not sure a kid can handle a trip out of town. 20 years later, and I’m still traveling with students!

  183. Scintillating Water*

    Way back in the ’00s, my first real post-college job was teaching abroad. It was exhausting, but I loved it. And they loved me, enough that I was chosen to be part of a group of teachers to try out a special proprietary curriculum, with training only available in a beautiful tropical location. Exciting! I didn’t care that this was over winter break (so no vacation), and that I would have to share a bed with two coworkers. I was going to a new country, and we’d even have time to do tourist things!

    Except, they did not tell me that the people who owned this curriculum were white evangelical Christians who used it for missionary work. And the training was held on their mission grounds. And my t-shirts and shorts were insufficiently modest for the mission’s dress code, so I had to buy long-sleeved shirts and sweat. Our trainer/guide was a hard-right American who spent much of the downtime (meals and driving) complaining abut left-wing conspiracies and Hilary Clinton, and leaned on the whole group to attend church with her. I am a queer Jew. It was awkward. (I did not attend church.)

    Then I lost my plane ticket back and had to pay a big fee to have it reissued. At least my (long-distance) boyfriend waited until the trip was over to dump me!

  184. Formerly Ella Vader*

    My graduate advisor was able to stretch research funding to cover a large number of grad students and post-docs, partly by discouraging us from approaching the maximum amounts allowed for travel expenses. Even in dawn-of-internet days, I was good at finding alternative accommodation in the Let’s Go guide. This always worked out well.
    – Landed in Albany NY late at night and got a flat-rate taxi to the YWCA hostel. Driver was sure he knew where it was, took me to YMCA homeless shelter downtown. I refused to get out. He failed at asking directions. He took me to a hotel where I could use a pay phone. Turns out that instead of Washington St Albany, the hostel was on Washington St Schenectady, which I had said and he didn’t listen to. We went to the taxi dispatch office to argue how to adjust the flat fare. Then he told me he would get me there quickly, and then he got a speeding ticket.
    – Drove with a colleague to Detroit, where I had rented us rooms at a small college. I navigated, colleague drove, which worked well in confusing downtown Detroit. Until the evening we wanted to go to separate conference socials. Both of us wanted to leave the car to the other and drink and take taxis. I won. He drove his car to an event, didn’t drink there, stopped to buy beer to drink in his room at the college, had poor night vision and no navigator, got lost, wanted to turn around in what he thought was a fresh asphalt parking lot but turned out to be the side of a ditch. A friendly local with a pickup truck towed him out of the ditch, and the next day I had to climb in the driver’s side because his passenger door was stuck closed.
    – Flew in to San Diego on Saturday to get cheap airfare, for conference starting Monday. Booked HI hostel for Saturday night before moving to sharing a room in conference hotel. Had had no sleep Friday night because of finishing research, taking photos, making actual slides on 1994 PowerPoint, developing slide film, etc, got onto plane with strip of wet uncut transparency film. Got to hostel late at night, fell sound asleep in lower bunk. Woke up to bunk shaking, the way my sister used to do to annoy me when we were kids, and thought unkind thoughts about late-arriving stranger. Discovered in AM that it was a large earthquake. Went to check in to conference hotel: large plants were now strategically under each large chandelier in the lobby just in case, huge lineups of people wanting to change rooms. When check-in clerk said “you can have top floor or come back at 7 pm”, I picked the former. Plaster kept trickling onto our beds all week with aftershocks, and my roommate, more aware of the habits of earthquakes, was furious with me.

  185. APennySaved*

    Event: Law firm retreat for all the attorneys of a 40-50 attorney regional firm in the US.

    Setting: Relatively fancy resort in the mountains.

    Law firm partner (but not one of the senior partners) directs a managing attorney of an office (but not a partner) to buy a cooler, waters, orange juice, etc. He is buying breakfast foods. That way the firm can save money on food on the trip.

    We get there the first day, partner announces that breakfast the next morning will be hosted in his room. Ok odd.

    He proceeds to show examples of this breakfast: mini cups of orange juice (the kind with the foil tops you could stab with a straw), and an assortment of plain granola bars and little debbie snack cakes.

    Those of us in management (also not partners) told our subordinates to just join us in the breakfast room and we will have a proper breakfast. We planned to pay the cost even though we were making well below market salaries and well below 6-figures – no rich attorneys here!

    Half way through breakfast, partner (making high 6-figures) comes in visibly angry and demands to know why no one is at his room when he went to the effort to “make breakfast” for everyone and did we not understand how expenses worked.

    Just as he is about to tell everyone to leave, senior partners arrive to eat breakfast.

    We all brace, preparing for them to join in.

    Partner then rounds on them about the same issue. They calmly sit down, look at him, and say “we’re not eating that ****, and no one else should either. Everyone should have a *good* breakfast before the meetings, not some cheap snacks. But bring those to the meeting room for breaks.”

    Senior partners picked up the cost for everyone and the granola bars were never mentioned again, although partner pouted for the rest of the day.

  186. E. Chauvelin*

    A minor one in the whole scheme of things but I once got either food poisoning or a short bout of norovirus on what was supposed to be the last night of a library conference. I was already back in my room for the evening when it started to come on, so that was unpleasant but not remarkable, except that this was one of those times the association decided to hold a conference in Chicago in February, and we got hit with a blizzard. I woke up to my flight being cancelled and my being rebooked to the following day. Okay, fine, I was feeling mostly better but I still wasn’t really sure I wanted to be on a plane that afternoon anyway, I called the hotel and had them extend my stay by a night and crawled back into bed. The next day I check out, get to the airport, and my flight gets first delayed and then cancelled/rebooked for the next day AGAIN. I beg the airline for my luggage back, find a hotel with a shuttle, and am stuck by O’Hare for a second extra night. At this point, my husband and my father are arguing about who should come get me, since, when there’s not a blizzard, it’s a five hour drive. (I’d chosen to fly instead of drive because I figured that way I’d only have to worry about ground conditions at points A and B, not all the roads in between.) I tell my husband to go to work and let my dad do it since he’s retired. The emergency hotel kindly gives me a late checkout so I can keep my room until my dad actually gets there.

  187. Ann*

    A decade ago, my company at the time had a $200-per-night hotel spending limit, which didn’t go far in Charleston, South Carolina even back then. I booked a typical 2-star hotel chain in a decent neighborhood, but it was a true roach motel with roaches crawling out of the sink and the tub drains. Other hotels were sold out, I requested a different room, was denied, then called my corporate travel agent (that’s the moral of this story) to advocate for me as a single woman traveling alone. Lo and behold, miraculously there was another room available all of a sudden.

  188. Urban Fervor*

    Upon arriving at the hotel for a week-long visit to a client, I realized I hadn’t packed any pants.

    2. H3llifIknow*

      Yikes! I have 2 clothing related stories, albeit not quite so horror inducing!

      1. Luggage got lost on a trip to Reno. I found a local mall and went to Macys to purchase a pair of nice pants, blouse, undies for the meeting I was to have at 7am. Figured one night of sleeping in my undies wouldn’t kill me. At 3am a knock on my door. “Your luggage is here, ma’am.” “Ok, you can leave it” (remember no nightclothes). “I need to deliver it to you.” “No, it’s fine, just leave it. I’m not dressed because you have my luggage.” He stood there for at least 10 mins while I watched thru the peephole. I assume he was waiting on/hoping for a tip. I’ve never moved as fast as when I opened that door grabbed my bag and pulled it in!
      2. First trip to DC on biz with new company. Big meetings. Went to Macy’s and bought a (for me at the time) nice suit. Left it in its garment bag and flew a few days later. Unzip bag to steam it if needed, and….they’ve left the big plastic security tag on it! It’s 830pm and I have to be in Arlington at 8am. I google and find a Kohl’s just shy of a mile away and walk there. Find some decent pants and a blouse and schlepp back to the hotel. EVERYONE at the meeting was in black suits and very “corporate” looking. I looked like I was probably part of the catering staff. My boss gave me a little talk about “our standards of professional dress” but understood once I explained although he told me in the future to check my clothing for issues BEFORE taking off. I do. Oh believe me, I do.

  189. ManUtdFan*

    I was attending a weeklong training seminar in Memphis, TN, at University of Tennessee. The hotel that was recommended by the university was totally booked, so I booked one at a similar cost just down the street. Online it looked just fine. When I got there, there were double gates on the parking lot, and the area looked pretty rough. There was a fight going on in the lobby when I checked in. The elevator looked like a bomb had gone off – fluids/stains, debris, stuff hanging off the walls, dents, etc. I went down the hall to my room, and the room right next to mine had police officers arresting multiple people in the room and in the hallway. I walked into my room, and then thought “Nope – I’m not staying here.” I called my boss, and the only hotel that had a room for that night was The Drake. I told my boss I would find a different hotel for the remaining nights. He told me “just stay there – I will approve the expense report.”

  190. CzechMate*

    God, I just remembered this. My husband works in sales. At his OldJob, the CMO insisted that he and his coworker fly to San Francisco, CA to attend a conference. Bear in mind, this is a company based in Toronto with employees scattered across Canada and the US. My husband pushes back a bit–this conference doesn’t seem like it’s geared toward their target customers, and he doesn’t want to take a 3,000 mile trip across the country if it doesn’t seem like a valuable use of time. The CMO insists that it’s a valuable opportunity. Plus, the company has already booked their accommodations!

    First night, my husband and his coworker stay in a literal roach motel next to the train tracks. After a sleepless night, they stagger over to the conference, only to discover that the attendees are not at all their target customers (think: husband is selling consulting services to software companies, and the attendees are inventors learning about how to advertise products on QVC.) As he leaves the first session, he sees he’s getting a frantic call from the CEO.

    CMO has just resigned. Apparently she and the CEO had, um, some differing opinions about where and how to find leads. Husband and his coworker were scheduled to be in San Francisco for four more days. They ended up turning the trip into a fun remote-work vacation, but they still had to stay in the roach motel.

  191. Ghostwriting is Real Writing*

    I was moderating / hosting my company’s very important, three-day client meeting / seminar at a very fancy five-star venue. The first afternoon always consists of a casual group activity to get everyone mingling and comfortable. This particular year was a leisurely hike with beautiful views culminating at the base of a waterfall. I announced several times that although the trail was flat, it was still important to wear comfortable shoes. Unbeknownst to me, the guide decided that this group looked hale and hearty and decided to take us to the top of the waterfall instead of to the bottom. (He might have been encouraged to do this by a few of the more adventurous clients). By the time I realized the trail was anything but flat, we were well on our way and there was nothing to do but go with it. The views from the top of the mountain were gorgeous, the hike was challenging over steep, rocky terrain, everyone had a great time, but who had not worn appropriate shoes – me, of course. I had on a pair of fashion boots that looked great but destroyed my feet. By dinner time, my feet were swollen, my toe nails were black and I was in serous pain. There was no way I could shove them into any of the shoes I had in my suitcase. However, I was needed at the dinner. I ended up putting on the hotel’s extremely large, fluffy white slippers and making a rather embarrassed entrance. I wore those slippers for the meetings the next day and all the way to the final lunch. Once I got over the initial awkwardness, I realized my foot wear was a great ice breaker among clients who might not know each other well. So not a true disaster, but something I’d rather not repeat.

  192. QED*

    So. Right out of college I get my very first job at a national nonprofit in their Major City A office. It was the kind of position where the organization has an extremely recent college grad in the same position at all of their offices across the nation. A few weeks before my start date, my boss tells me that the org has decided to have everyone in that position (nationwide) do a week-long orientation together in Major City B for our first week of work. Cities A and B are close enough to each other that driving wouldn’t be unreasonable, so I ask my boss if the organization has a limit on how much I can spend on travel or a preferred mode of travel. He says no, but keep it reasonable. I’m 22 and don’t own a car, so I look at options. The bus is the cheapest, and Amtrak and flying are about equivalent, both a few hundred dollars because it’s a month or less before the date I want to travel. I’ve had extremely terrible luck on buses, including being on one where its suspension broke and we kept driving on it less than a month before this travel booking experience. So, having been given no restrictions or guidance, I book a round trip flight from City A to City B.
    When I arrive at the orientation hotel in City B, I go to the desk, get a room key, all fine. I go upstairs, open the door to the room, and there are two women–complete strangers to me and each other!– already in the hotel room, sitting on each of the beds. I check the room number. I check my key. This is the room the front desk gave me. They do the same–same result. As we’re doing this, a fourth woman enters the room and is the only person who doesn’t seem surprised. She has the same job as the rest of us but has already been doing it for a year (the structure was you’d do the same job for two years and then get promoted if you hadn’t already quit). She informed the rest of us that it was standard organization policy to put four people in one double hotel room as a cost-saving measure, that this was policy at all levels of the organization up to exec level, and so this situation was not a mistake. I’m an extremely light sleeper who didn’t grow up sharing beds, so after going into the hallway to freak out on the phone to my mom, I called down to the front desk and asked for a cot, which they brought. I switched off between that and one of the beds with a women who kicked in her sleep, and the other two shared the other bed. Needless to say, this was not an auspicious start to my time at this organization, and the week didn’t improve from there, with way too much forced togetherness/socializing, big organization propaganda, and me being taken aside to be berated because I didn’t seem to be trying hard enough to get petition signatures (by flagging people down on the streets of City B to sign, with four other signature-getting colleagues less than a block away in each direction).
    It probably also goes without saying that I didn’t last very long at this job. Six weeks in, I quit. Right before I quit, I filed for reimbursement for all expenses I’d accrued to date. The organization paid them all except for one–my flight from City A to City B. I contacted them and asked about the omission. They told me 1) that the flight was way too expensive and I never should have booked it for a trip that could have been done reasonably by bus or car and 2) travel to orientation wasn’t something they would reimburse regardless because “I didn’t work for them yet” when I traveled from City A to City B; my employment began the next morning on the first day of orientation. Since I was 22 and temping while looking for a full time job, I both really needed the reimbursement and could spend time pursuing it.

    So I took my former employer to small claims court in City A.

    Naturally, it would have cost them more money to send someone to court to actually argue the claim and prepare a case, so we settled for the full amount of my round trip airfare and my agreement that I wouldn’t sue them for anything else.

  193. Gingerbat*

    I used to travel a lot for my job as a college admissions recruiter, but here are 2 of my “favorite” experiences:
    1) Was going to Albuquerque at the same time as the hot air balloon fiesta. My flight was delayed and i ended up getting in very late. Got to my hotel, was given a room on a high floor, dragged all my stuff up to the room only to find the key didn’t work. They also didn’t have one of those phones by the elevator that some hotels do. Drag all my stuff all the way back down to reception and was told they have no more rooms, but they would see what they could do. “What they could do” turned out to be the living room area of the top floor suite. So, i had no bed, but several pull out couches, a wet bar and lots and lots of space. I also had nearly 360 views of the hot air balloons.
    2) On an international recruitment trip, the group i was traveling with booked in at the Ritz Carlton in Bangalore, India. It was definitely the fanciest hotel I had ever stayed at, but the catch was we got in super late and had to leave super early the next morning. I only had maybe 8 hours in that room, but I managed to avail myself of every amenity. Took a bath in the giant, spa bathtub, used the stand alone rain shower and ALL the toiletries and the plush bathrobe and ordered room service.

  194. Baby Yoda*

    Still remember this decades later — I was brand new supervisor hired at a new local branch and corporate office invited 5 of us down to FL for a meeting/training. 4 of us had never flown before, but showed up early and prepared for the trip. We were told the flight was delayed for at least an hour, so we all went to the bar for a drink. When we returned, in under an hour, the flight was gone! One of my new employees got in the airport employee’s face yelling for him to “Call that tower and turn that plane around!” I hovered in the background, so embarrassed, and then went on to rebook us. Worst part was calling my new branch manager and telling him all 5 of us had missed the plane. Never heard the end of it.

  195. cote d'isaster*

    Went on my very first long-haul flight to the Cote D’Ivoire (11h with a change in Istanbul). unfortunately my luggage did not make it onto the second plane which was promptly followed by having to deliver a training session to over 100 people while wearing the same t-shirt and jeans I’d worn to fly in.

    The luggage made it to me on the day we flew back to the UK, at which point it got stuck in Turkey again. Only reunited with it 3 weeks later (having been very obviously rummaged through repeatedly by airport staff).

    That on top of having to fork out £800 for the hotel on arrival as my business credit card wasn’t working, about £200 for new clothes… and on top of all that the wonderful gift of salmonella which got me an over the phone interrogation from the council to make sure I hadn’t picked something up from the local supermarket.

    They seemed to like the training at least.

  196. Lou's Girl*

    I was recruiting for a position at our home office. Found a good candidate, had a good phone interview, decided to bring her in for in person interviews. She lived about 6 hours away by car, in the next state, and if offered, would relocating to live in our town working at home office. All this was explained previously.
    I called her as per the usual to arrange travel. I always give 2 options when bringing candidates in: A) the option to fly, and we’ll hook them up with a rental car. OR B) I ask if they would rather drive instead, we’ll reimburse for mileage, that way they’d have their own car and can check out the city (and obviously lodging either way). I gave her both options.
    She proceeded to YELL at me and curse at me for even suggesting that she wasn’t able to fly. “What makes you think I can’t fly?!!!! How dare you! What the hell kind of organization would criticize me that way?! You can take your damn job and go to hell!” I believe were her exact words. I’m still flummoxed 15 years later.

    2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      She sounds guano crazy.

      You didn’t offer the options to me, but I’m going to express thanks for offering them anyway. Many times, I state dispassionately “I’d prefer to drive” and I must appear as if I had a second head on my shoulders.

  197. The OG Sleepless*

    I don’t travel much for work, so proportionately I don’t have many travel disaster stories, but this one is worth mentioning in case it happens to anyone else. I flew home to Atlanta from a training seminar. My flight had already been delayed, and I was walking into ATL’s attached parking garage at a horrifying 11:45 PM. (I am a notorious non-night person and I was already dead on my feet.) My battery was dead! I had no idea what to do. I spotted an emergency call button and pushed it. A voice asked me what was wrong and I told them, hesitantly, thinking they might just tell me to buzz off. Less than 10 minutes later, an airport employee pulls up in a golf cart equipped with a battery charger, a slim jim, and an air compressor. They have staffing for just this sort of situation! It makes sense that in a place where people leave their cars for a few days all the time, there is probably a steady stream of them. He got me all fixed up and on my way, and I got into bed a mere 3.5 hours past my normal bedtime.

    1. D Diaz*

      not a work related take, but one related to dead cars in airports.

      My parent flew oit of Oakland Ca to Texas. they had a blast visiting the grandkids.

      they get back to Oakland, go to the car and it refuses to turn over. Hours later AAA makes it there only to discover the car is completely out of gas.

      Turns out my Dad had somehow forgotten to 1. turn off the the car and 2. remove the keys form the ignition.

      He had filled the tank (20 gallons) before they drove to the airport.

      How long the car idled and hoe the car was still there is a mystery

  198. unaMOUSEd*

    The first time I went to a national library conference, I was still building up my personal financial cushion and didn’t want to spend beyond what my library was paying for. It was also pretty late in the game for registration and the rooms near the convention center were all booked, so I ended up snagging a a hotel about a mile from the convention center that was on the inexpensive side.

    Now, a few things — I knew to expect lots of free advanced reader copies and other goodies from the exhibit hall but it did not really occur to me that hauling ~40 books to the hotel a mile away would be taxing. That was my first mistake. It was very taxing. Especially because the conference was also in Philadelphia in March, so I didn’t account for the possibility of weather — and should have.

    But more importantly: I arrived on the later side to my hotel after a train ride to Philadelphia. The hotel was not super obviously marked and it was already dark, but I found it on a dingy corner with ambiguous signage on the door to a bar. Totally confused, I headed into the bar, mostly empty aside from maybe one or two guys and the barkeeper. I told the barkeeper I was looking for the hotel and he moves over to a podium near a staircase tucked almost behind the bar. I seem to recall there was an issue finding my reservation, but eventually he confirmed it, told me my room number, and gave me a key. I soon realize there is no elevator and I’m on the third floor. In preparation for the ARCs I expected, I’d packed my carry-on in a larger suitcase, plus I had my backpack, all of which I slowly hauled up the stairs (I’m only 5’0″, so there were additional challenges without the elevator, trying to keep my luggage up high enough to get up the stairs without dragging).

    But it gets so much worse. I settled into my room which was very dated and also dingy, but fine. Until I pulled the blankets back on the bed and saw what appeared to be mouse poop. Okay, I figured, one-offs happen, maybe it’s a piece of lint, who knows, it’s fine. I brushed it off and tried to make myself comfortable.

    And then the mouse poop was no longer a question — a mouse appeared, jumping out of my backpack. And I was quite certain I had not trafficked a mouse across state lines. So I headed back down to the bar in my pajamas, which was set to close soon, and asked the barkeeper/concierge for a new room.

    “Sure,” he said, “but it won’t really make a difference.”

    Great. I got my new key, moved all my stuff over, and sure enough — more evidence of mice in my new room. I caught glimpses of the actual mouse a few more times, too, but only ever saw one other person in the hotel in the three nights I was there.

    I do not know how I managed the remaining three nights in the room, but I did. The conference itself was great, but with the fear of mice running over me (or worse) in my sleep, invading my luggage, etc., I had lots of trouble sleeping, and the barkeeper/concierge did not seem to mind.

    When I went to the same conference (in another city) this year, I had no guilt “splurging” on a Hyatt-Regency that was attached to the convention center. Happy to report there wasn’t a mouse in sight this time.

    1. Library Anoshe*

      Columbus was lovely! I was a little farther away than you were from the conference, but not crazy far either. I also was in a room with no elevator access. Fortunately, that only meant about 6 stairs!

  199. La Triviata*

    I remember a story from years ago – a long-term client called a travel agency (long time ago) and asked for help getting their boss a reservation at a hotel in LA. Said they couldn’t find a listing for a hotel by that name in Los Angeles. After checking, turned out the hotel was in New Orleans, LA. sigh … and when the Olympics was in Atlanta, They wouldn’t take ticket sales from New Mexico – they could only do ticket sales over the phone to people in the U.S.

    1. The OG Sleepless*

      It wasn’t “they” in Atlanta, it was one person, and she got plenty of flak about it from the local news.

  200. Eddie Elgar*

    I was returning from a job interview in Canada. When I checked in with the airline that morning, I was only given my boarding pass to Vancouver and told I could pick my other boarding passes after I cleared US customs. It sounded simple enough…

    Except that when I cleared customs, there was no obvious ticket counter for the airline I was flying–one of the major US carriers. I kept following people, searching and not finding, until I reached the security checkpoint. The security guard was more than a little huffy as I tried to explain I couldn’t find the ticketing counter, and she walked me back mumbling uncomplimentary things about Americans. That stopped when we reached the ticketing area and she couldn’t find the ticketing counter.

    We eventually did find it, tucked away in a back corner and partially masked by another counter. It was also unstaffed. Calling the airline didn’t help until somebody behind the counter of another airline asked if we wanted the airline’s “secret number.” (By this point, the security guard had revised my IQ a few points upward.) She calls, talks to somebody, hangs up, rolls her eyes and states: “They were wondering where you were. They’re going to walk your boarding passes to security.” We retrace our steps, and proceed to wait…and wait…and wait for the passes to show up. I had a three hour layover and barely made it to my next flight before the doors closed.

    Then the airline lost my luggage due to a snowstorm in Minneapolis, but that didn’t seem worth getting upset over after the mystery of the disappearing ticket counter. Naturally, after all that, I didn’t get the job, either.

    1. bishbah*

      This wasn’t business travel, but I had the disappearing-counter issue on a pleasure trip when my weird discount internet fare involved partner airlines and flights into airports not typically on the main airline’s route. One leg ended up being Virgin Atlantic into JFK through Continental, whose “counter” was a small paper sign in an acrylic holder at the Virgin desk. There was an actual person behind the sign, though!

      1. Wedginald Antilles*

        I had a similar situation on a pleasure trip. Florence, layover in Frankfurt, home to Chicago on a Lufthansa/United partner flight. Except when I checked in in Florence they wouldn’t give me a boarding pass for the Frankfurt to Chicago leg. It took me my entire layover to figure out where to go in Frankfurt to get help. Turns out that my ticket didn’t actually exist? I’m still not sure. Thankfully an AirCanada person took pity on my SIL and me and got us home.

  201. CeeDoo*

    This wasn’t an ordeal for me, but my boss was really angry at the hotel. We had 5 of us traveling to a conference and the hotel switched our rooms from 2 queens to 1 king (principal didn’t have to share a room). My boss said, “We are not making grown ass women share a bed with their coworker.” The funny thing was none of us particularly cared. We were on our third trip of five together, and we got along really well. But we did get moved into the correct kind of room.

  202. Anon (and on and on)*

    I never sleep well at conferences unfamiliar environments trigger my lizard brain and I’m anxious all night. It’s typically the worst the first night, and then gets better once I’ve gotten used to the hotel room. When I went to my first professional conference my sleep was even more disrupted that first night because the people in the room next to me were having loud, screaming sex. It would wake me up, then after a while I’d fall back to sleep again, only to be woken up again as it either continued or started over, not sure. This pattern proceeded from midnight until three in the morning! I was impressed by their stamina, but it was definitely hard to function the next day.

  203. toadFlax3*

    I had a miscarriage. It was a conference rather than a business trip, but. I was also rooming with someone I barely knew (who turned out to be fantastic, thankfully!). It was very early in the pregnancy so the bleeding wasn’t nearly what it could have been–regular pads sufficed–but still. A secret I kept from everyone but my roommate for the entire 4 days.

  204. Kate*

    My very first business trip was while I was a 19-year old intern, from the Midwest to the South. my boss (who I later learned had been on a PIP the whole time! And was fired a few weeks later!), a born and bred nonsmoking Midwesterner, developed a sudden southern drawl the instant we landed, stopped for cigarettes and started chainsmoking them. During lunch, after I turned down his offer to buy alcohol for me, we decided we’d go to a movie after work, and my boss was VERY disappointed to learn that The Passion Of The Christ (yes, the Mel Gibson movie) was sold out. He decided we’d see EuroTrip instead. Luckily (?!?) once we got to the hotel, he got into a long fight with his wife (maybe about the accent? or the cigarette purchases on the credit card?? who knows?) and wasn’t able to go, telling me instead to go with an elderly gentleman also working onsite with us. To this day, one of my best examples of showing good judgement was me realizing that being older did NOT in fact make my boss any better at decisions than me, telling the elderly coworker I had ‘lost’ the movie tickets for Eurotrip, and then watching the charming family-friendly hockey movie Miracle instead. Luckily every single one of the dozens of work trips I’ve taken since has been less drama-filled than that one.

  205. djx*

    Company without a strong travel policy. Staff advised to say they were tourists when making short international trips. One non-US citizen busted coming into US, detained for many hours. Then deported. That person not being able to come to US HQ again interfered with operations for quite some time.

  206. Khai of the Fortress of the Winds*

    I’m a little phobic about being late so I always get to the airport 2 hours early for my flight. I was on a direct from one small Midwestern city to another, about a one hour flight. A half hour before we were supposed to board, my flight app bings and tells me the flight will be delayed an hour. No problem, I brought a book. Half hour later the app dings again. Six hours later I rebook through Minneapolis/St Paul with a 40 minute layover. You know how big that airport is. Just barely made my connection, I was the last person to board. Got to my destination 11 hours late. Apparently a window on the first plane blew out on landing and the airline thought it would only take an hour to fix. They were wrong.

  207. cheap rolls*

    Not quite a business trip, but a librarians conference. I was in library school and a classmate was not only hitting every session (I was too) but also partying hard at night. Eventually collapsed and had to be taken to the ER. Got an IV drip to rehydrate, chilled for a bit, then hit the conference hard the next day. #libschoollife

  208. Rara Avis*

    We needed to take our llamas to a competition. I had made the arrangements for transportation, but was on medical leave on the actual date. My colleague texted to say, “You did reserve a bus, right?” We finally figured out that another group taking alpacas to do some local training had loaded her group on our bus without ever checking the destination (driver was an outside contractor), and didn’t notice that they were on the road much longer than they should have been, heading to a destination in a different county. It was on a weekend day when most people weren’t at work, so it took a while to track down the relevant phone numbers and get in touch with her and the transportation manager.

    It was resolved, more or less — the driver of the alpaca bus was willing to drive our llamas the longer distance. The alpacas never got their training that day. Our llamas were 30 minutes late, which pushed back the competition for all other participants.

    It’s just so hard for me to understand how the colleague in charge of the alpacas didn’t check destination with the driver and never noticed that she was going to the wrong place. Animal safety is our number one responsibility.

    1. Goose*

      Once after being 45 minutes late (I padded pick up time, but still) my llama bus let me know they would be four hours late. I shuffled llamas and staff into multiple uber xls (thankfully we had enough staff) to get to our destination on time.

    2. Mad Harry Crewe*

      I love that this is an actual llama and alpaca work environment, given our normal fake job titles around here.

      1. Tinkerbell*

        Yeah, I’m trying to figure out what industry this could be standing in for and all I’m coming up with is… actual llamas and alpacas (and other various animals) :-D

      2. linger*

        Not necessarily: “alpacas”, “llamas”, “animal safety” might all be cover terms here, following the site conventions. (Ferrying around (school?) sports teams would be one example of a close parallel fitting the “weekend competition/training” frame.)

  209. Anon (and on and on)*

    Thought of a good one from my Dad. He traveled as a consultant in the 90s and would wind up in tiny, awful hotels. There was one he went to every single time he visited a particular client because it was the only hotel nearby. One time he wrote DUST in the visible layer of dust on top of the coffee maker in the hopes that it would be cleaned. When he came back he saw that the cleaning person had put the coffee pot he’d moved back in it’s place… and that’s it. It still said DUST. I don’t think that was the last time he stayed there, unfortunately.

  210. merida*

    My coworker and I rented a car while on a business trip. She was the designated driver (not that this matters, because it easily could have happened to me or anyone) and when we returned the rental car we discovered a small but noticeable scrape on the front bumper. We were shocked because we didn’t notice that we’d hit anything before (and it was in a spot where it wasn’t likely that someone had bumped us while parked). I confirmed with the pictures I’d taken on my phone that the scratch wasn’t there when we got the car. My poor coworker was mortified and almost in tears. She was sick with worry on the trip back home. The rental car company charged a damage fee (honestly can’t remember how much) and my coworker later offered to re-imburse our company for the charges. All of us employees were covered under their rental car/travel insurance and thankfully our company refused to accept her payment (which is very notable since it was a stingy and petty place in all other areas! I have so many stories…). The incident passed without issue. She was worried she’d not be allowed to rent a car in the future on a business trip; that was not the case. She wasn’t inherently a bad driver at all, it was just a small mishap, and we moved on! I say this to hopefully calm anyone’s worst fears (including my own, haha!). Companies usually have insurance for things just like this, and it will be ok.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      For a cosmetic scrape like that, the fee likely was small enough that the company didn’t even submit it–it’s not worth the change in your insurability rating to be reimbursed such a small amount.

  211. Really Old Computer Fart*

    Back before the turn of the century I used to travel to industry meetings as a representative for the company, usually hosted at a hotel with convention facilities. There was one hotel on the east coast that generated multiple horror stories and I have forgotten most of them. I remember arriving late after a day of travel from the west coast, and there was a long line to check in. Their computer went down and they were handing keys to people and asking them to see if the room was occupied…

    But the real horror happened the next day. Middle of the day I went back to my room to retrieve something. As I turned the corner to the very very long corridor to my room I saw that the door to every single room on this long corridor was open. Easily 100 rooms. Apparently housekeeping couldn’t be bothered to open the doors one at a time… I got my stuff – and locked my door! – and hustled back to the meeting to inform everyone of what I saw. There was an immediate recess as everyone hustled to their rooms. There was theft, I don’t remember much but some plane tickets did go missing…

  212. bishbah*

    I was working for a nonprofit with a very small budget and they sent me on a rare conference out of town. I self-booked my travel online through the airline’s website. When I went to pick the dates, I chose the departure date, which was in the last week of February. For the return, the picker defaulted to one week ahead and had me edit it from there. So I didn’t notice that I was actually choosing a return date at the end of March instead of the end of February. (Both were Saturday the 27th, or whatever.)

    The trip went great… until I got to the airport to fly home and couldn’t check my bags because my flight wasn’t for another month. Thankfully the airline let me fly home on standby at no extra charge to my organization!

  213. geekcyclist*

    This happened to me on a trip in 2006, but was not my mishap:
    I had to fly from SLC to Denver to connect through to Milwaukee. It was one of these small Canadair Regional Jets that hold 40-50 people; one where to board you usually exit the airport gate and walk across the tarmac to the plane.

    At the Denver Airport all of the similar small jet flights use the same main gate, and then you walk down some stairs and through a long hallway with doors labeled A-N. They have people with clipboards checking tickets etc.

    As the time approached for our flight to push back, I was commenting to the man seated across the aisle that we may have gotten very lucky since we were the only two people on the plane seated in rows with empty seats. Just then a frazzled woman came rushing on the plane and sat down next to me.

    We chatted briefly as the plane took off, and then I returned to my book. After about 30 minutes the pilot came on the intercom and did the spiel about our altitude, the weather and the expected flight time to Milwaukee. “Jill” tapped me on the shoulder and with a shocked expression said, “Is this plane really going to Milwaukee?” Of course I said yes, to which she responded “I not going to Milwaukee. I’m going to Indianapolis.” To which I responded “Not without going to Milwaukee first…”

    The funny thing was that her ticket was for a seat in row 13; my row. Had she held a ticket for any other row there would not have been a vacant seat and it is likely the flight attendants would have put her on the right plane.

  214. gingersnap*

    Not a specific conference, but a particular coworker. Every year my colleagues and I would travel to our professional society’s conference. Based on what programs you were attending, each person’s travel in and out would be different. We all prayed we wouldn’t get stuck on the same flights as our coworker Tyrion.

    Tyrion was a full grown adult man, with decades of professional experience. But if anyone else was traveling at the same time as him, he regressed into a tiny child, even more so if you were a female colleague.

    “When should we leave for the airport?” “How should we get to the airport?” “What gate are we at?” “Do you think we should check our luggage?” “Which way is our gate?” “Should we get some food before the flight? Where?” “When is boarding? Should we go to the gate now?” “What boarding group am I in?” “How are you getting home, did you park your car here or take an Uber?” “What baggage carousel is our luggage on?”

    For weeks before the conference he’d be pestering everyone to find out their travel plans so he could glom on to someone and not have to make any logistical arrangements. There was no escaping him if you were booked on the same flights and you couldn’t wait to see what flights he booked because he always waited until the last minute. It was exhausting if you got stuck with him.

  215. How We Laughed*

    When I first started my job, I was hired to work in a different city than where the main headquarters were and my first week on the job was training in headquarter city. I booked a motel near the office that allowed dogs so I wouldn’t have to board my dog and could pop over to the motel to walk her on my lunch break. First two days were fine; on the third day I tried to open the door to my room and it wouldn’t open. It took forever to find someone and get someone to unlock the room- my dog had toggled the indoor locking mechanism! I wasn’t late returning from lunch and it was funny in retrospect but t the time I was worried about what sort of reputation I would get if I became known as the person who was locked out of her room by her dog.

  216. Oops*

    Once I was traveling internationally regularly to the same country, to the point when it was pretty routine. I was also stressed out all of the time, with a difficult boss who openly didn’t like me. The night before I was supposed to get on my flight, I bolted upright at midnight to realize that I had forgotten to get a visa to enter the country. I tried to do the online system to get an e-visa, but it was too close to the flight date. I went to the embassy that morning, as soon as it opened, and sat there, and luckily, they were able to rush me through and hand me my passport so I could head to the airport by 3pm. I can’t remember if I ever even told my boss about it, but I’m sure that she would have made me pay for my flight change if I had needed one.

  217. LoLo*

    The first one that comes to mind was due to my own stupidity! I was supposed to speak at a conference. It was a drivable distance but for whatever reason I was flying. I got the airport early and settled in to work until the called for boarding. The gate area was small and already full, but there was an overflow area right next to it so I sat there and pulled out my laptop. There was a wall separating the overflow area from the gate, making it harder to hear the announcements and removing the visual cue of everyone lining up to board. You guessed it – I missed my flight! Luckily it was a route with frequent service and they got me on the next flight, which still arrived in time for my presentation.

    The most frustrating happened while traveling home from a professional conference that encouraged family attendance, so I was traveling with my husband, 3 year old, and 6 month old. We were on a very early flight from the US west coast to the midwest – early enough that we had to wait for the ticket counter to open to check in and then get in line to be one of the first people through security that day. The day they instituted the ban on liquids in carry-ons. Which the agents at the counter apparently didn’t know yet, because we were there so early. So we’re in the security line with a bag full of every liquid we had packed, a very long line of people behind us, and not a lot of time before our flight starts boarding, when the TSA staff starts yelling at us all that we have to get rid of all liquids before they will let us through. There wasn’t time to go back and check the bag, so we tossed everything. I added up later and it was probably $200 worth of toiletries, make-up, etc that we threw in the trash. And they almost didn’t let us through anyway because we missed a tube of diaper cream in the diaper bag – screaming at us like we were trying to get it past them, because juggling two kids and our carry-on bags at 6am while trying to remember everything we packed that might possibly fit within their very broad definition of liquids wasn’t explanation enough for how we overlooked something!

  218. Name Anxiety*

    When I worked for state government, travel was super easy because we could only stay at hotels with a government rate, and took state vehicles which we checked out online. However, one time the Prius that I checked out had last been used by someone from the department of natural resources or fish and wildlife, was completely covered in mud inside and out and smelled like a swamp. Weirdly, the cleanest part was the trunk. I was doing site visits across the state over a week, but luckily the smell aired out pretty quickly.

  219. UX Fail*

    My company decided there was a training budget for developers one year, so I got to travel for a couple days of usability training. Where I could barely stay awake on the first day because I’d arrived the previous evening and hadn’t been able to figure out how to close the curtains. I finally discovered curtain rods on evening 2 that were designed to hide well within the curtains when not being held.

    That was hardly the only notable usability fail in the hotel. Another one I remember was that the fancy alarm clock/radio/etc had 14-step instructions for setting the alarm.

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      I was put in a St Regis (fancyexpensive hotel), where the nearest light switch to the bed turned on ALL THE LIGHTS – just what you want when you get up for the bathroom in the middle of the night. Normally, the nearest wall switch turns on just the bedside lamps. This room also had no bathroom nightlight, and was generally a real disappointment, given how swanky the brand is supposed to be. The whole point of that trip was to see hotels and experience the location, and nobody in our group was impressed by that stay.

  220. Desk Jockey 9000*

    This trip was the catalyst for me leaving my first office job. I was to fly to a major city to meet with top people in an organization we did business with. I worked at a nonprofit that didn’t have a lot in the way of travel funds so the plan was to fly in early, have the meeting, and fly back all in the same day. No hotel stay, which I was fine with. My manager said I could come into the office later the next day since I would be flying back late.

    And then my manager asked one of my coworkers to tag along at the last minute. Not a problem, except that she had no time to prep for this meeting. And she decided the best way to alleviate her embarrassment was to throw me under the bus over some shared work…in front of the people we were meeting with. Super fun. I was upset but managed to keep my cool, and the meeting ended well. I had it out with my coworker after, which led to us mutually deciding not to talk about it until we got back to the office. We get to major city airport at the end of the day, plane takes off, all is well.

    Until the plane flies through a thunderstorm and loses connection with the ground. The pilots turn us around and we land back at major city airport; where it’s 11:30pm, everything is closed, and nothing is taking off til early the next morning. My coworker and I both had company cards, but we hadn’t been given permission to use them to buy a hotel room for the night. I called our manager in a panic, and thankfully she answered and gave us the ok once I told her what happened. And then I got a lecture about calling her because it was late and she was up with her sick kid, ending with her hanging up on me mid-apology. My coworker and I buried the hatchet for the hour and a half it took us to find transportation from the airport to a nearby hotel, buy the room (separate rooms), and go to bed. No toiletries, no meds, no clothes to change into. And I had been awake for almost 24 hours at this point. We slept in our work clothes for about four hours then got up, got back to the airport, and finally took off for home.

    But of course, it doesn’t end there. As soon as we landed, a text comes in from our manager. She had forgotten that the director of our nonprofit was holding an all-hands meeting that day, and despite what we had just been through, we were to go straight from the airport to the office and work a full day, just so we could attend this all-hands. I had just enough time to run home and brush my teeth and swipe on some deodorant, then went to the office. I wore the same clothes from the day before, and no makeup. That job prioritized looking your best, so the shocked looks were not helpful. And that all-hands? Lasted 15 minutes, so the director could give office birthday shout outs.

    I then went home and slept all weekend. The following Monday I went to my manager and explained everything that happened, to which she said she was sorry, BUT I somehow also deserved it since I was young and new and didn’t know what I was doing. I had been there two years and was juggling 12 projects on top of these meetings, but sure. I made it back to my desk and I started looking for another job. Like I said up top, this trip was the straw that broke my back, and highlighted to me how I would be treated if I didn’t leave.

    I’ve taken multiple trips since, and not a single one of them were as frustrating and awful as this one.

  221. Inigo Montoya*

    I remember in my first year after university, I had been sent by my company to a conference on the West coast (from our East coast North American city). This conference was used as training for a lot of the junior people. I was due to fly back Sunday (arriving late Sunday evening).

    On a whim, Sunday morning I dialled in to check my voice mail (this was almost 30 years ago so cell phones were not common). I had a message from my manager saying: “Just to let you know, we have booked you on the 4PM Monday flight to Heathrow”. No other information was provided. I checked with the company’s travel agent and worked out (based on Hotel and Car Rental arrangements) that my manager’s plan was that I arrive back Sunday night, come to work Monday morning, prepare for a business trip to our office outside London, leave to catch a Redeye flight, arriving at 6AM Tuesday morning London time, renting a car, driving 2 hours in London rush hour traffic on the opposite side of the road (first time for me) and then working an 8 hour day (having just gone through a 3 and then 5 hour time change in a little over 24 hours), and staying working the remainder of the week before returning on the weekend. To this day, I don’t know what he was thinking with this schedule.

    I sat there stumped in my California hotel for about an hour before deciding that, no matter how junior I was, falling asleep at the wheel and dying in a car crash on a British road wasn’t worth this job, so I left a voicemail for the company travel admin, telling her (without authorization from my boss) to push all the London travel arrangements back 24 hours.

    My boss let the change slide with no comment when I informed him on Monday morning. After the end of the week in London, I had to extend my trip a full second week to complete all the required work. I was wiped at the end of the 3 weeks of travel. It was my introduction to business travel.

    1. londonedit*

      Sounds awful but unless you were going to somewhere outside London there’s absolutely no reason why you should have had to rent a car or drive in London traffic! Getting from Heathrow into town is easy on the train/tube and absolutely no one drives in central London unless they’re a) mad or b) doing a job that actually requires driving.

  222. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just good at it*

    While coming home from the west coast, i had to change planes in St. Louis. Image my joy when I saw my flight home was cancelled.

    This was pre-cell phone days, every flight to the east coast was cancelled due to a blizzard.

    I was stuck in St. Louis for 4 days until I could get a flight home and even then, I had to fly to an airport in another city and take Amtrak.

    The next day I coerced a friend to drive me to the airport and we
    spent 90 minutes shoveling out my car.

    The following work day, HR decided that the days spent in St. Louis would be counted as vacation days. Loud profanity ensued and I resigned 3 times that day. Thank goodness my expenses were on a company card. It ended all well, but 4 days in St. Louis is not a vacation.

    1. Adverb*

      Having just returned from my 5th trip to SLT this year, and it’s only April, I concur. While ST. Louis is a nice place, it is not a vacation.

  223. Frodo*

    A trip from NYC to Seattle turned into an exhausting debacle. I got sick on the flight going out and had a fever, ear infection, chills, etc. Two days later I ended up in the emergency room with a burst ear drum and blood coming out of my ear. My team went back to NY while I stayed in the ER. Our travel department rebooked my flight back to NY as a one-way. But one way flights are heavily scrutinized by the TSA. Terrorists don’t book round trip I suppose. Anyway, missed the flight while I was being questioned by security. I was so miserable. This was pre-Covid, but still got massive stink eye from other passengers because I was ill. My boss gave me the rest of the week off while I recovered at home and sent me flowers.

    1. Kerry*

      lol food poisoning hit on the train down to NYC. yakking on a moving train. 0 stars/do not recommend.

  224. New laptop who dis*

    This didn’t happen to me, but to a colleague. She was on a business trip with another one of our coworkers (who happened to be a real blowhard know it all). They had a rented car and stopped for gas. My colleague went to the restroom while the blowhard filled the tank. EXCEPT… blowhard dude somehow didn’t understand how pumping gas works? Because he managed to put diesel fuel in the rental car (which is quite difficult to do accidentally)… thus rendering the car inoperable.

    Colleague had to sit there with blowhard for HOURS while they waited to get a tow and a new rental car sorted out, and they missed their flight home. Colleague said she’d never again experienced the depth of chilly silence that ensued for the remainder of that trip.

  225. Wedginald Antilles*

    I think the worst thing that happened to me was flying home to Illinois from a conference in D.C. in…2004, I think. Definitely after 9/11. Anyway, my boss and I had already boarded the plane in D.C. and we were still sitting at the gate when there was an announcement that we had to de-plane. Oookay.

    We get off the plane and are told we all have to go back out through security and then do it all again. And it wasn’t just our plane. It was the entire terminal. We were at Reagan National, which is basically one long building. The line to go through security again was the length of the building x4.

    We had a connecting flight in Cincinnati, Ohio (which where, as you may know, the airport is actually in Kentucky) to get back to the tiny regional airport in our town. Of course, by the time we finally left D.C. we’d missed the last flight of the day from Cincinnati. The airline put us up in a cheapy motel for the night, but we had checked our luggage and they wouldn’t give it back. So, my boss got to see me the next day in the same clothes, no makeup, with my hair barely tamed with the cheap comb the motel gave us. Something you don’t really want your boss to see, you know?

    Also, did I mention this was my FIRST business conference?

  226. Catabouda*

    On my first business trip, I didn’t understand that there was an expectation that I’d spend time networking/hanging out with colleagues after the conference dinner. I couldn’t wait to get away for some peace and quiet. I was “ordered” to stay for an after dinner cocktail hour the 2nd night there and I was pissed. I probably looked like a sullen teenager at that event.

    Managers and future managers – please set expectations for young professionals when you bring them to their first conference ahead of time.

  227. Decidedly Me*

    This one was related to a work trip I was on, but didn’t affect me directly. We did our first retreat as a small startup. Everything was covered by the company and we rented a few nice houses on the beach that the founder was able to get a deal on. Everything was actually quite nice. Some of us, including me, were local and drove/carpooled while others were in different states and had to fly in. The issue came with the return flights for those people. The founder had asked someone (can’t remember who now) to book those flights and said to book the cheapest flights. Well, she really should have said the cheapest reasonable flights because the person literally went for the absolutely cheapest flights, which had some people traveling all day with multiple stops to go just a few states away. The founder learned a lesson in clarity after that.

  228. Lou's Girl*

    Coworker travelled out of state to lead a training session for a satellite office. She booked the closest hotel to the work site, which was a decent, well known, 3-star hotel. She woke the next morning with bed bugs. Hotel didn’t believe her and was refusing to comp her room. (They eventually did). She then had to spend the day itchy and uncomfortable while training 50 people.

  229. Kesnit*

    1) I used to work for a state agency that had an annual conference every fall. The agency had a contract with a certain rental car company, so any time we needed to travel, we got cars from this company. When we went to the conference, there were enough of us to require 2 cars. It was about a 4 hour drive, so we would rotate drivers (except the boss, who refused to drive).

    I was driving as we approached the city where the conference was being held. Years before, I had lived in a major metro area and had been used to city driving, but had lived in a more rural area for a few years and had let my city driving skills lapse. So when I saw a white trash bag bouncing across the 6-lane highway, I slowed down, but was unable to change lanes. So I hit the trash bag and freaked all my coworkers out. They were all saying I was lucky the bag was light and didn’t damage the rental car. I could not figure out at the time why they were all spastic; didn’t they see the way the trash bag was drifting across the road? Much later it hit me – no, no they hadn’t. All they saw was me hitting a large, full trash bag with unknown contents.

    2) Same job. Same agency. Same conference. Different year. We were expected to wear business suits for the conference, and since the conference started the afternoon of the arrival day, we had to travel in our suits. Conference lasted from Monday afternoon until Wednesday noon. One of my coworkers packed – a toothbrush. And nothing else. (I am pretty sure he had clean underwear in his jacket pockets, but could never confirm that.)

    Said coworker and I have both moved on to a different agency, which also has a conference. This one runs Sunday through Wednesday. I saw him Monday and Wednesday and he was wearing different clothes. So apparently he has figured out how to pack more than a toothbrush.

  230. ticktick*

    I was on a business trip from Canada to the U.S. when 9/11 happened – and of course all flights were grounded, and our business negotiations were postponed. The negotiations were in Seattle, and I was there with my boss and her sister (who was also a co-worker), who both lived in Vancouver. After a few days of searching around, we were able to rent a car so that we could drive back to Canada (through long lines of traffic, as the border crossing guards were being extra careful) – my boss and her sister made me drive, as they were brown-skinned and thought it would be better for me to be the first face the border guard saw, though I probably gave them a bit a fright when he asked me “Are you all Canadian citizens?”, and I answered, “Well, I am” and turned to ask my boss and her sister if they were (it seems like an a**hole thing to do, but I genuinely didn’t know).

    In the meantime, my husband was trying to get me a domestic flight from Vancouver to Toronto, which is the closest airport to where I live, and managed to snag me the last business class seat on a flight leaving on the day after we arrived in Vancouver – apart from really wanting to get home, we had a wedding to go to on the day of the flight. The lines at Vancouver airport to try to get tickets were horrendous – snaking through the parking lot – but for whatever reason, I didn’t have any lines to get on my plane. I arrived back in Toronto in the evening, was picked up by my husband, changed into a nice dress with many contortions in the front seat of the car (giving some truck drivers a nice show), and walked into the wedding reception to a standing ovation.

  231. One Star Motel*

    One time our program coordinator booked hotel rooms for everyone going on a trip to help support/supervise students at a conference as she was already booking rooms for the students in attendance and could use our department credit card to pay for everything rather than have us file for reimbursements. This program coordinator was notoriously hard to work with and was pretty universality disliked for how she treated other people both within and outside of our department. Despite that, we didn’t think anything of her volunteering to book our hotel rooms as the logic made sense. At the time, we thought that she was trying to make amends and work with instead of against the team (and also that she was probably trying to show improvement in front of our boss). That line of thinking was a mistake. We were in the cheapest motel (Motel 6 is the Ritz compared to where we were), and, I wish I was kidding here, there were bullet holes above the bed in my room and what looked to be blood stains in the bathroom. The lock on my door was also broken. Our boss was in attendance and was booked at a much nicer hotel across town but, as we were all taking one shuttle from the airport, she got to see where we were staying first. When she saw the part of town we were in and the hotel itself from the outside, she got off of the shuttle to double check that our accommodations were correct. When she saw my room, she told the group of us to check out and that the office would reimburse us for whatever rooms we were able to find at this point. At least the students got decent rooms and didn’t have to try to find last-minute places to stay at a conference with thousands of students and staff in attendance. Out of curiosity, the rest of the team and I looked up motel we were booked at to see if maybe the reviews were misleading online but, no, they weren’t. The motel had a one star rating with cleanliness and safety being brought up in every review. I’ve gone back to that area for conferences multiple times and the motel has changed not once but twice over the years and has had some major renovation to make it viable. I still avoid it in my travels, personally. That coordinator is also long gone, thankfully, and I’m very happy to book my own accommodations now and to file for reimbursements.

  232. Really?*

    I was sent to London on a three day business trip from New York some years ago days before business casual. I packed for three days with a spare set of underwear and an extra blouse. Something came up, and I was asked to stay for an extra few days; I pointed out that I hadn’t packed for an extended trip, and the Executive VP told me to use the hotel laundry and go shopping for whatever I needed. The first weekend I went to Dickins and Jones; trip was extended again, second weekend I went to Harrods, and the third weekend I went to Jaeger. (Sadly, Dickins and Jones and Jaeger are no more, but were very nice, upscale stores.) All in all, I got a very nice wardrobe out of that trip (although I was a bit miffed at the time)!

  233. soontoberetired*

    the very first time I sent somewhere on business, I went with a person I didn’t like very much. That wasn’t that bad of an issue, but it turns out this person had an outdated driver’s license and didn’t bring a visa or master card. which meant I had to put everything on my credit card. I was not happy. This person owned a home, but somehow didn’t have anything but a gas credit card. It was a good thing I had a decent credit limit, and part of the hotel costs had been prepaid. this person did not last that long at my company for a lot of other reasons, but this didn’t help.

  234. AAM fan*

    I was working in Tampa, then needed to go to Durham and meet my grandboss there for part 2 of the work trip. Grandboss was going to meet me at Raleigh-Durham airport and drive us back to the hotel where we were staying. Flight from Tampa gets delayed for 6 hours, so grandboss has a co-worker follow her to the rental car agency so that she can leave the shared rental car for me to pick up when I get in at 11:00 pm. FINALLY land at RDU; go to rental car agency, and am given an envelope with the car keys in it. But there was NO CAR. Apparently the rental car agency had rented the car to someone else, even though they swore they had only 1 set of keys for the car. Then they said there were no other cars available, which is why they had rented out grandboss’s car. They eventually found a car for me to drive. Did I mention that the airport was completely closed due to fog by this time and that exit signs were not lit? After nearly driving onto an active runway, I found my way out of the airport by following an airport security car and got to the hotel, only to find out that the hotel had taken several rooms out of service, and thus did not have a room for me. Another 30 minute drive in the dense fog, and I finally got to my room 14 1/2 hours after my trip began. The worst part of the entire fiasco is that my grandboss had left her very nice leather jacket in the trunk of the rental car. It was never returned. It took her months to get the rental car company to agree to reimburse her for the jacket.

  235. RelaxandFloatDownstream*

    Back around 1987 or so I was one of the leaders of meeting to onboard new sales managers and others for our new division. We usually held these meetings in downtown Hartford, CT, however all of the nicer hotels downtown were fully booked. So we wound up in a small motel about 10 miles out of town and having to double up on the rooms.

    There was a married couple (M/F) in the group of new managers, and the company had a strict policy against married couples working for the company. They were in different departments and did not report to the same people. They also had different surnames. I knew the woman in the couple from a previous company where we had worked together, so we were assigned to share a room. The plan was for her to leave our room and join her husband down the hall, which she did around 10pm or so. A few minutes later, there was a knock on my door and it was her husband’s male roommate asking if he could join me in the room, since he had been kicked out! I never opened the door and told him to just keeping knocking on our teammates doors until someone let him in.

    He sheepishly told me the next day that he had shared a room with two other men and it was awkward. But, he survived, and the next couple of days he couched surfed with some of the other men. And I got a single room!

  236. Nina*

    …I’m flying to Romania (where I have never been and don’t speak the language, transiting through not one but two countries notorious for not being fans of people like me) on a business trip tomorrow so this is just exquisite timing and I get to feel relieved about all the things everyone else has had go wrong. Thanks Alison! Nothing that happens to me can possibly be worse than some of these stories, and the commenters all survived.

    1. linger*

      Not that any statistics should be inferred, because selection bias cuts both ways: (i) we only get stories about things going wrong (since the brief is “mishaps”), but also, (ii) we aren’t likely to hear from any work travelers who didn’t survive their ordeal.

  237. Orbital*

    I have three different stories of varying mishap level lol

    1. My first job out of college was for the federal government. I was being trained to do the job of a more senior engineer, so whenever he traveled, I traveled to learn what he did. One thing we did was test prototypes in California. We were based outside Washington, DC. One time, the senior engineer forgot to ship the prototype to California until, like, 2 days before we had booked travel for. Needless to say, it did not arrive in time. So my itinerary that trip was: fly to LAX, drive to Oxnard, sleep, hang out at the test range for a couple of hours while senior engineer talked to guys there and verified that our prototype hadn’t shown up yet, drive back down to LA, go to the Griffith Observatory for a few hours, fly back to DC.

    2. When I lived in Colorado, my main job was based in Colorado Springs but every so often I’d have to spend 2 weeks in Denver. December of 2018, the two weeks I had to spend in Denver were over Christmas and New Year’s. My husband and I decided that he should fly home east without me and we’d book our dog in a kennel. Well. The day before my husband’s flight, our dog ate a Christmas ornament that was full of dry rice. He was at the kennel the next day, I had been in Denver for a few days already. Got a call from the kennel that he had thrown up and it looked like it was full of parasites, so I had to come get him and take him to the vet. I tried to explain that it was just rice but they didn’t care (understandable, since they didn’t want to chance other dogs getting sick). So, I got to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with my dog at a hotel in Denver. I had to let my team know that I wouldn’t be able to work either day since my dog has a bit of separation anxiety.

    3. Just a couple years ago at my current job, I got to travel back to Colorado. I’m still with the same company so I assured my manager that I’m very familiar with our travel booking website. It didn’t cross my mind that I never used it to book flights since I only ever drove between Colorado Springs and Denver. I accidentally booked a BUS from my starting location to Newark and then a flight to Colorado, when I meant to book flights the whole way. Luckily, coworker who was in charge of tracking everyone’s travel caught it in time and I was able to rebook and get credit back!

  238. iglwif*

    Worked in marketing, had to attend my large company’s sales kickoff event in a city I didn’t know at all. My grandboss put me and another colleague in charge of planning an evening event (dinner, “something fun”) for our whole team. Very, very small budget, of course. My direct report said, oh, I’m from that city, I know all the best places to eat, I’ll help with that! Which was great … until grandboss announced that instead of the whole team attending the sales event, one person had to be cut from the list … my direct report. Who was really looking forward to visiting their family :/

    Other Colleague and I did our best, but given the schedule and the tiny budget, it was challenging. We ended up choosing a place that said it had a separate upstairs room we could use and also said it could prepare our orders ahead of time so the food would be ready shortly after we arrived. A ferry ride was required, and the ferry stopped running at a specific time, but we were assured we could get an Uber back to our hotel’s side of the river, no problem.

    Reader, the “upstairs room” was up 3 steps. The food not only wasn’t ready quickly, but some people’s food didn’t arrive for over an hour, and some of the food was fine but some was … pretty bad. And some event in the city was sucking up all the ubers, so we ended up having to RUN for the very last ferry. On the plus side, the ferry ride was fun.

    On several occasions I have gotten stuck for hours in overseas airports, which is always super fun. The most memorable of these happened when I was travelling to a smallish city in the southeastern US in January, and they had some snow. Very little snow! But in a place that normally gets zero snow. This city was small enough that I couldn’t get a direct flight to it from where I live, nor could the colleague with whom I was going to co-lead the training. The snow closed down the entire state we were going to, so I was stuck overnight in one place and my colleague was stuck in another, trying to find a place to stay overnight and another flight to our destination.

    At the same time, the database that runs all those hotel booking sites was down for some reason. And both airports were full of people whose flights had been cancelled, all talking loudly on mobile phones to airlines and/or hotels. CHAOS.

    Both my colleague and I ended up in super sketchy motel rooms in our respective cities, and arrived at our destination the following day, halfway through what should have been the first day of training. One of our trainees had had some pipes in her house freeze and she was running back and forth all day to deal with that. Despite that, this group of trainees was much, much more engaged and enthusiastic than another group at a different site the following week!

  239. ArlynPage*

    My first job out of college was at a medical device startup founded by someone who was a surgeon by training, and a real … character. She routinely spent all day at the startup, then she would “moonlight” as the local ER, and then would go right back to work at the startup in the morning. I don’t know if she ever slept. Once, she brought me along to a customer visit in a city about a 6 hour drive away, and to save time, she invited me to stay at her house the night before. I agreed, because I didn’t know that this is NOT a normal thing to do, and slept on her couch while her fancy expensive show-cats (yes, she had a bunch of siamese cats that she would take to cat shows) cuddled up to me all night. We drove down to the other city, had the customer visit, then drove back the same day. Not long after that, I developed a rash that turned out to be ringworm, which her siamese cats had contracted at a recent cat show (and she did NOT warn me about). Luckily, she was able to write me a prescription for some kind of cream to treat the infection, the ringworm went away, and the board eventually removed her from a leadership position at this company (not for spreading ringworm).

    1. LJ*

      “my boss wrote me a prescription for the ringworms I got at her house” is not what I thought I’d read on here today :D . Glad all’s well that ends well I suppose

  240. Adverb*

    So not comic like many of the stories here, but…
    I was in Berlin, Germany for a major software rollout at a client site. My company felt guilty about sending me there for 5 weeks, and sent my (now ex) wife out for a long weekend after my first week there. I was so busy I didn’t even see here the first 2 days she was there except to eat dinner and breakfast. We spent the weekend exploring Berlin and the nearby castles together and she left Monday, Sept 10, 2001.
    Then Sept 11, 2001 happened. I could not call home until after 10 PM Berlin time because all the phone lines were blocked/overloaded.
    I had no idea when/if I could return home. A colleague who had been at a conference had to drive from Toronto to San Diego. The VP who was with me for the rollout took a train to Amsterdam for exactly the reason you guess.
    I was alone in a country where I barely spoke any of the language. I could send email and that was my primary form of communication with my wife and work.
    My hosts were great. The US embassy in Berlin was the most guarded place I have ever seen, but there were more flowers and stuffed animals in front of the gate than I have ever seen in my entire life. Even as a US citizen, it was not possible to get close.
    I was finally allowed to return home in mid October along with heretofore unseen security measures (that we all take for granted now).
    I spent the rest of October at home and was scheduled to fly back on Nov 12, 2001, the day the tail fell off the plane in NYC where I was to fly later that day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587). I flew back via Washington, D.C. on Nov 13 without incident.
    My colleagues were great, my hosts were great.
    I was back in Berlin on Sept 11, 2019 with my GF we met with the same host, now friend, and his family. We talked a lot about how different the world was back then.

  241. Middle Aged Lady*

    Mr Middle Aged Lady didn’t book a hotel on a trip he took frequently because there were always rooms. Except on this occasion: there was a motorcycle convention in town. He ended up sleeping the first night in a rest area, in his car, cold and hungry—at Donner Pass.

      1. N C Kiddle*

        At least he can tell himself it’s not the worst planning mistake anyone’s ever made on that route?

  242. girlie_pop*

    The first job I had out of college was for a company that puts on a few events for car dealerships every year. My first year there, I went to help out at a conference in Vegas. I want to say it was at the Bellagio, but I can’t be certain; all I remember is that it was about a fifteen-minute walk from the block of rooms we employees and the speakers had to the event space.

    On the last day (so we’re all exhausted and running on a few days with not enough sleep) this guy was speaking in one of the smaller rooms, and about 20 minutes before he was supposed to go on stage, he realized he had left his signature suit jacket in the hotel room and HAD to have it for his presentation (I think it was gold velvet or something? I just remember it being really ugly). I was the unlucky person who happened to be standing there with nothing else to do, so he gave me his room key and I had to hoof it over to the rooms to get his super special jacket. I was wearing pumps and a dress that was not great for running, but I made it back with a few minutes to spare and big bloody blisters on both of my heels! My shoes were ruined, but the day was saved.

    I was supposed to hang around the rest of the day and help wrap things up, but my boss pointed out a corner of our big mission control back room behind a bunch of stacks of chairs where nobody could see me and encouraged me to camp out there for a few hours until our team dinner.

  243. Jennifer Strange*

    It was my first year going to a major conference in Orlando (I was working in DC at the time). Nine of us were going, with four of us flying out Saturday, the day before the conference started. One colleague left that morning, two of us (me and Jane) were on the same flight in the afternoon, and one colleague (Jack) had an evening flight. Jane and I were at the airport waiting for our flight around noon when we got an alert that it had been delayed by an hour. Okay, no problem. So we went and got a drink. Then we got an alert it had been delayed another hour. Annoying, but still not an issue.

    Then we got an alert that our flight had been cancelled. I later found out that there was an issue with the air traffic radar which was affecting all three major airports in the DMV area, so we were completely grounded. We waited two hours in a line to speak with an agent only to be told the earliest they could get us to Orlando would be Monday night only would we miss a chunk of the conference, but Jane was actually supposed to present on Sunday, so that wasn’t doable.

    We were texting our group of attendees the entire time, and around 7:00 pm Jack texts us and says, “Stay where you are, I’m on my way. We’re going to drive to Orlando”. And sure enough, he showed up and the three of us drove from DC to Orlando through the night. When I say “we” I mean Jack who did lion’s share of driving. We arrived at the hotel at 11:o0 am (the conference started with lunch at noon). I went to my hotel room, changed, and then went down and did a half-day of a conference on little to no sleep.

    (I should note that Jack’s flight had NOT been cancelled, as the problem was resolved by late afternoon and they started flights again, so he gave up a seat to drive the two of us down to Orlando and then had to drive back by himself. I made sure to get him a gift as a thank you)

  244. Veryanon*

    The camping letter still makes me chuckle. I loathe camping and would never do it voluntarily, let alone as part of mandatory business travel.

    1. Lou's Girl*

      I like camping but there is no way I’d ever do it for business (unless I worked for a ‘camping’ type company). Even then…

  245. Brave Little Roaster*

    I started a new job in mid-April. In early May, my (also new) coworker and I drove down to HQ for training. I woke up on the day of the drive full-on barfing. I eventually made it to the local office and we hit the road in the company van. About 2/3 of the way through the four hour drive, I had my coworker pull over on the side of the highway so I could puke over the guardrail. When we finally checked in at the hotel, I was exhausted. I had no energy until two days later and missed a lot of the after-work networking while we were in town. By July, I’d quit that job because it was terrible for other reasons, but I still feel like getting sick early on somehow jinxed it for me.

  246. DG*

    This is probably quite low level compared to people screaming in their sleep and showing off sex workers, however…

    I used to be a retail manager for quite a large brand. They’d do two management conferences a year, normally in a swish hotel and transporting us there so we could stay at least one night. There was a usual hotel but this one January we were shipped to a different location. new location was a bit different; regular hotel was pretty much in the middle of nowhere and had no transport links, this time we were on the main drag and right next to many other hotels, and were remarkably close to several of this city’s highly popular clubs/bars.

    For some reason a lot of the managers were not at this conference and several supervisors had had been delegated to attend. we had around 5 early 20s ladies and a 19 yr old among us 30+ ladies. I suspect they had also not been particularly briefed on what should happen on a work conference. They started by drinking as soon as we’d got there, and then when getting ready for the conference dinner, I found out I was rooming with the 19 yr old. I knew she’d be out later than me – there was a certain amount of carousing after the dinner, but as we had a whole conference day the next day, most people were in bed around midnight. I went to bed at around 10.30 due to tiredness from the journey and stealed myself to be woken when she came to bed.
    Hours passed and she didn’t come in. I think I was awake longer waiting to hear the door than I would have been if I’d stayed to socialise… eventually I fell asleep, woken by my alarm ready for shower & breakfast. Her suitcase was still in the room but her bed was untouched. I continued as normal, packed, left, and delivered my suitcase to the desk ready for pick up at the end of the conference. At breakfast there were a few worse for wear faces, but not my 19 yr old room mate. I asked the first girl who I’d last seen with her & she told me she “was around somewhere”. A few hours later at lunch I found myself behind a very rough looking 19 yr old looking just a bit like she’d just got up. “Thank goodness! I was worried” I told her. She looked at me like I was her mother (in all my 30 yr old glory…) and mumbled she’d had really bad period pains so she’d stayed in her friend’s bedroom and slept on their armchair.

    Far be it from me to cast aspersions, but I suspect their store did not benefit from anything to do with the conference that quarter, because I suspect her and her girlfriends were out until all hours at the clubs. I later heard from a friend who worked in the HR dept (which included booking conference dates and locations) that they’d been read the riot act for the hotel sending several emails about unruly behaviour, rooms in terrible states and late check out by business guests. We never returned to that particular hotel or locale for our conference.

    A pity because it was a far shorter journey and a much more navigatable hotel.

  247. RelaxAndFloatDownstream*

    I stayed at the same frequently – almost every week – near company HQ but about 2 hours drive from home. My division was a start-up so there were several of us from out-of-town that were pretty much living there – I would go home for the weekends.

    One week I started getting late night phone calls from different men asking for “Debbie.” Sorry, no Debbie here. The calls started getting later and more frequent as the days went on. I contacted the front desk after the 2nd night and asked them to not put any calls in to my room. Turns out the calls were coming from phones inside the hotel. “Debbie” was running her “business” out of my room at one time. The hotel couldn’t stop the calls.

    By the 3rd or 4th night, I convinced the hotel to change my room. They gave me a nicer room and apologized for the unwanted calls.

  248. TheOldParalegal*

    It was the late 90’s and I was a teaching assistant for a well-known professor (“WKP”). WKP was also married to the head of the department, an Ancient Blowhard (“AP”). WKP wanted me to accompany her to a teaching conference, but said I’d have to pay for my ticket and lodging. I said no, I’m a poor student, I cannot afford that. So WKP reluctantly agreed to pay for my ticket, and said I could share a hotel room with her and AP. I wasn’t very comfortable with this, but my boundaries were not great back then, and she was really pushy, so I agreed.

    That night, WKP and I were in the hotel room (2 beds), getting ready for bed. WKP made an angry remark about how AP was probably “at the bar getting wasted and flirting with colleagues” I said nothing and settled into my bed, and she settled into hers. Around 2am, AP comes in, stumbling around the in the dark. I woke up to see an 80-year old AP in his whitey-tighties attempting to climb into my bed. He and I both looked horrified when we realized what was happening. He turned around and got into the other bed.

    It was never discussed. I have never told anyone about this – even years after they have both passed on. 25 years later and I STILL cringe…

  249. Del Capslock*

    Early in my career I worked in the automotive industry. There were several annual trade shows held in various cities. My first show was held in New Orleans. The first two days of the show were uneventful. On the third day, one of the bosses didn’t show up for the pre-show sales huddle and then an important meeting with a client. Everyone was concerned. Did he over sleep? Did he have a medical emergency? Did he get fired? Nope. He had such a good time the night before in the French Quarter that he had been arrested and was sitting in jail. I never heard who bailed him out but stories of that evening’s shenanigans became legendary in our company!

  250. clementine*

    I got sent to a professional development thing that happened to be in the city where my sister lives, so I stayed with her instead of getting a hotel. When I got back, I only applied for reimbursement for mileage and lunch on the drive up, since of course she was feeding me when I was in her apartment.

    Apparently being gone for three days and only having gas expenses is suspicious because I got pulled into a meeting and interrogated about not having asked for reimbursement for a hotel. It felt very weird, you’d think they’d be glad not to have to pay more.

  251. Tammy 2*

    I went on an optional trip where the only rooming option was to be matched with a roommate and share a room. I was nervous about this but really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.

    On the matching survey, I said sleeping with white noise on was ok (I don’t prefer it, but my spouse likes it so I am used to sleeping with it). I got matched with a roommate who understood white noise to mean “ASMR TikTok.”

    No more roommates EVER AGAIN.

  252. Sharing a Moment*

    Our organization was notorious for scheduling summer meetings in the hottest locations temperature-wise: one summer it was Vegas and one summer it was Arizona.

    On the Vegas summer sales meeting, they scheduled us at the Planet Hollywood hotel. Unfortunately, that week the hotel was also hosting Playboy or something similar. So the elevators were plastered with wraps/photos of scantily clad women whose breasts were right at eye level. Waiting for the elevator with mixed-gender colleagues was #awkward. And the general vibe was very unprofessional for a very buttoned-up, conservative business. We jokingly renamed it the “Porn Hotel.”

    On the Arizona summer meeting, it was blisteringly hot: over 100 F. The organization decided it would be a grand idea to make all teams, dressed in business casual, participate in a forced team scavenger hunt in order to “earn” dinner. Some of the senior execs were really into it, while others of us secretly left and paid for our own dinner inside with A/C.

  253. A Genuine Scientician*

    A group of 5 of us traveled to another country to put on a workshop about how to use a particular piece of software for scientific study. After a 12 hour plane flight we got through customs and currency exchange, making it to the hotel ~3am to discover that the local contact had booked our hotel rooms to start the following evening. Only 2 rooms were immediately available, each of which had a single bed.

    By luck, my room was one of the ones actually available. And the two senior people of my gender decided it would be better for them to go to the bar than try to sleep in the same bed as me. I actually managed some sleep, making me the most alert of us the first day.

  254. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

    A previous job, after working 4-straight months of 90+ hour weeks, then getting dumped by my then-sweetheart, I literally went a little craZier and put in a month’s worth of notice. I knew I was hard to replace. After two weeks of watching all my work get mangled and broken, and my clients go to the laziest, least professional programmer I had left as a peer, and two weeks of perfect zero success in salvaging my broken relationship, I caved and rescinded my notice. (I’ve told this story up to this point in greater detail here before).

    At that point, I had the jitters (despite not drinking soda, coffee, or tea at that point in life), my language was messed up (when I get exhausted or stressed badly enough, all the barriers between languages start failing and whichever language a word comes to mind in first ends up being the one that comes out), and if you could hold a conversation with me and hold my attention, it was pretty obvious the logic neurons weren’t firing in the right order. I was a mess and knew it–but I maintain the soul in the mirror looked worse.

    I was also second in seniority on the team, behind the lose-him-and-we-go-out-of-business Sr. Developer who had all-but-infinite leverage.

    So, of course, on my 2nd day back as a “regular” employee, my boss and my grandboss walk into our work area around 10 am. All the cubicles are arranged in a square with common space in the middles. They stop in the centre, my boss puts her face in her hands, and my grandboss announces to her team and the Customer Service team that, on the following Monday, he and the company are sending me to Buffalo, NY, by myself, for a week of training and networking conferences. This was how I found out about it, too.

    That night, I went home and had a three martini dinner. The next morning, on the way to work, I called my vet and made an appointment for my guinea pigs the next week. I called the dealership and scheduled service on my car. I called my grandparents and scheduled making them dinner for their un-anniversary one evening. I forget what other appointments I made–it was a 40 minute drive under good traffic conditions. When I arrived, grandboss happened to be in boss’ office when I told her I had scheduling conflicts with the trip; he was so infuriated that he tried to fire me on the spot.

    After 2 more days of (those two) arguing, my boss sent the peer who wanted to go to Buffalo in my place.

  255. TimeAfterTime*

    I was in my early 30s and travelled to New Orleans for a multi-day conference in July. We were booked at a swanky hotel near the Riverwalk and I was going to share a suite with another of my co-workers. The suite had a living room, large bedroom with 2 beds and one bathroom. My co-worker had arrived the day before and had spent most of that day and my arrival day at the convention center setting up the booth. She was wearing a tee shirt and shorts when she returned back to the room and had been sweating profusely.

    What I did not know is that she was very body shy. I finally realized that after a couple of days when I noticed that she had not showered. At no time during the 6 days we were there did she take a shower. She wore that same dirty tee and shorts each night when we went out to dinner. She changed into her business clothes in the bathroom each morning. Never used a washcloth or bath towel. She was pretty ripe and I made a point of being more modest when I changed my clothes.
    She worked on the West Coast, I worked on the East coast so the only time we saw each other was at any national conferences or trainings. We never roomed together again. I hope she conquered her fears.

      1. TimeAfterTime*

        All these years later and I’m not sure what her problem was. That was my impression back then. I wasn’t exactly modest when first changing, but I wasn’t flaunting my body at her. I loved the fluffy bathrobe the hotel provided – she never used the other one.

        So, just someone with bad hygiene? And she sold cosmetics on the side!

        1. WellRed*

          I can be quite body shy but that wouldn’t stop me from showering! I assume the bathroom had a door? People are weird!

  256. Veryanon*

    I will preface this by saying that I am not great with rolling with travel delays and it triggers huge anxiety in me.
    Back in 2018 I was asked to travel to a new site my company was acquiring in Memphis, TN. As part of the takeover, they were hiring a lot of new staff for this location, and I was asked to be on the hiring team. Sure, not a problem, there are direct flights from Philly to Memphis and there are a lot of hotels in the area, as many businesses are headquartered there (Fedex being the best-known one). If you’ve never been to Memphis, as you drive away from the airport, there is basically nothing to see but rows upon rows of distribution centers and shipping containers, as Memphis is a huge logistics hub and a lot of shipping comes up the Mississippi River.
    It was a really long week with long hours, as we did non-stop interviewing every day for like 10-12 hours. I didn’t get to see much of the city as we basically never left the hotel. By the time Friday rolled around, I was extremely ready to head home…except that apparently there had been bad weather in the Northeast, and all flights to NYC, Philly, DC, and anywhere else in the vicinity were cancelled. Of course I did not find this out until I got to the airport and had turned in my rental car, despite obsessively checking all day to make sure my flight was still on time.
    I called my company’s travel agency, and the best they could do was put me on a flight from Memphis to Boston, not leaving until the following Tuesday! I did not want to spend an additional 4 days in Memphis with nothing to do, I missed my kids, and the place where I had boarded my dog was not able to extend the reservation past the next day, which was a Saturday. So…I rented a car and drove 15 hours straight to get home. I pulled over when I was tired and caught little naps, but I was determined to get home in time to pick up my dog. Nothing else mattered. I made it back to the Philly airport (where I had parked my own car), turned in the rental, got to my car where it was parked in long term parking, and discovered I had a flat tire. OMG.
    I called roadside assistance and they came and put on the spare for me. I had to pick up the dog by noon, and I was getting more and more anxious that I wouldn’t make it. (In retrospect I realize that the boarding place wouldn’t have just kicked her out, but in my defense I was practically delirious from lack of sleep at that point.) I jumped into the car as soon as the tire was on, drove like a maniac to the boarding place, and picked up my dog at 11:59am. Then I drove home, took a quick shower, and basically passed out for 12 hours.
    Never. Again.

  257. Satchel234*

    This is low stakes but was excruciating at the time.

    I work in market research. We do research trips to foreign countries and bring our clients along to observe sessions. There’s an expectation that we take them out for dinner and get to know them a bit.

    It’s my first time leading a research trip. I am relatively well-traveled in Europe, America and the Middle East but I had barely been to the continent this research trip was in, and I was completely out of my zone of knowledge. I ask around my international friends for recommendations. The first client comes into town and I make a booking at a highly recommended restaurant. I am anxious about picking a cool place.

    I arrive. The restaurant is in a stunning historic villa, with gorgeous lighting and gardens – quite unusual in this otherwise modern and gleaming metropolis. I take my seat and look around while I wait for the client to arrive. Soft music plays.

    In a moment of horror, I realise I have booked a truly romantic restaurant. A great place to canoodle or get engaged. Every single other table has a couple on it, staring into each other’s eyes.

    At the time, I was a reasonably good looking woman in my twenties. I’d also put on a cute red dress and gotten ready for a nice meal. I looked good!!

    And OF COURSE the client was a straight-seeming man. I had never met him before. As I sat waiting for him to arrive, I was genuinely worried that he’d think I was trying to seduce him, or get the wrong idea.

    He walked in like…. Wow…. Nice place…. Where did you find it? It was SO awkward. All the food was romantic sharing plates. The waiter kept coming by like… are you having a Good Time?

    Fortunately, the client was very polite and respectful. If he was weirded out by the choice, he didn’t show it. I’m sure he could tell I was super anxious about the whole thing. And I didn’t want to be TOO friendly in case he thought I was trying to flirt. I am terrible at flirting anyway.

    We had a nice conversation about various bits and bobs, including the house he was renovating with his wife.

    But at the time I wanted to DIE. And what made it worse was that I didn’t know him well enough to make a joke like, well, THIS is awkward!!

    And this is how I learned to be extra careful choosing restaurant for 121 work dinners.

    1. Alle*

      I love this! It should be turned into a romantic comedy where two rival businesspeople keep getting into embarrassing situations and eventually fall in love.

  258. Bissell*

    Last year, I was invited to an international conference for work – in Hungary I had never been out of North America before, so was very excited to explore!

    I got food poisoning the first day there, and never even left the hotel. Fortunately, I was enough recovered by the time I boarded the return flight. My husband (who works with me and was also on the trip) got hit with something just as we got to baggage claim back home. Luggage ended up delayed close to 3 hours, it took another hour to exit the parking ramp, and we still had a 4 hour drive home from the airport. All told, I think I actually got the better deal!

    Then this year, we went to Italy for a work trip – out of the 25 attendees, I was the only one who stayed well!

  259. Belle*

    I was attending a company recognition banquet and so was traveling to our company headquarters, which happens to be my hometown. Normally, I stay with family to save the company some money but for this I figured I would stay in one of the blocked rooms since the company had organized shuttles to/from the office and the banquet facility. I got to the hotel kind of late the night before the event (9ish maybe?) and went up to my room, which was directly across from the elevator (NOT my preference). The deadbolt wouldn’t work – the door wasn’t lined up properly with the frame. I trudged down to the front desk to see about getting a different room, but was told they and all of their sister properties in the entire city were sold out. We argued about it a bit but they wouldn’t budge and didn’t have anyone working who could fix it. They told me to put my suitcase in front of the door. My suitcase MAYBE weighed 15 pounds, it wasn’t going to stop anyone who wanted to enter. I told them there was no way that I was going to stay in a room that didn’t properly lock, especially one right by the elevator. I finally gave up and luckily was able to stay the night with family, but told the hotel I still wanted to be able to get ready for my event and stay there the next night and asked them to please either get me a different room or fix the problem.

    The next morning the hotel contacted me and told me they had fixed the door, so I swung by to check it out before heading to the office. Their solution was to remove the metal strike plate on the door frame that the dead bolt fits in. You know, the thing that actually provides some reinforcement? I immediately rejected that. I contacted my HR department to see if they could do anything, since they had booked so many rooms with this hotel group. In the afternoon, I was told they magically found a new room for me, so I headed over to check in and get ready for the event. I did have a new room that properly locked, complete with a slightly sketchy jetted tub next to the bed. When I went into the bathroom I realized the shower didn’t have a shower curtain hung. At that point I was too tired of fighting with them to care, so I showered without the curtain and tried halfheartedly not to get water everywhere.

  260. Bookworm*

    It wasn’t my trip because I didn’t have to travel but my colleagues did–we had our team meeting with the out of state team members, only to find the entire building’s plumbing had gone kaput because of a damaged pipe outside (so it wasn’t just the building but several). We all had to be excused to go home/hotel, etc.

    We were fine (stuff got fixed by that night) but that meant some catering had to be donated (properly refrigerated and all so it’s simply we couldn’t eat it).

  261. Seamyst*

    So this was definitely funnier in hindsight…

    My dad passed away while I was at a work conference. I was able to change my return flight to one the same day. As always, the first leg went from Atlanta to Charlotte, and then from there to my tiny regional home airport. Well, I get to the Atlanta airport… and my flight’s delayed. And delayed. And delayed. And I’m watching the originally-generous connection time of several hours keep shrinking.

    Finally we take off. The flight itself took longer than estimated, and when we land and I disembark, it’s past the departure time for my connecting flight. I enter the terminal and turn to the connecting flight’s gate (halfway across the terminal, because of course it is). An attendant at the gate sees me and calls out, asking if I’m Seamyst. I say yes, and she yells to RUN! So I book it across the terminal, pulling my carryon behind me, and make it on board. Those angels held the plane for me, since it was the last flight of the day to my home airport.

  262. TheBunny*

    Take this as you will, but a solid 95% of my business trip mishaps seem to involve flying to or from (or attempting to leave) Nashville. Nashville is a lovely city, so it’s not it’s fault.

    #1 Attempting to fly to Nashville. Bounced our way there due to storms. Well…they circled and couldn’t land and ended up diverting us to Memphis.

    Memphis claims it’s an international airport. I’m not convinced. So we all sat in the waiting area for the storms to clear. And then the flight crew timed out so they had to wait for new flight crew to cone get us. At that point they were walking through the airport handing out the plane snacks. We waited in Memphis longer than the flight from LAX to BNA. I completely missed connecting with the people I was supposed to that afternoon and spent the rest of the trip playing catch-up.

    2. Trying to get home from Nashville. Flight delayed. Delayed again. Finally…using a trick I learned working in aviation…I asked where the plane was that was scheduled to be our plane. The answer? Still in LA. Got it. This is getting canceled.

    So to get me home (the next day was Saturday and I had an event) she rerouted me through Charlotte…the total opposite way. But fine.

    That flight was delayed. And it was a small plane. We were still on approach when my connecting flight started to board. Because it was a small plane EVERYONE had to gate check their bags… so I had to find my bag and then SPRINT from Gate E to Gate B.

    In Charlotte.

    It was the disaster you would think. I’ve never been happier to be on a plane. I remember nothing about the flight home but I still clearly remember the airport sprint.

  263. Ollie*

    Not a business trip but my mother in law was flying to see us from Virginia to Florida. I worked for FedEx and thought I was pretty savvy about airport codes. So I looked up a trip from IAD (Dulles) to ORL ( not Orlando). Orlando is MCO. Luckily the length of flight time and the cost made me realize something was wrong.

  264. miss Rim*

    This may be slightly straying from the topic, but I think it;s worth mentioning:
    My husband travels frequently for work – he can be away for 10 days / month or more depending on the kind of event. When I was pregnant, I had to be induced a week earlier than my due date. He was working a local event and able to be there wile I gave birth and spent 3 days in the hospital – the induction failed, I had to have a C-setion. My son is 9 years old now for some context,
    His boss at the time was returning from a trip for his daughter’s birthday – the first one he’d actually be home for in a while, and had to work while I was having the baby to cover for my husband. It sucked, but everyone understood.
    However, the organization had spread the travel team so thinly that my husband had to travel to an event THE DAY I BROUGHT THE BABY HOME from the hospital. ( Ironically the event was in my hometown – but my parents were with me here)
    He worked hard and make it home in 24 hours but it was an exhausting time for everyone.
    When the HR person heard he had to miss bringing his child home from the hospital, she was really upset – not with his boss or him, but the mother organiztion in Europe and read them the riot act. We got sent a nice basket full of stuff and apologies. They purportedly re- configured scheduling and travel times, but that wound up resulting in everyone on the team having to come into the local office on weekdays, when they were not traveling- and instead of comp time being offered for the travel team- they got overtime. The HR person was not responsible for this, to my knowledge – she left the organization a year or so afterward. (IIRC some corporate people didn’t;t understand the nature of the team’s work and busy travel schedule, didn’t listen to people and just thought about “coverage”) My husband is the manager of the team now. He’s eligible for comp time / WFH time as the manager, but the rest of the team isn’t – they get paid overtime. A few months ago the mother organization noticed they were paying some employees around $100K ( yep, $100,000 dollars) extra PER YEAR in over time for the last 8 years – and that the team was being paid more than the manager of the team and WTF?
    There is also very little do do in the “local office” so they were all just sitting around.
    My husband was tasked with making up some hypothetical schedules to be sure one person could be in the office and possibly travel last minute if there was an emergency like childbirth or someone was injured in the job and he’s doing that, but he’s now being pressured to make sure there would be no overtime for any of his team whatsover, and that’s impossible. ” You are going to have to pay overtime, here and there but you have to offer comp time to the team and figure out what to do in the rare emergencies and maybe not add events to the schedule or hire more people.”
    So, basically it took 9 years to figure that out.

    Addendum- at least and his team are allowed to make his own travel arrangements and he only works within the US and maybe Canada and can use business class for flights over 4 hours. – the European counterparts have to use some internal travel agency who will have someone fly from Geneva to Madrid with like 6 hour layover in Dusseldorf to save like 50 euros. ( that’s an actual example, that I;ve heard of, but I bet there’s worse. Sometimes those guys have to go to Australia and it takes like 3 days.

    Oh, and due to the amount of travel time and all, we have an amazing health insurance plan (That’s good) but this being the US, there’s no extra benefits to cover child care or respite or anything, ( that’s bad) so when my husband has a long trip, I don;t get much of a break. It’s less of an issue now that the kid is older, and my husband is allowed to accumulate airline points for himself so we can sometimes fly to a hometown for a visit cheaply.

  265. David*

    Back in the 80’s – early 90’s I worked for a company that had its employees share hotel rooms. I (male) attended a conference of mostly female peers from my company. I checked into my room, and someone new at our company put me in a room with “Sam.” However, “Sam” was Samantha. We each ended up with single rooms and were delighted!

  266. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

    Not a business trip, but close enough.

    Once, I was leaving the office for the day, and said, “See you next year!” to a coworker we’ll call Ben. It was December, Ben was flying home for the holidays, and the calendar said he’d be out the rest of the year.

    Ben: “No, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m leaving after work tomorrow, not today.”

    Me: “That’s not what your PTO block on the calendar says. It says you’re out starting tomorrow.”

    An argument ensued. Because I’m the kind of person who’s never met a hill I’m not prepared to die on, I kept the argument going to the point where another coworker in the room half-joked, “Hey, Ben, wouldn’t it be funny if your flight was today instead of tomorrow?”

    Looking skeptical but with a hint of nervousness, Ben took out his phone and started double-checking his flight times.

    Ben: “Holy #$%! My flight’s in two hours!” It was rush hour in a big city notorious for its rush hour traffic, and the airport was probably at least an hour away that time of day. And in mid-December, lines at that airport could easily be an hour long. “I haven’t even packed yet!”

    A couple hours later, I got an email from Ben recounting how he had rushed home (fortunately, he lived within walking distance of the office), started throwing things wildly into his suitcase–he said it was like a scene in a movie!–begged a last-minute ride from a coworker, and made it to the airport juuuuust in time. He thanked me for saving him $800.

    Moral of the story: my anal-retentiveness and willingness to stay in any argument as long as it takes to win it sometimes pays off!

  267. Bruce*

    One winter our VP was supposed to go on a college recruiting trip, but he delegated it to me. This was to visit Champaign IL in February. I flew out the afternoon before, but when we go to St. Louis the airport shut down due to snow. I rented a car and slowly drove 190 miles in a blizzard, getting to the on-campus lodge at 6 AM. The first interview was at 8:30… we were using the room at the lodge for the interviews, and I was almost falling asleep part way through. It was not going well either, my expectations were not well aligned with what they had been learning, so I think there was frustration on both sides. Then at the end of the day I got back in the car and drove to my cousin’s house in Fort Wayne… or as close as I could get. I stopped at a gas station and called him to come guide me in, because I was starting to hallucinate. I spent the next day recovering and watching a new blizzard howling by outside. Finally the snow stopped and he gave me a nice tour before I went to the airport to go home.

    1. Lou's Girl*

      Oh geez, those college recruiting tours! Campuses with ZERO parking, not even for Vendors. Toting boxes, bags and displays across campus in a suit. Scheduling a career fair/ recruitment fair in the basketball arena only to have to share it with the basketball team who is practicing (they put up a curtain half court). Very large, very well known, very expensive universities whose air conditioning systems seem to always fail in June in the Southern US. And the one at another very large, well known uni that forgot to notify the students so no one showed.

  268. Paul*

    I once worked for a small branch of a very large travel IT company. In our Berlin office, the conference rooms were named after European capitals (Amsterdam, Lisbon, Stockholm, etc). When a meeting was booked it would show up in your calendar as “Amsterdam: xyz session”. The problem is that we occasionally had to meet with stakeholders from other branches of the company which were scattered across Europe, and one time someone was invited to a meeting which was booked in the Copenhagen conference room in our Berlin office. But our company happened to have an office in Copenhagen as well, and yes, on the day of the meeting, they turned up in Copenhagen, Denmark, very confused. Honestly I think we were asking for it.

  269. Mad Harry Crewe*

    This is all pretty run of the mill, no really juicy horror stories, but my first business trip was awful from start to finish. I worked at a travel company, and they sent six of us on a “familiarization trip” to tour hotels, do basic city tours, and more or less be able to say we’d been to xyz destination so we could sound like knowledgeable salespeople. Eight nights in London, Paris, Florence, and Rome, shared rooms.

    The flight out, I snagged my (favorite, and only pair for the trip) pants and tore them – we were Representing Our Company on the flights, doncha know, so we’d been told to wear business casual rather than the sturdy, regular clothes I’d have preferred to fly in. I happened to have matching thread and was able to darn it, but that was the end of those trousers.

    The trip was a death march from start to finish – our Powers that Be wanted to cram as much in as possible to get the most value for money, and the trip leader was up for a promotion and I assume he felt like he needed to Do A Good Job and Be A Commanding Leader or whatever so he’d be promoted. He was also one of those skinny smokers who has no use for breakfast or lunch, whereas I do not function when I’m hungry. Apparently, we were supposed to stop in the middle of at least one long day for food, but either he didn’t know or didn’t care, because we got up at 5 or 6 in London, had hotel breakfast, caught the Eurostar to Paris (one hour time change), did a multi-hour city driving tour and washed up at our Paris hotel at maybe 4p? I was so hungry and miserable.

    Every day was scheduled super tight and by the end my roommate and I were so tired. We had an hour free in a christmas market in Rome and she found somewhere to buy an international calling card, and she spent half the card calling her mother and crying on the phone for an hour, and then she let me have the other half and I called my mother and cried on the phone for an hour too (my phone didn’t have an international plan, and she’d left her phone in the London hotel by accident). We were late 20s, it was just that bad.

    The two of us were booked on different flights from everybody else, and at FCO they were like “you know about the storm, right?” – we said yes, we knew the weather was bad back home (west coast), thanks tho. Reader, that was not the storm they meant. Our connection was through IAD, and there was a massive snow storm. I don’t recall the exact sequence of cancellations and rebookings, but suffice to say we sat on various delayed planes and in various rebooking lines for hours, at one point being routed through a different west coast city with a very short connection (talked our way into premium economy so we could get off the plane faster, so that was nice). Finally our last attempt was cancelled and we joined the taxi line to get to an airport hotel for the night.

    We got a room around 11 or midnight, got to the room – and there was no shower curtain. Called down to the front desk, and no, maintenance isn’t available to bring a new one. You’ll have to come down for new keys. I put my shoes back on, hauled back downstairs, got new key cards for the room next door, hauled back upstairs, and the new room thankfully had all the normal amenities. We made it home the next day and both of us stayed working there for, frankly, longer than we should have, and we’re both now in much better jobs. But I lost a lot of respect for the trip leader for not looking out for his people.

  270. Yes a librarian*

    At my last job, there was a meeting in DC that the head of the libray decided my boss and I should go to. We booked non-refundable flights and hotels and THEN found out that the meeting was full and had a waitlist. The head of the library told us to go anyhow and bluff our way in. Thankfully my boss took care of that part because there’s no way I could have done so convincingly.

  271. The Less Interesting 82 Plum Street*

    I was coming back from a work trip, stepped into the taxi, and asked the driver to take me to my home address; let’s call it 82 Plum Street, Northside. He asked me “this address?” I looked at his navigation screen, saw that it was showing 82 Plum Street, and said “yes”.

    I then zoned out and got lost in my phone for about 30 minutes before looking up and thinking “wait, this is not the way home”. At that point I realised what had happened: when I looked at the nav screen, the steering wheel had blocked part of the address from my view, and we were just arriving at 82 Plum Street, Downtown, which is a much longer journey than my journey home.

    Although it had slipped my mind when checking the address, I should’ve remembered there was another 82 Plum St, and I knew exactly what kind of business it was, because occasionally people had made this mistake in the other direction. There’d been the time a group of young men showed up at our doorstep and looked rather confused and disappointed when my wife answered the door, and the time when we received a misdelivered parcel of, ah, relaxational products meant for them.

    82 Plum St, Downtown is a brothel, catering to some rather specific tastes, and that’s where I was going on the company card.

    When I realised the mistake I let the driver know, and he was apologetic and offered to take me to the right address at no further charge, but I couldn’t in conscience do that; granted he’d misheard the address, but he’d asked me to check it and I’d failed in that. So it ended up being quite a long trip on the work card, which I then had to explain to my boss.

    He was very understanding, but I still cringe sometimes thinking about the time I expensed a trip to a brothel.

    1. Bruce*

      As a manager I’d have signed off on that just for the humor of the story, though I’d have kept it to myself to to avoid embarrassing you further :-)

  272. Kerry*

    Meeting in the Bahamas – everyone was so excited! then…we arrived.

    hotel overbooked and overflow was sent to neighboring hotel which was a grade below. one person had no linens on the bed.

    everyone outside enjoying dinner by the pool when the heavens absolutely opened and soaked everyone and all the food

    hotel ran out of coffee at breakfast and set up buffet lines with plates at both ends so people were meeting face to face in the middle

    my friend went to leave her room and the doorknob fell into the room. she couldn’t get out and no one answered the phone at the front desk for 20 minutes

    this was in the days when your cell phone was a brick if you left the country, and early enough that no one knew that. everyone was hysterical that they could not make or receive calls

    we laugh about it now!

  273. Kerry*

    that time I flew to NC for an interview, connecting through DC. right before I left, I had done a meeting that was an overnight but driving distance. I made a quick stop at home, changed, grabbed a new outfit, and headed to the airport. changed out outfits in the suitcase in the airport parking garage and headed in. Thunderstorms in DC, and I didn’t get in to RTP until midnight. I unpacked at the hotel…and…that quick change in the airport garage was a bad move, because in the semi-darkness I had not noticed that I have packed two jackets and no pants. NO PANTS. I flew in a pair of denim shorts with a small but noticeable hole.

    after tossing and turning all night, considering calling in sick to my interview, considering disappearing entirely, I decided to brazen it out and wore the shorts with a jacket. Received side eye from the admin who brought me to an office where…they sat me at a desk and had people come to me! I was going to GET AWAY WITH IT!

    Last interview, the person asked me how I handled last minute mishaps. I stood up, pointed at my shorts, and said, I still show up! we had a good laugh. I did get the offer, even though I didn’t take the job.

  274. Anonomatopoeia*

    So, I was a late adopter of the cell phone, and finally got one in I think the spring? of 2015? This will be relevant shortly.

    This story takes place in 2014. There’s really only one annual national-ish conference in the US for my job type, and it’s in November in Atlanta. I live in the Pacific Northwest.

    I flew off to attend that conference for the second time that fall, and while this is a nationalish conference, also not that many people from this far afield go each year, so I planned on doing some touristy things in the evenings. I’m comfortable doing things alone, so that was fine. Although I do wish someone had gone with me to taste all the coca-cola flavors from other places, because some of them are, um, something. Anyway. On the last afternoon I was there, I came back to my hotel room after the end of the conference (like, 3pm) to grab a different jacket and head back out, and I stopped to go potty. This will also be relevant shortly.

    So I was gone for like 4 or 5 hours, and came back to find that the floatydoodle that tells the toilet tank to stop filling had broken when I flushed just after 3, and thus the toilet tank had been overflowing for hours. There was not just standing water in the bathroom, but in the carpet, which was splish-splashy for many feet into the main room, and damp all the way over to the bed, including the areas where I had tossed-aside worn clothing and assorted other things (paper bag with snacks, conference program sitting on the floor… fortunately no electronics).

    The hotel was prompt in moving me to another room, although it was quite a whole effort of going back and forth to move my crap because I didn’t want to put my wet clothes into anything, I wanted to leave them to hang in front of the AC and get as dry as feasible before shoving everything into my luggage to get home the next morning. If I were to have this experience now I would ask the hotel to let me run my wet stuff in their dryer for half an hour, but this didn’t occur to me at the time, and this hotel didn’t have a laundry area for guests.

    During all this moving (clothes, toiletries, oh wait also the stuff in the tub, oh and the snacks in the fridge…), I picked up the room phone and arranged a morning wakeup call for STUPID early, so I would have time to pack the mostly-dry stuff and get to MARTA to get to the airport in time for my flight schedule for a few minutes before 9.

    Now, I would still do that, but would also set some alarms on my cell, but as noted previously: I did not yet have one of those.

    Would anyone care to guess from which room I picked up the phone to arrange that call? And what happened next?

    I somehow didn’t think through that if I arranged the call from FirstRoom, the hotel would not automatically move the call to SecondRoom even though they were transferring everything else to do with me to SecondRoom. Their automated system probably did try to wake me up at 5 in the morning, but…. I was not in FirstRoom, so this did not work. So I woke up in one of those levitating out of bed in a panic situations, discovered it was 6:52, threw everything into bags as fast as I could, made sure I was wearing pants and had my ID and ticket etc, ran my butt the 3 blocks to MARTA, took the excruciatingly long morning-commute trip (SO MANY people on and off at each stop, SO MUCH announcing the train can’t go until everyone quits touching the door…), arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson at about 8, convinced several kind people to let me ahead of them at TSA, ran as though being chased by a bear through the airport…. and watched them close the door to the airplane hallway thing while I was still probably 120 feet away.

    Once they close the door, they don’t open it again.

    Yep.

    Still no phone, but on the plus side this was Atlanta and I was flying Delta, so surely there would be a service area and also probably a decent chance of a plane, right? Right?

    There is a service area; it is, or at least was then, right at the crossroads of the busiest flipping airport in America. Wide open, no walls, and at any given moment there are probably about 700 people walking within 20 feet of it in all directions talking to their colleagues and kids and wheeling their luggage and whatever, so it’s LOUD, and so this service area, they are bilingual, but they can’t actually hear you. They direct you to a house phone a few feet away where people who CAN hear you can help, but you can’t hear THEM, because you are standing in the middle of a people-hurricane, and long story short, after a LOT of pleading because while this was not Delta’s fault, it was also sort of not MY fault, they only charged me the change-plane fee, and got me on the only other plane of the day that could do a connection to home on the “same” day. This plane left Atlanta at around 8pm, so I had eleven hours to kill, nothing at all to do other than browse the magazines in one Hudson Bookseller after another, and then two weird layovers and an arrival time at home of around 1 am local. That last leg had delays, so I actually landed around 1:35, at which point I had been awake for nearly 22 hours, used the month’s worth of adrenaline trying to make the original plane 20 hours earlier, and spent eleven hours in a giant airport trying not to go to sleep because adrenaline crash is a real thing. Also, sure there is food in the airport, but I don’t like paying $12.39 for a latte or $17.95 for three barely-leavened unfortunately-scorched pancakes, two tablespoons of syrup, and the saddest bacon in the world, so I did get an overpriced McDonald’s cheeseburger and then made do with airplane pretzels and the like, so by the time I was home I was too hungry to sleep and too tired to eat.

    0/10, do not recommend, and all because of a faulty toilet tank regulator.

  275. Dina*

    This one wasn’t on my company so much as the travel agents, but I had some colleagues turn up to a conference in a regional town to find that their hotel had *shut down*. Fortunately the team was able to find the last couple of rooms in town – otherwise they would have had to drive from the nearest major city!

  276. noncomitally anonymous*

    2 from my days of being tech faculty

    1. I took a (young! – just out of undergrad) grad student with me to a conference. He assured me that he had friends in the city and would crash with them. Well, it turns out he got the dates wrong, and he couldn’t crash with his friends for 2 days after the conference started. There were no more hotel rooms available, so he had to crash in my (female!) room. Talk about awkward! I just remember him standing there in his tighty-whities staring at me while I was trying to relax and drink a glass of wine. He didn’t last long in the program

    2. A student who had just gradated from our grad program wanted to go to a conference, but had no funding. I agreed to let her crash in my room. I thought it would be OK, since we typically got along well. Except, there was a day that we had the afternoon off. The grad student was going to go for a hike. My clothes washer had died at home, so I needed to use the laundry facilities at the resort to wash the clothes I needed for the rest of the conference for that afternoon. She decided that that meant she could invite a friend of hers, who I didn’t know, to sleep in our room, as she (the friend) had come in on a red-eye. So, I spent an afternoon and early evening locked out of my room (that I was the only one paying for!) because some random person was sleeping in the room. I couldn’t even go in and fold and put clothes away. I’d’ve liked to nap that afternoon, as well, or at least have some alone-time, but couldn’t. Needless to say, the former grad student and I are no longer close.

  277. Fluff*

    A well known science fiction / fantasy / gaming convention (DragonCon) which is now huge, only took up only a few floors in 1-2 convention hotels many, many years ago. This was so long ago when the dealer’s room was in the same hotel as a different professional conference.

    I remember it well, being my first DragonCon. Me, my friends, and a few future friends were in full costume. Dark elves, mages, a very well done Raistlin with glowing staff, Klingon, gargoyle with flexible wings, werewolf were crammed into the elevator. The dealer’s room – our target – was in one of the lower levels. We were all excited to get more cosplay stuff and happily acting out our characters reacting to a moving room. Lots of nerd energy.

    My friend Cat was in the front of the crowd. He pushed the button to go to the lower level and happily announced, “Express elevator to hell,” as the doors closed.

    Only he chose the wrong floor. For some reason, the elevator took us down past our levels to the lowest business level. Raistlin (the mage) was ready with his glowing staff as the doors opened as was the werewolf. It would have been a most exceptional photo op.

    The doors opened to a conservative Christian business conference. Men in suits instantly stopped and stared at the elevator crew. Demons, dark wizards and elves froze in shock and regarded the working humans with equally silent surprised horror. No one moved. The elevator doors closed.

    “What in the Sam *&## was that?” growled the Klingon. No one answered.

    We heard later it what kind of conference it was. Half of them were appalled and the other half loved it and a few hung out in the lobby highly entertained (hiding from bosses I think). That org probably never shared a venue with the con again. Cat and Jen – if you are reading this – you were EPIC.

    1. Tinkerbell*

      This year at Dragoncon, there was a well-dressed businessman in front of the FedEx store in the Hilton trying to give someone directions on his phone on how to find him. “Yeah, I’m in the lobby – just past all the people in weird costumes.”

      Dude, the “people in weird costumes” span a solid five city blocks. You’re right next to the single FedEx location in the hotel, which has good signage telling how to find it, and you’re expecting your partner to just look for a bunch of people in weird costumes? Good luck, buddy!

  278. BikeWalkBarb*

    This one was years ago but the lessons have stuck with me.

    I was part of a Chamber of Commerce fly-in to DC to meet with congressional staff, various agencies, and any members of Congress whose schedules permitted. Purpose was to talk about the various elements of our shared legislative agenda. I went as the representative of the major land-grant research university I worked for and as a member of the Chamber’s policy committee, and my role included describing the importance of federal funding to our growing programs on the new campus where I worked.

    I flew in light gray jeans, a top, a jacket–comfortable and sensible for cross-country travel.

    I made the trip, my bag didn’t. I didn’t have a carry-on with business attire. Therefore I spent the first part of each and every meeting with congressional staff apologizing for my inappropriate clothing.

    I did not expect to spend professional meetings talking about my pants.

    The bag did eventually show up (with someone on the trip helpfully telling me that Delta stood for “Don’t Expect Luggage to Arrive”–with due apologies to Delta employees or fans who may be here, at the time that was part of the bad experience that I also can’t forget).

    As a result of that trip I now *always* travel in business attire when on business travel. My packing and fashion sense have both evolved to the point that I can do a multi-day trip with one carry-on and my “personal item” (backpack-strap-equipped professional bag that carries all my technology, ID, journal, etc.). No more checked bags unless I’m going for a week, in which case my carry-on has what I need to get through the next day and a half without its contents, by which time either the bag shows up or I find a store. I pack a lot less for leisure trips too.

  279. BikeWalkBarb*

    Oh gosh I just remembered another one. Before working in higher ed I worked for a tiny regional publishing company. I was 23 and engaged to be married.

    The owner and I went to a publishing conference in NYC, which was a huge deal to me because I had never been there. The owner stayed with his cousin to save money and clearly was thinking about asking if I could crash on the sofa or something, but somehow must have realized how inappropriate that was so he did ante up for a hotel. Not the one where the conference was held, of course–a cheap one. (Not cheap enough to have rooms available by the hour, with no disrespect to sex workers intended.) I remember an uncomfortable dinner with my boss; we had never spent any amount of time talking outside of work and he was shy and awkward and made me try ouzo.

    A bunch of people from the conference went out to a jazz bar after one day’s sessions (I’m in NYC! Jazz bars are cool! This will be awesome!). I ended up talking quite a bit to one guy and I’m a friendly person who smiles a lot in general. I was supposed to save money any way I could (tiny company budget) so when he offered to share a taxi and drop me at my hotel I thought nothing of it.

    No, he didn’t try to come in with me. Instead he called after I had gone to bed and tried to talk me into coming back out with him and suggesting he should come up. Maybe he thought this was smoother than trying to put the moves on me in the cab? Called multiple times despite me saying “I’m engaged! Why are you calling me? I need to sleep. Go away!” I finally managed to turn the ringer off and the next day or two I quickly changed direction any time I saw him in a conference session. Ugh.

    I was extra good at brushing him off thanks to being 3 time zones away from home and genuinely crabby about calls at such a late, late hour for my body clock. Glad my manners and general niceness weren’t awake.

  280. KatherineJ*

    Last year I went to a professional conference on the otherside of the country. On the way back my connecting flight was canceled and I had to spend the night in the airport. Not that an unexpected stay in an airport over night is great but that’s not too terrible. Finally get to my destination at 8 am the following morning.

    Now while I was away, a series of forest fires had broken out and instead of an 8 hour drive back up North, I could look forward to a 11 hour drive due to road closures. I spent a night in a hotel and started the now 2 day journey back up North.

    I arrived at 5:30 pm. At 7:30 pm we were officially evacuated due to the ongoing forest fires. Thankfully that was at least enough time to get some laundry done. I packed everything up and jump back into my car for the journey South. What is normally a 4 hour drive was a little over 6 hours due to some road construction that slowed down traffic in the middle of the night accompanied the glow of the fire and ash.

    I arrive at the appointed location and am bused over to an arena with cots lined up. It’s 4 am and I sit quietly thinking about my next move and send some emails. At 10 am I find out this is it, there is no other plan to send people elsewhere and I get myself some free lunch and drive 2 more hours south where a professional colleague I have never met offered me space in their home office for 5 days until we were allowed to return.

    I drove over 2000 km in those four days driving back up and then south again. I also had 2 senior members of staff telling me opposite information, so I couldn’t quite tell if the world was ending, or everyone was overreacting and things would be fine.

    **The communities in the area were fine and everyone was thankfully okay. I am really hoping this summer is less eventful.

  281. Mefois*

    I have two stories. I don’t know if the first one can be called a mishap since the company planned it that way but it certainly wasn’t enjoyable for anyone. We had recently been acquired and our new parent company wanted to bring everyone one state over for an all staff meeting. They bussed us over in the afternoon and gave us each our own hotel room which was great. But then for the return trip at the end of the week they decided the best choice was to send one bus back at 9:30 pm to arrive at 3:30 am and the other bus at 6:00 am the next morning to arrive at noon. And then we were all expected to work a half day after only getting a couple hours of sleep.

    The other story is from a friend of mine who’s a travel agent. I’m not sure if it was so much a work trip as a company sponsored vacation, but her company sent some of the staff and their partners on a European river boat cruise. At one of the stops in Germany, my friend and her partner took a train over into the next town. Unfortunately, they had some issues with finding the right train back and the boat left without them. They could meet back up with the boat before the next official stop, but they had to find a way to get there. And the boat was heading for France and their passports were still on board. They got very lucky and some very nice German ladies offered to drive them into France so they could get back on, but yikes.

  282. Tinkerbell*

    I was 22, and the “acting manager” at a mom & pop chain bookstore (meaning I did all the manager work but didn’t get paid extra for it. Again, 22.) They had eight or nine locations in various cities in a tri-state area. The couple who owned the chain offered me a chance to come with them to a regional book expo – my first business trip! They were driving from their city to mine to pick me up, then on to check in at the distribution warehouse, then onward to the expo. Lots of time to chat in the car, but I’m enough of an extrovert I was kind of looking forward to the chance to learn more about the business.

    Note: up until this point, our store received shipments of books from the other, bigger stores but we never sent any back. We threw all the used boxes and pallets in the trash, and our back room was piling up with books we couldn’t sell for whatever reason (out of season, damaged, etc.). Trying to be eco-friendly, I convinced them that it would be worthwhile to save up a full pallet of empty cardboard boxes and send them, along with the books we’d accumulated, back to the store they also used as the warehouse. The shipment was finally picked up the day before the trip.

    Y’all, there were two store locations in that city. It was just my luck that the one called WAREHOUSE ROW was not, in fact, the warehouse – “Warehouse Row” was in fact a ritzy mall and the store had almost no back room whatsoever. The delivery guy happened showed up with the giant pallet of cardboard right then, during the one hour of my life I had ever set foot in the store… and the store had no place to put it, so the owners had to pay a huge extra fee for the guy to immediately turn around and deliver it to the CORRECT store on the other side of town, which did not have warehouse in the name in the slightest. I was mortified.

    The chain owners did not, in fact, decide that re-using the old cardboard boxes and relieving our junk books pile was economical. It was an awkward trip to the book expo. I left that job relatively soon afterward and the bookstore in my city didn’t last long before it, too, closed.

  283. Professional button busher*

    Not my story, but this happened to a collaborator from another organization who I was traveling with to a conference at a university. The conference was at Llama State University in a fairly remote western US city and, upon trying to get an Uber to his hotel, my colleague realized that there was no hotel by that name in the city. His assistant had mistakenly booked him a room in the city where University of Llama is located, several hundred miles away. What’s more, the city we were actually in had very few hotels, and the only remaining lodging option was in the Llama State U dorms. Not comfortable at all, but he was at least in good company, since a substantial number of thrifty conference attendees (like me) were also staying there. The kicker, though, was that there were no single rooms left, so he was assigned to a shared room with a random other conference attendee who he learned was of the opposite gender when he walked in and found her undergarments hung up to dry on the lofted bed he was supposed to occupy. There were also no clothes hangers, no soap or shampoo, and the towels revealed much more of my colleagues on their to and way from the showers than I hoped for. We were a rugged bunch of librarians that week.

  284. FH*

    Covering stories at a large outdoor expo, I was asked to camp at the outskirts of the venue. At 25, I did it. But I arrived super late at night, in the dark, and had to pitch my (little childhood) tent in the headlights of my car. Left the lights on too long, car battery died… Had to wander the grounds looking for someone kind enough to jumpstart me again.

  285. Bruce*

    One time our team was presenting a technical paper in Honolulu. My coworker, his wife and their first baby were given a room at the Hilton… the agent gave me a room across the street in the sketchy hotel. I’m glad they had the nice hotel, I would not have wanted them to hear the bar fights happening nearby at 2 AM, or to be sharing the elevator with guys who were bringing escorts back to their rooms. Ewwwww. Otherwise the conference went well and they really enjoyed time on the beach with their little munchkin :-)

  286. Excel-sior*

    A number of years ago a colleague and I had to fly up from the Midlands to Scotland to hand over some work to our colleagues there. We didn’t spend a lot of time there; our flight was first thing in the morning (about 5am) and we were scheduled to catch a return flight that same day at 4:30pm.

    We get to the airport to fly back in good time, but we’re confused. We can see a flight at 4pm, another at 5:30, a few others either side, going back home. But nothing at 4:30. We checked our tickets. The time is correct, we’re at the right airport (only a small one so no chance of getting the wrong terminal). Then it slowly dawns on us. Somehow, without either myself, my colleague or our manager who’d made the booking realising, we’d booked a flight for 4:30pm the following day.

    A mild panic set in; we’re both pretty sure that the company won’t fork out for a hotel, neither of us can afford to pay for one ourselves, i was going to miss a connecting train to London to visit my then-girlfriend/now-wife).

    Fueled by caffeine, nicotine and nerves, we set about making phone calls. fortunately for us, we were eventually able to change our tickets and took a flight later that evening. But that was a lesson to always triple check out bookings.

  287. whimbrel*

    OMG how did I forget about this one?!

    So I’m attending an AGM for my union, it’s hundreds of people so it’s in a large hotel/conference centre. My travel was long and included a flight and a ~2h drive, so by the time I arrived at the hotel it was well past midnight and I was more than ready to hit the sack.

    I get to my room and I’ve just finished settling in, putting my toiletries away, checking everything over (because I have had more than enough bedbug experiences in hotels but that would almost have been preferable to this).

    And I hear this tiny electronic beep. And then I hear it again thirty seconds later. And then again. So I check the room safe to see if the battery is low, that’s not it, and I decide to try to sleep but (obviously) can’t.

    Finally I happen to be standing under the smoke detector/fire alarm unit, and I hear the beep, and I’m like [swear emojis] welp I found it. So I phone the front desk, they send a maintenance guy up to my room, and he says that they don’t have any way to make it not beep because it’s related to how the alarm system is ‘pinging’ the control unit on the floor and it’s really rare that guests can hear it. He offers, kindly, to bring me some earplugs.

    I say no thanks, I have my earbuds, and cram them into my ears and turn on some rain noise on my phone to try and sleep. It does not go well and I’m pretty groggy for the first day of the meeting. I order some Loop earplugs off Amazon because same day delivery. The hotel offers to switch me to a different room. I take them up on it. I get into the room and it also makes the beeping sound.

    By the morning of day two I am a MESS. The earplugs didn’t help and I haven’t slept properly for two nights, on top of the always-on nature of the meeting. I spend half an hour sitting on the floor in a quiet bathroom on the conference level to get my bearings because I was sure I was going to be physically ill, but it subsides and I go talk to the organizers to ask them to approve me moving to another hotel because I’m losing my mind.

    The hotel manager comes to talk to me and is really apologetic, he and Maintenance come up to the room with me to see if there’s anything I can do, and the maintenance guy suggests duct-taping cardboard over the speaker. I’m like YES LET’S DO IT and so he does and it is BLISSFULLY SILENT and I immediately crash and sleep for three hours.

    The rest of the event went fine but I don’t think even in the depths of being a new parent that I ever felt that destroyed by lack of sleep. I travel several times a year for work and have done for years and have never encountered this before, it was wild.

  288. May the Earth Open Up and Swallow Me Whole*

    I was a brand new female process engineer (the only female engineer on staff) back in the late 90s, working in a Canadian automotive plant. I had to go to the US for a business trip, staying one night in a hotel. For some reason I decided that I didn’t want my colleagues to think I was too “girly” so I decided that I wouldn’t check a bag. I had only been on a plane once before and I didn’t understand the concept of carry on baggage, so I packed a spare t-shirt and a pair of underwear in my briefcase. I also wore my steel toed boots to travel (this was obviously before airport security was beefed up) because I was visiting a factory during the trip. The company sales guy who met me at the airport when I landed was surprised that I didn’t have any luggage, and even more surprised when we arrived at the hotel and I had no way of paying for the room. My student visa had a cap of $200 CDN dollars and I knew it wouldn’t go through. I just stood there in the lobby with a panicked look on my face and finally sputtered, “I forgot to ask for the company credit card!” – which totally wasn’t a thing. He ended up asking the desk attendant to charge my room to his card. I also ended up wearing my t-shirt and steel toed boots to a fancy restaurant dinner hosted by the supplier, who was trying to wine and dine us. I still cringe now over 25 years later. What they must have thought!

    1. whimbrel*

      Please be gentle on past you!! Your work should absolutely have let you know what was anticipated for the trip – ‘It’s only one night, so you shouldn’t need to pack much, but you’ll need your PPE for the factory visit and it’s likely that we will be invited out for dinner or drinks with our supplier.’ Total bs for them not to give you a heads up, and also for expecting you to book and pay for your own hotel with no prior notice, either. Where was the company card or an admin to make those arrangements for you? Jerks. :P

  289. the Viking Diva*

    whew, these stories are giving me flashbacks. Here’s one:

    I flew to another city for a two-day job interview. At 7 am (5 am by my body clock) I’m in the hotel lobby, all spruced up and ready to meet my first interviewer of the day, who will also take me to breakfast. By 7:30 it is clear that he is not going to come. I have no way to reach him, I can’t reach the hiring manager, and I am ready to cry at the thought of a whole morning of interviews without coffee and calories on board. My next interview is with upper management. I call their office, tell the assistant that I need a ride to the job site or I won’t make my interview with their boss, and they will find me in the hotel restaurant inhaling the fastest breakfast available (adding insult to injury, a $30 bowl of granola). Fortunately the assistant was a skillful problem-solver and the big boss was apologetic. Later I learned the original person had a family emergency and completely forgot he was to pick me up.

  290. the Viking Diva*

    here’s another work travel tale of woe:
    A colleague and I both needed to attend a meeting with an outside review board. Southern California in winter greatly appealed to our sun-starved northern selves, so we decided to fly in early and go camping in a nearby national park. I packed a big bag of camping gear and a small bag of professional clothing – but only the first bag arrived on the luggage carousel. Fine, I wouldn’t need the work stuff right away– so I arranged for the airline to deliver it and alerted the hotel to hold it for my arrival. Four days later, we arrive at the meeting site, happy and grimy from long hikes and evenings by a campfire under the desert stars. My work bag is nowhere to be found and no one has a clue. I wash my hair twice, borrow underwear from my friend, and wear my grubby fleece, smelling of sweat and wood smoke, to the review, self-consciously enthusing about our camping trip to anyone who looks at me twice. After two days, the airline finds the bag in lost luggage: the hotel had refused it because “nobody by that name has checked in.”

  291. Third Party*

    We had an office admin who was in charge of booking our business travel who was an absolute nightmare.

    First she wouldn’t book trips until it was down to the wire in case someone in management changed their mind about the trip. This would have been fine except she’d wait so long that prices for reasonable flights would skyrocket. So I’d find a direct flight at 9am that would get me in at 2pm for $400 but by the time she would book that flight would be $1200 and she’d say it was too expensive and put me on a flight that left at 5am and got in at 11pm with 2 layovers.

    She’d also refuse to book through anything but 3rd party sites. Which was a constant nightmare when there were issues of any kind because we wouldn’t be able to make any changes and airlines/hotels wouldn’t work with us because we weren’t the account holders. This could have been workable if it weren’t for the above issue because it meant she wasn’t in the office when we’d be having those issues.

    Finally she was so concerned with budget that she wouldn’t let you book anything that wasn’t the absolute cheapest “reasonable” option. I was once being sent on a long international trip that meant in order to get an acceptably priced ticket I had to fly from a nearby major city (3 hours away) rather than from our nearby airport. Fine, no problem. I did the math and realized that it would be considerably cheaper to hire a car service to drive me to the airport than to pay for my parking at the airport for 2 weeks. She told me she couldn’t hire a car service because it was too expensive, but that she’d get me an Uber. I somehow didn’t trust in the reliability of an Uber to drive me 3 hours, so I had to drive and the company had to pay for my parking. Which was 4x as expensive as the car service would have been.

    1. whimbrel*

      Ugh, the epitome of ‘penny wise, pound foolish’! Did she ever get any feedback from management to chill?

      I haaaate getting nickel and dimed on travel because I try to be a conscientious business traveler with my work, I don’t book extravagant hotels or business class flights, but if I run the numbers and staying downtown is $50 more a night than in the sticks and cabs back and forth to my destination would be $60 round trip, yes I am going to want to book the downtown hotel.

  292. A Good Egg*

    One time Bob and I were supposed to meet in Cleveland. Unfortunately, Bob was misrouted to Chicago, and he spent the rest of the morning getting to Cleveland. Once in Cleveland, he made a mistake during a left turn and got pulled over. He mouthed off to the cop, and he was arrested.
    Our boss called, “Bob’s in jail; can you go bail him out?” I called the jail, and I found out that I needed around $1000 in cash to get Bob out. (Those were the rules back then.) I went to the bank, withdrew the money, and flew to Cleveland.
    During my trip, Bob decided he didn’t want to spend any more time in jail, so he paid the traffic fine, which was around $300. By the time I landed, he was out, and he met me at the airport.
    I was so disappointed that I was not able to put “Bob’s Bail” as a line item on my expense report.

  293. Airbnb nightmare*

    A few years ago myself and a few colleagues travelled to Toronto for a few days. To save money, we decided to stay in airbnbs instead of hotels. When I got to my airbnb, it was clear that this was completely not allowed by the building, and possibly against city regulations. There were signs in the lobby and elevators stating that short term renters would be asked to leave immediately. I was understandably pretty nervous, but didn’t see any way out of this situation, as it was already pretty late at night and I didn’t know of hotels in the area.

    Then, on the third night of our trip I came back to the airbnb after a long day to find the power turned off! No lights, no wifi, no electricity anywhere. The note shoved under the door stated that the bill hadn’t been paid and included a number to call to pay the bill. I contacted the airbnb host and she didn’t believe me, despite me sending a screenshot of the note. It was late and I was tired, and I managed to get ahold of one of my colleagues who let me sleep on the couch of her airbnb, and then booked a hotel for our last night. After several emails back and forth with airbnb, I managed to get a refund for the 2 nights that I didn’t stay there, and resolved to never stay in an airbnb for work travel ever again.

    My company was great, though. They covered the full airbnb cost and the hotel so I wouldn’t be out any money, and then if I got a refund I could just get them a cheque (which I did).

  294. pumpkinspicemafia*

    Had to go to Vegas with a higher up and a peer (I am female, they are male). We were out and about after our meetings and hit a couple of casinos and had a couple of drinks. We ended up in a strip club (not by my choice at all) and the higher up gave me a stack of bills and insisted I sit right up at the edge of the stage. He was not happy that I just gave all the dollars to the first dancer that came up because I liked her shoes.

    Worst. Night. Ever.

  295. old curmudgeon*

    My sister is a research chemist. When she was 7 months pregnant with her second child, she and six or seven colleagues flew across the country to give a presentation at another facility the company owned. The presentations all went well, they got back to the airport just fine, boarded the plane and took off – and 45 minutes later, the plane landed unexpectedly in a tiny airport in rural Oklahoma, 1,200 miles from its intended destination.

    It was September 11, 2001.

    The group of chemists all went into action searching for alternatives, and after many calls, were able to rent the very last vehicle available at the only car-rental place in this little rural community. It was a giant cargo van with lousy suspension and only two seats in the front, and according to my sister, it was the vehicular equivalent of riding a trotting horse.

    So the seven chemists, including my very pregnant and uncomfortable sister, spent the next three days bouncing home in the cargo van. Fortunately the other chemists were all fairly understanding of her need for frequent restroom stops. They did get home safely, and my sister had a healthy baby a couple months later.

    But she has adamantly refused all business trip opportunities ever since.

  296. alle*

    Not really that dramatic, but:
    I often travel to scientific conferences where I have to present a poster. On at least three separate occasions, I forgot the poster in the waiting area of the airport and had to scramble to get a new one printed on location. Turns out it is hard to remember you have an awkward to carry poster roll with you on top of your luggage.

    1. whimbrel*

      I have done this!!!!!! I really appreciated when one conference I went to advertised that that there was almost-on-site print shop adjacent to the conference facility, so all I had to do was bring a USB stick with my poster and print it out there. SO much easier than lugging poster tubes around.

      1. alle*

        That is so much easier! The next conference I am going to apparently will only have electronic posters displayed on screens. I guess they learned from too many poster mishaps of attendees. :)

    2. OMG, Bees!*

      In college, my poster roll had a sling to carry it over my shoulder easily. If you have to carry a physical poster again, maybe check out an art store like Blick’s for something. Don’t know if I can post specific links.

      1. KJ*

        You could also grab a sling for a yoga mat or I have used a carrying case for one of those collapsible camping chairs.

      2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

        my service club uses a fishing pole case for our banner. But I still wouldn’t want to take it on an airplane.

  297. a good mouse*

    My sister works in the NYC office of a Toronto based company. Her boss (also in NYC) insisted my sister go to Toronto with her for a ‘very important meeting’ even though it would have been fine to just be a zoom call. My sister booked the early flight that would get her to the office over an hour early, her boss booked the flight that would barely get there in time.

    My sister lands in Toronto only for her boss to say she decided not to go and would just zoom in. My sister was PISSED. She says from now on she’ll just book the same flight and if her boss doesn’t show up at the airport she’ll turn around and go home. No reason to deal with customs twice in one day.

  298. batmom*

    Back in the day I was a consultant, working on big projects onsite with my clients. The deal was you’d fly in, pick up a car, commute from hotel to client for four days, then fly home. One morning I came down to the hotel parking and, as I approached my rental car, I noticed that it was askew. “Crap,” I thought, “I have a flat tire.”

    As I got closer, though, I realized “Crap. I have NO tires!” Every single tire had been removed. The car was tilted because only 3 of the four corners were up on blocks. Luckily, my colleague hadn’t left for the office yet so I got a ride in and called the rental car company. I obviously needed to let them know and I still needed a car to get back to the airport that afternoon.

    Later that day, the rental company sent a new car to my office with a classic tow truck (front up, back two wheels on the ground.) I went down to get it and he confirmed with me the location of the other car because he was on his way to get it. We both get quiet and look at the tow truck with this car, nose in the air, back wheels on the ground. “All four tires, hey?” he said. “Yup.” “I think I need a different truck.” “Yup.”

  299. BabaYaga*

    I spent the better part of a year organizing travel for work for a director general and often accompanying them myself. It was awesome in some ways but in other ways it was incredibly frustrating.

    The DG would last minute change travel plans to give themselves time off or simply because they felt like it, meaning booked flights would have to be changed (which cost a lot of money and irked me especially because it was a government org, so wasted tax dollars). I was expected to book hotel rooms on specific floors within a very strict government budget and it was up to me to not only keep accurate records of what meetings we had when and with whom, but to keep us on schedule.

    That stuff was annoying but the worst part was having to do constant damage control. The DG would frequently get crucial information wrong, misremember facts and details, completely lack the ability to answer the majority of questions posed, and often ignore me when I tried to keep us on schedule. Once they made us over 30 minutes late to a meeting because when I indicated we had to go they shut me down, somehow forgetting we had back to back meetings despite literally holding a schedule for the day I’d created.

    They even drove us the wrong way down a one-way street and when I pointed it out, scolded me for worrying because the pharmacy they wanted to go to was right ahead. I never let them drive me anywhere again after that.

    The upside of the whole situation was that I ended up with a great network of professionals in my field who saw me in comparison and took note of my professionalism and organization. I also gained confidence and valuable experience that helped me get to where I am today.

    The DG in question didn’t last much longer than the year or so I worked with them. They left of their own accord but I have a feeling it was to avoid the backlash of the messes they created.

  300. ecb1979*

    I was traveling with an outside consultant to some facilities in Maine. We were both supposedly staying in Augusta, MAINE. Both of our (unrelated and unaffiliated) travel folks booked us into hotels in Augusta GEORGIA. #whoops.

  301. Switz4219*

    Went to Guatemala in 2019 for work. My very first time out of the country (born and raised in Idaho) so my company paid for my passport, which was nice. But I’m also an introverted woman with anxiety about unfamiliar situations, traveling alone. Add to this that Guatemalans are generally on the shorter side, and the country has a fairly high crime rate, while I am 5’9″, white like a ghost, and have way too much imagination. I must have envisioned about 17 ways I could get murderized in the walk from the airport to the parking garage alone.

    So I headed back to the hotel after my first work day; my company had paid for drivers (for which I was grateful; I was not at all equipped to handle the traffic there!) but they did not speak English, and the 2 years of high school Spanish I’d taken more than 20 years prior availed me not. We hit a traffic jam, where we sat for about 10-15 minutes, and just as we were about to start moving, we got bumped from the car behind. My driver said something to me (presumably along the lines of “I’m going to deal with this”) and got out of the car, leaving me alone. And IMMEDIATELY my overactive brain said to me, “If I were part of some kind of criminal enterprise, this is exactly what I would do: cause a minor traffic accident, and then use the distraction to rob/kidnap/murder the person in the car.”

    As you might have guessed, exactly none of that happened; my driver simply got back in the car after about 10 minutes and we drove off again. My colleague who DID speak Spanish arrived that evening (we’d traveled separately because she had concert tickets for the day I left), and we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our two weeks there (though we did get side-swiped by a chicken bus the following week.) The people there could not have been kinder; some of my Spanish did start to come back to me thanks to the immersion; and I learned and grew so much from the experience. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

  302. Mike S*

    My boss was in Europe on 9/11. I think that it took him a couple of months to return to the US.

  303. Rachael*

    Bad business trip stories? My time has come! Once, I got stuck in Canada and missed 3 separate international flights in a row due to COVID test regulations I didn’t know about, booking credit card requirements for plane tickets I didn’t know about, giant car accidents delaying everything, and my inability to contact anyone most of the time due to my Canadian phone plan not working. Oh, this all happened over a holiday weekend as well.

    Back in 2021, I flew from my home in the Washington DC area to Toronto for a few days of work. The Canadian company I was working with at the time set up all my travel. Everything went fine for the first days; my Canadian cell phone and data plan stopped working after the first day, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal initially.

    Then, I got to the airport (Airport 1) ready to fly back home (Flight 1), only to be asked for my COVID test results. I cheerfully showed them my test results from a few days before (while in the US), only for them to tell me that wouldn’t work. After a bit of back and forth, I learned that I apparently was supposed to get another COVID test while in the country in order to be allowed back on a plane to the US. I…did not realize this. (A co-worker had tried to tell me by saying “You have your COVID test set up, right?” but I misunderstood and thought she was referring to the one I needed to get to board my plane to Canada.)

    Keep in mind that at his point, my phone wasn’t working at all. I had no way to contact anyone or even research where to take a test. Another traveler in the same predicament managed to find a drug store close by, so we sprinted over there with our suitcases to see if we could get the right COVID tests. The drug store had no available appointments for that day. Fellow Traveler then was able to find a Starbucks we could run to so I could connect to wifi. At this point, I pulled out my laptop to start looking for any test appointments. I also used my Zoom phone account to try to reach anyone at my company. Notably, it was the Sunday before Canadian Thanksgiving, so most people were …not available.

    Eventually, I reached one co-worker, who found a testing center with an available rapid test appointment. It was 30 minutes away, but right down the road from another airport (Airport 2). Co-worker then booked me a rapid testing appointment and a flight out of that second airport (Flight 2). She also called an Uber to get me to the center. One super expensive rapid test later, I call Co-worker on the test center phone, and she calls an Uber to pick me up and take me to Airport 2. After a good 30-minute wait outside, the Uber finally arrives. Apparently, a huge car accident was causing insane traffic delays in the area. This, predictably, also resulted in intense delays on the way to the airport as well.

    By the time I finally got to Airport 2, I had missed Flight 2. There were no other flights out to DC for the rest of the day. After sobbing uncontrollably in the corner of the airport for a while, I managed to pull out my laptop and call Co-worker via Zoom phone again. She then booked me a flight for the next morning (Flight 3) and booked me into a hotel near the airport.
    The next morning at like, 6:30 am, I show up to Airport 2 ready for Flight 3, only to be told that there’s now a rule that, for international flights booked less than a day in advance, you now have to provide the booking credit card information to the airline for them to give you your plane ticket (I think it was an anti-terrorism thing). Since I didn’t book the ticket, I didn’t have the credit card number. A kind stranger lent me his phone so I could try to call my co-worker and boss, but since it was like….7 am on Canadian Thanksgiving, I couldn’t get in touch with anyone. Cue me pulling out my laptop again and frantically zoom calling and emailing everyone possible to try to get the credit card info, with no luck for several hours. Thus, I missed my 3rd international flight in less than 24 hours and ended up, once again, sobbing uncontrollably in a Canadian airport.

    Eventually, I was able to reach my boss (who had been up all night with a sick child…on Canadian Thanksgiving. I felt terrible!), and got booked into Flight 4 going back to the states that afternoon. This time, my boss gave me the booking credit card number, so I got through okay. And just to put a cherry on the whole experience, I couldn’t actually manage to get a flight back to the airport my car was parked at, so my husband had to pick me up and then drive me over there just so I could finally, finally get back home.

    *Some details may be slightly off here because it was a few years ago, I think I probably talked to more like 3-4 co-workers over the course of the day actually. Also I haven’t even mentioned how every time I got into an Uber, my co-worker called to talk to me and make sure i made it in, so it felt like i was literally being followed around Toronto by my co-worker’s voice

  304. Chief Bottle Washer*

    I think the time I got stuck, packed cheek to jowl with entirely too many people (one of whom was known to be handsy), in a very small elevator for more than an hour would qualify as a business trip mishap.

  305. Paisley*

    I was attending a conference in Ottawa, we’re a small company so I booked my own flight. The night before my trip I got an email notification that the plane was boarding! I realized I had booked a flight at 12:30 a.m. instead of 12:30 p.m. I was 2 hours away from the airport. Ugh. All I could do was rebook another flight. I went ahead and booked another flight, the rest of the travel there was uneventful. I was embarrassed, so I wasn’t going to put both flights on my expense report. I went to the conference and afterwards went to the airport to return. Checking in at the kiosk my return ticket wasn’t showing up so I went up to an agent. Because I had missed my flight, they automatically cancel your return! I guess what I should have done was call Expedia and have them rebook for me in the same “trip”. So I made two big mistakes, booked the wrong time and then rebooked outside of my confirmed trip. This is one of the few times I outright bawled in public. They would not bend, they made me book yet another flight and of course it was wicked expensive since it was last minute. It was a very expensive conference for me :(

  306. Claire*

    On a trip early in my career I was in Arkansas walking fields in July. The walking fields part is normal – I work in ag – but I am from Canada and was entirely unprepared for the heat. I have never been SO SWEATY in a work situation. We were on a big tour and when I heard we were going to lunch, I was so excited for some AC (I was visibly DRIPPING with sweat, luckily, I was not the only one). Lunch was not at a restaurant with AC. Nope, it was at a machinery shed on a farm where your options were full sun or shade that was Very Close to the open pit BBQ. Now, the BBQ was AMAZING but I’m pretty sure I died a little bit that day.

    On the same trip, I went to walk into the field to look more closely and a very nice local man PHYSICALLY stopped me and I was about to get offended for some man touching me before he explained that there are lots of snakes in the field and my boots were only 6″, not 12″ high.

  307. Cathie from Canada*

    Just one of those jaw-dropping remarks from an airline clerk:
    So I was on the trip from hell — flying Air Canada on a Tuesday from Saskatoon to Toronto to London, Ontario for a meeting then back to Toronto and on to Fredericton, New Brunswick for a conference. Every single flight on this marathon was late, by at least an hour.
    And then on Friday morning the flight out of Fredericton left an hour late because the weather was horrible and they had to de-ice the wings. So I figured there was no way I would get to Toronto in time make my last connection to Saskatoon — except the pilot made up time on the way and we actually landed in Toronto still with about 25 minutes to make my Saskatoon flight. Hey, this might work!
    But when we got to the gate Air Canada didn’t have any staff there to connect it to the plane. So there we sat for another 20 minutes.
    Finally the gate got connected and the flight attendants let me jump the line and I tore off the plane and ran through Toronto Pearson to my Saskatoon gate — only to be told that the plane had left five minutes earlier.
    So I asked the airline clerk, “Couldn’t you have held the plane a few minutes? You knew I was on the way.”
    And then I was informed, with icey condescension, “No of course we couldn’t hold the plane for you — we have to leave on time, you know!!!”
    I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t speak.
    (Continuing on, I was rebooked onto a flight that was supposed to leave Toronto at noon – but the weather delayed the crew in Chicago, so by the time they got to Toronto they had worked too long and weren’t allowed to make the Saskatoon trip. So Air Canada finally found another crew, and the noon flight actually left Toronto at about 4:30 pm. It was a very long day…)

  308. Ladycrim*

    My job as an Admin doesn’t come with a lot of business travel, but early in my career I was sent to Washington D.C. for a training. How exciting! My company even extended my stay to Sunday so I could do some sightseeing. My colleague and I arrived Tuesday, checked into our hotel (separate rooms, this is relevant), and all was well …

    … until Thursday after the training, when I tried to get into my hotel room and the key didn’t work. I went to the front desk for help and gave them my room number.

    “You checked out this morning.”
    “What? No, I’m here until Sunday.”
    “We show you as having checked out.”

    Cue me having visions of sleeping in the lobby for the next three nights while they try to sort out what happened. Eventually they realize that they meant to check someone else out but checked me out instead. “We did wonder why there was still a suitcase in the room.” (At least they left everything in there.) Their way of apologizing was to give me a voucher for their continental breakfast. I don’t eat much for breakfast, so I gave it to my colleague. He said the food was terrible.

    Sunday came, and it was time to leave. I looked at the bill the hotel had slipped under my door. Everything was in order, charged to my company’s account … except the Thursday they had accidentally checked me out, which they had charged to the personal bank card I’d had to give them for incidentals. I could NOT afford to lose that, so back to the front desk I went. But, being Sunday, there was nobody in the Finance office who could process a refund. “You should have said something on Thursday.” I didn’t KNOW about it on Thursday, but details, right?

    So I flew home on Sunday, and spent Monday blowing up their phones until they refunded my money. I have stayed in a lot of hotels in the intervening 21 years, but that chain has never been one of them.

    1. OMG, Bees!*

      I just told a fuller account of my first work trip, but relevant to hotel issues:

      Client would only pay for hotel if it was at a specific one nearby, but I would be in the city for a week and the hotel was booked solid on Wednesday. So I had 2 reservations M-T and another Th-Saturday morning and had to find my own place to stay on Wednesday night.

      Less than a week prior, I was in NYC for a wedding, then a couple days visiting family in the region before continuing on to Client City. As luck turned out, a friend coordinated at the wedding in NYC that the fiancé/wife’s best friend (the Maid of Honor) lived in Client City and would let me crash on her couch Wednesday night, despite us not meeting before the wedding.

  309. WestCostAnon*

    Not my story but a lovely though slightly naive coworker. Biz trip to Korea, long flight from the West Coast, she ended up drinking wayyy too much and puked on the Korean immigration official…and then passed out for six hours, other coworkers had to basically carry her to her hotel room.

  310. OMG, Bees!*

    I have a good and bad work trip due to mostly poor planning. My first ever work trip.

    So Client needed someone to go to their new location currently being setup to install their IT infrastructure (network, wifi, etc). The time was selected a few days after a friend’s wedding in NYC (Client triple promised they were ready for the install), and being on the west coast, I opted for a couple days of vacation in between to visit family in New England before heading to the Client, also in New England.

    The first hiccup was the Client would only pay for hotel if it was at a specific one nearby, but I would be in the city for a week and the hotel was booked solid on Wednesday. So I had 2 reservations M-T and another Th-Saturday morning and had to find my own place to stay on Wednesday night. As luck turned out, a friend coordinated at the wedding in NYC that my male friend’s female fiancé/wife’s best friend (the Maid of Honor) lived in Client City and would let me crash on her couch Wednesday night.

    The second hiccup was travel to get there, I winged it, planning on spending all day on trains, but turns out there is a regional small aircraft that flies to where my family was to Client City and was cheaper than the trains! Got to fly in an 8 seater Cessna and view the runway as the pilot saw it (really cool, I have pictures, would not recommend it in winter tho).

    The third hiccup was when I got to the Client location… they had over promised how ready they were. They didn’t even have power to the part of the building I would be working in and equipment setup! Cabling was in progress as I arrived and took likely 2 weeks to finish. All in all, there wasn’t even anything for me to do, although I frequently checked in with Client.

    So, that was how I was paid to be a tourist for a week, albeit with some issues.

    1. OMG, Bees!*

      To clarify The First Hiccup, a rewrite:

      As luck turned out, a friend, Fred, coordinated at the wedding in NYC with the Maid of Honor, Cynthia, who lived in Client City and would let me crash on her couch Wednesday night. We had only met at the wedding.

  311. em_eye*

    Ooooooh I hope I’m not too late!

    A group of coworkers and I were traveling for a conference and my direct supervisor and I were in adjoining hotel rooms. Since we’re the same gender and got along well, I didn’t bother to lock the door between the rooms, and I guess she did the same.

    A couple days into the trip, I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt something cold in my bed. Confused, I look over and see my supervisor in bed beside me, sleeping like a baby. My first thought is that I was dreaming, then I realized – she had sleepwalked out of her room, come into mine through the adjoining door, and crawled into bed with me.

    I was genuinely at a loss, trying to remember whether or not the “don’t wake a sleepwalker” rule was an urban legend, and she was out like a light. Eventually, I managed to rouse her a bit, but she was so incoherent I don’t think she ever fully woke up. I led her back to her own bed, talked her in, and quietly locked the door.

    She didn’t say anything the next morning, or bring it up ever again. To this day I don’t know whether she was lucky enough to not remember the whole thing or if she decided not to say anything out of sheer embarrassment. I figured it would be a kindness to follow her lead but I definitely lock all doors during business travel now!

  312. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

    I’ve heard plenty of air travelers complain about getting to their destination before their luggage. Well . . .

    My (national) employer sent me to training at Destination, which meant flying out of my local airport in Tiny Town, which has to constantly fight to maintain just one commercial flight a day. Unfortunately, that day’s flight was held up at Big City due to weather, and when it was finally able to take off, many of us were guaranteed to miss our next flights. Not to worry! Helpful Woman had generated new reservations to get us all to our respective destinations, a bit late, but we’re good.

    Training finished, I’m back in Destination Airport, trying to check my bag to no avail. The lady who comes to assist me doesn’t understand the problem either — I have the printout with my reservation, so . . . ? She kindly checks my bag and hands me my ticket; I go through security, grab a bite for lunch, wait for my flight to start boarding and . . . am not allowed on. Because I don’t know what I’m holding, but it’s not a boarding pass. The folks at the counter can’t help me, except to confirm that I do not have a seat on that plane, and won’t be getting one, because it’s full.

    Off to Customer Service, where Helpful Man determines that Helpful Woman at Tiny Town Airport had not canceled my reservation *to* Destination, she’d canceled my *entire* reservation. And while he could certainly get me back home, Big City was a very popular destination just then, and there was no way to get me there before the one flight into Tiny Town had already left. So I spent the night at a hotel at Big City Airport, then flew into Tiny Town on Saturday. Where, yes, my luggage had arrived safely . . . on Friday.

  313. Lady Kelvin*

    I’m late to this game, because I am currently on a nightmare of a work travel trip. About 2 months before my trip I began arranging flights/hotels, and struggled to find a flight that fit our organization’s policies. After hours on hold with our travel agency where they would tell me that they would work on my flights and call me back, and then never call me back. I finally had what I thought was a ticket. I had to connect flights in an international city and ended up with separate tickets between my home and city A and city A and my final destination. My flight to city A was seamless, but after immigrating, collecting my bags, and making my way to check them again for my next flight, I was told that my ticket to my final destination was cancelled by my travel agency with no warning and no explanation even though I had an eTicket number and a seat. After spending an hour and a half on hold with them, I finally got a flight the next day, but that meant that I had to cancel the first day of the international meeting I was hosting. There had been several other flights to my final destination that night but my travel agent told me that if I wanted a flight that night I would have to pay out of pocket (totally against organization policy). I did eventually get to my meeting, but not without substantial stress and annoyance for everyone involved. I leave in a few days and I’m wondering if I will have a flight home…

  314. Melissa*

    It wasn’t me but former coworkers who were returning home from a business trip. They were all bumped from their return flight. The manager got himself a different flight back, but left the hourly employees behind. None of them were travel savvy, nor did they have access to a company credit card, and the airline was less than helpful. One of them finally called a more senior manager for assistance and he got them home. Needless to say, the manager who left them was not employed there much longer.

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