Business travel and communications

Commercial jet engine as viewed from my plane seat on flight from Oklahoma City to Houston.

I travel a fair amount in the context of work. 

So much so, according to my wife, I'm no fun to travel with for short personal travel, as I get tired of traveling all the time so that a hop to Denver, let's say, isn't that much of an adventure as it is something that's a bit routine.  It's an occupational hazard or feature of the type of law I do.

Convair at the Natrona County International Airport outside of Casper Wyoming, in the early 1950s.

But I'm sure that wasn't always the case.

In the context of this blog, travel and things we do while on business travel have struck me in a couple of ways recently, both of which I've noted about and blogged about here recently on individual threads, but which might make for some interesting discussion once again.

  U.S. version of British "Is this trip necessary" poster from World War Two, urging private citizens not to travel, if at all possible.  Trains were the planes of the day, and business commuters might recall small hop flights when looking at this poster

This blog, as the very few people who read it know, is theoretically a research vehicle for a book (or books really) and explores changes over time, to help me more accurately understand and convey the conditions of the past. And on the topics travel bring up, the changes are truly very vast, in a relatively short period of time.  Indeed, as will be noted below, some of the changes have been very pronounced even during my working life.

One of these topics is how routine long travel is now for quite a few occupations.  Recently, for example, I traveled from my home to Oklahoma City, worked a day there, and flew that afternoon to Houston, and then flew back.  This past week I was in Cheyenne for two days and then on to Denver.  While in Denver, I worked on a project that saw other people come in from Wyoming, one person come in from Lincoln Nebraska, and yet another come in from Newark, New Jersey.  Not particularly remarkable, but at one time not all that long ago this would have been frankly impossible.

It certainly would have been impossible during the 20th Century era when railroad transportation was the traveling norm, which was the case up into the 1950s.  Air travel appeared as early as the 1920s in some locations, but it was extremely expensive and most people didn't travel that way until much later.  Even in the 1950s air travel remained somewhat expensive and a bit of an event, with air travelers usually dressing for the occasion.

I don't even know if it would have been possible to go from Casper Wyoming to Oklahoma City in a day in the era of rail transportation.  I'm sure it would have been possible to go from Oklahoma City to Houston in a day, but the entire thing would have probably taken at least a week, overall.  Chances are that it just wouldn't have occurred in this context.  People did travel for business, of course, but in litigation it wasn't common to travel that far.  Most lawyers probably only traveled to neighboring states as a rule, and that only occasionally, depending upon where they lived.  I wouldn't be too surprised, for example, to find a Wyoming lawyer in 1914 traveling to Denver by train, and it wouldn't surprise me if a lawyer in New York City traveled to New Jersey or other local east coast locations frequently.  But a lawyer in Casper would have only traveled to Houston very rarely in this context, if ever.

 Train outside of Chicago.

Even in the early airline era this would have been somewhat unlikely.  I'm sure a person could have gone from Casper to Oklahoma City in a day by air post 1945, but it would have shot most of the day (which it does, as a practical matter, anyway).  And it no doubt was also possible to go the much shorter distance of Oklahoma City to Houston in a day, although it would have taken a lot longer than it does now.  That might have shot the whole day there too.  And getting back from Houston would be a long series of flights.  So, it could have been done, no doubt, but my three day example would, more likely, have been a four or five day example, and also less likely to have occurred.

 Houston, 1949.  I wonder how many of these tall buildings are still standing?

Commercial airliners in Casper Wyoming in the early 1950s, one taking off while another sits on the tarmac.

This week, as already noted, I've made the much shorter trip, by pickup truck (we don't own a true "car", just trucks, assuming a Suburban is a truck), from Casper to Cheyenne.  In Cheyenne I stayed overnight, as I had additional work the next day, and then I drove to Denver, where I again stayed the night.  Not particularly remarkable, and a trip which a person could easily make by automobile at any time since 1930 or so.  And by the 1930s that was pretty common within the state or to a nearby area, like Denver.  I've heard other lawyers speak of travel in that era many times, although one thing to note is that doing it in the winter would have been dicey, and unlike now local people generally traveling that sort of distance would have done it with a sedan, rather than with a pickup truck or 4x4, as is so common here now.

 Denver Colorado, 1898.  This photograph was taken somewhere int eh Capitol Hill District, based upon the few buildings I recognize in the photograph.  The rail line would be in this view, but it is not visible in this photograph.

But what has struck me this trip is the degree to which, even in my own lifetime, I no longer really ever leave the office, even when I'm on the road.

Office of the 1940s, note the lack of any office machinery, other than a telephone, on the desk. No computer, no Dictaphone, no typewriter.  While a Dictaphone wouldn't have been surprising, any other office machinery would have been, which says something not only about the lack of it, but the reliance upon secretaries to process any work at the time.

When I first started practicing law nobody had portable laptop computers and there were few easily transportable cell phones.  Basically, when we were out of the office, we were out of the office.  The only chance of finding out if we had messages was to call back to the office and have somebody read the pink "message" slips we received if we missed a call.

Now, that's all a thing of the very remote past.  On Monday, when I traveled down for a hearing, I had, as always, my Iphone, and I checked and replied to email on it.  That evening I plugged in my computer and worked on work stuff that I emailed off all evening.  The next day I checked my voice mail messages, sent instructions regarding the same, and went on to my next hearing.  When I arrived in Denver, I once again plugged in my computer and picked up and responded to my email, which I did again the following early morning (I woke up about 4:00 am conscious of the fact that I'd failed to reply to an email I'd received the day prior).  During all of this, from time to time, I spoke by cell phone to my office or other lawyers concerning various pending matters.

 Typical hotel scene for me.  Briefcase, book (Street Without Joy), and laptop computer.

At one time, therefore, this trip, which still would have occurred, would be a series of solitary events, mostly uninterrupted, and un-informed, by what was going on elsewhere. The actual amount of work accomplished would have been considerably less than it is now, but on the other hand the hours would have been considerably shorter as well.  The work at night would have not gone on into the evening, and the work during the day would not have commenced at 4:00.

Another thing worth noting, perhaps, is the extent to which some of us hole up in our hotel rooms on business travel.  I guess this hasn't always been the case.

A friend of mine, based upon an observation of mine that hotel rooms in the historic Plains Hotel in Cheyenne are really small, noted that in old hotels the rooms are small but the lobbies were big.  This is, I would note, very much the case, at least as to the vintage hotels I've stayed in here and there.  I frankly don't chose old hotels as a rule, as my luck is really mixed with them, but over time I've stayed, for example, in The Plains, Oklahoma City's Skirven, Tulsa's Ambassador and others.  The Ambassador in Tulsa is the nicest hotel I've ever been in, by far, and I always stay there when I'm in Tulsa.  It's a bit unusual, however, in that the rooms are a decent size, which is not the case for most vintage hotels.

Anyhow, as my friend observed, nobody hung out in their rooms. Why would have they, really, as there were no televisions, no Internet, no radios even if early enough?  You could sit in your room and read, but then you could also go down, get a table in the bar, and do that perhaps.  It hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense.  Indeed since then I've noticed that every single vintage hotel I've been in has a huge, fairly ornate, lobby.  The Plains does, the Skirven does, the Oxford in Denver (which has little tiny rooms if the one I had is any indication), the Ambassador does, and even the Calvert in Lewistown Montana does, although it was converted from a public girl's school dormitory (distances were too great for parents to bring their girls into school for much of the year at the time it was built).

 

Lobby of the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The vintage hotel has been restored in recent years.

Now hotel rooms are bigger and in some instances quite large.  There's usually a table to work in. The hotel I stayed in near the Denver airport (prices downtown were insane) was equipped with two televisions.  Why, exactly, a room that small needs two televisions isn't clear to me, but at the hotel I was staying at the bedroom, or area with a bed, was slightly separated from the entry way, where a work desk was located.  The second television was in the bedroom.  I've never had a television in a bedroom, save for the one room apartments I had when I was a college student, and I don't want one in my bedroom now.

I hardly actually ever actually watch the television in a hotel room, I'll note, and didn't here other than to flip through the channels.  I'll often do that, which is probably a hold over from my younger years in which hotels were the only places I was ever at where there were the "premium" channels like HBO.  Now, with basic cable, you get a lot more channels that you are ever inclined to view, or at least that's the case for me.  My basic cable comes with channels like the Bolivian Grade School Soccer League Channel, or whatever, and I have a hard time believing that anyone views them, but there they are.

The hotel I was at was part of the Hilton chain and when I noted what movie options were available there was a section, as there always is in a Hilton, for movies a person would be ashamed to watch at home. Weird.  I read somewhere once that one of the hotel chains (not sure which one) was the largest distributor of that kind of junk on Earth, which may or may not be true, but that is a truly odd thing about some business hotels.  These sorts of hotels cater to businessmen, and it's odd to think that a certain section of that clientele uses their trips to view such material.  Hopefully they aren't charging it to their clients.  On the other hand, the odd channels I like to watch with old movies and the like are never offered, so as always, I turned it off and picked up a copy of the book I'm reading, "Street Without Joy".  Had I stayed in old hotels, back in the day, I'd no doubt have stayed in my room with a book.  Pretty much like I do now, except when I'm working, which is often. 

Indeed, I have traditionally done an enormous amount of reading while traveling and still do on airplanes.  The invasion of work into evening hotel time has cut down on my reading in hotels somewhat, however.

Is this an improvement, or not, or neither, over prior conditions?  I can't really say, but I will note that even now I always worry about things while I'm on the road.  I worry about the calls I miss,, the mail, the whole nine yards.  I zealously check these things, so that I'm not worried as much.  Looking back I worried about them when I couldn't check, so maybe this is a personal improvement.  But also, it means that a person is more isolated in travel, and working more when they travel, which probably inspires my wife's observations that I'm not fun to travel with on short trips, as I travel so much.  Indeed, I'd note, if a short trip is a day trip for personal reasons, I'll go ahead and use my computer and cell phone to keep up with work, which probably isn't a good thing.