I remember when I was interviewing for jobs I often asked how much travel was involved. You can see from some of my travelogues, that I really enjoy running around the States and the world. Like many people, I thought there was some glamour in traveling around for work. Luckily, I declined a consulting type job that required 100% travel to places all over the country. However, auditing is a traveling job too, and most people in our firm average 15-20% of their time outside of Chicago.

It almost doesn't make sense for someone in the Big Five to travel great lengths to service clients. I mean, what is the point of having offices all over the world if we are still going to fly people from far offices. The reality is that the local office gets credit for the profits from a client based on the work its local staff do. So, if our local partner wins a job in California, a client moves its headquarters, or a local client has far-off subsidiaries, we often try to service them from Chicago. This also allows for more consistent work and better communication, but mostly it is kinda crazy.

The reason I say all this is that I am sitting in a limo on the way home from a three day stint at a far-off client. I went down with the senior, manager, and partner to do some little quarterly work for this publicly traded (ie SEC 10Q required) client. I feel like we got a decent amount of work done, but I am not sure that it is worth the cost.

Although our flights were like $500 each, many people point out that this is only about two or three hours of work at the rates some of our staff bill at. So maybe the cost is justified for a multi-day trip. Then there is the hotel. The first night we stayed at this classy hotel for $130 per person. We decided that was a little steep compared to our usual Embassy Suites, so we switched. I guess these are the main costs of out-of-towners, but there is more that gets charged in too.

Many people are of the philosophy that there is nothing to do when out-of-town, so the team should either work late or come up with some activity to pass the time. Personally, I have some of my own hobbies that I can take with me on the road. I wouldn't mind jogging/swimming or reading/writing or shopping/hanging out in general around the hotel. However, my vote usual loses out to some group activity which is deemed acceptable for the whole team.

Generally this is pretty fun stuff like hockey and baseball games, big dinners, and of course bars. It seems kinda crazy that we charge this kind of stuff to the client as legitimate out-of-town costs, but it seems to work. This trip, we went to a Modern English concert one night. We also charged in a dinner at this suave steakhouse which must've cost $200 for seven of us. These things tend to drag on for hours and contribute to my bad health.

I have become famous on this team for complaining about stuff like this. The problem is that I am not really into steakhouses, bars, or baseball, etc. I have fun, of course, but travel to me is more about walking around downtown, sampling the local history, and maybe seeing some state parks or something. This is not business travel. Business travel is about mainstream things that you could do anywhere in the States: chain hotels, chain restaurants, and pro sports.

Am I complaining? Maybe. I think I started out talking about the cost of all this stuff. It is substantial. But I guess we got some work done during this time too. The whole concept of big business and the auditors' lifestyle still seems to amaze me.