Last week, I wrote about traveling for work and the question my husband and I have started asking ourselves:
Where is work taking us?
We knew we had more trips coming.
We knew some might turn into opportunities to explore, find a good restaurant, let traffic clear or simply enjoy being somewhere different for a little while.
We also knew we’d probably continue asking:
Is this worth it?
Well, we went out of town again this week for another exam.
This time, the answer was:
“I would say this one may not be worth it.”
We drove for about an hour and a half and eventually arrived in the neighborhood where we’d booked our hotel.
I looked around.
“Did you book us somewhere sketchy?”
“I don’t think so,” my husband said.
That’s reassuring.
We accidentally passed the hotel because there were two different driveways, made a U-turn and tried again.
When we pulled into the parking lot, it was packed.
We were staying at a SureStay by Best Western. There was also a Holiday Inn Express in the same parking lot, but when we’d looked at rooms, it was about twice the price.
We found a handicap spot long enough to check in. My husband left the car running, went inside, got our room information, and came back.
Our room was on the bottom floor, directly in front of where we’d parked.
Convenient.
I walked into the room and immediately felt tense.
Something in me immediately said, Nope.
My husband returned to the room after parking the vehicle, looked at me, saw the expression on my face, and called me a snob.
We laughed.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “My body is not happy.”
I also discovered that I may have been watching a few too many videos about hidden cameras, suspicious devices and things plugged into USB outlets that can potentially access your information.
So naturally, I was inspecting things.
Sitting on the desk was this old, worn-looking retractable cord with a connector that could be plugged into a laptop.
I looked at it.
I looked at my husband.
“Do not plug your laptop into that.”
Did I have any evidence there was something wrong with it?
No.
Did I trust it?
Also no.
I admit, I can be a little paranoid.
And yes, I took a picture of it.
If you’re reading this and thinking, Theresa, I’m sure it was perfectly fine, I have photographic evidence of what I was looking at.
You can decide for yourself.
Would you have plugged your laptop into it?
Paranoid or not, I still wasn’t comfortable.
But we were there.
We got ready for bed, and I played games on my phone until around midnight before finally falling asleep.
Then, at 4:45 in the morning, we woke up to screaming outside.
A man was yelling, swearing, and asking someone if they wanted to kill him.
We couldn’t hear anyone responding to him, so we had absolutely no idea what was happening.
It continued for about half an hour.
My body was no longer subtly suggesting that it wasn’t happy.
I was tense. I could feel myself slightly shaking as my brain started running through every possible version of danger happening outside our room.
Eventually, I got up and went into the bathroom because I couldn’t listen anymore.
I never fully went back to sleep.
At 6:30, I got up and showered.
And yes, I am normally a bath person.
Not that morning.
I wasn’t trusting the tub enough for that.
By the time my husband got up, we were moving at the speed of two people whose primary morning objective was:
Get out of this hotel.
The night before, he’d asked me to find somewhere for breakfast. I had found a place about twelve minutes away.
We started driving toward it when he realized we were going in the opposite direction of where his exam was scheduled.
Never mind.
We headed toward the exam location instead.
My husband passed the driveway.
We made a U-turn, went back, found the suite, and then searched for another breakfast place nearby.
One thing we were quickly discovering about this city was that getting somewhere wasn’t always as simple as seeing it and turning in. So many places seemed to have one way in and one way out. Miss the entrance and suddenly you’re driving around trying to figure out how to get back to where you just were.
Add in traffic lights that my husband was convinced had the longest sequences known to mankind, and getting anywhere was becoming its own little adventure.
We found another breakfast place and headed toward it.
We found the street.
And somehow, we passed another driveway.
Apparently, driveways were not our strong suit on this trip.
At this point, another U-turn seemed appropriate.
We pulled into a parking lot to turn around and saw a diner.
Why not?
We went inside.
And that accidental turn ended up being one of the best parts of the trip.
It was a 1950s-style diner with oldies playing in the jukebox. The atmosphere was fun and relaxed, and the food was really good.
After the night we had, it was exactly what we needed.
Sometimes getting lost—or at least missing a driveway—works out.
Breakfast finished, we headed back to the office for the exam.
We walked up to the door.
Closed.
Then we saw the hours posted on the door.
Closed Thursdays.
It was Thursday.
How exactly were we supposed to do an exam in an office that was closed?
My husband called the company that had booked him. I called the number posted outside the office.
A woman answered.
“I’m in a meeting. I’ll be right there.”
Then the door opened.
And once again, the experience completely changed.
Inside was a beautiful, welcoming office decorated with Asian-inspired décor, artificial plants, and flowers. A speaker sat in a circle of white sand surrounded by Buddha statues while the sounds of water and flutes filled the room.
My entire body seemed to say:
Oh. This is better.
I complimented the owner on her office.
She told me she had always hated the sterile look and feel of doctors’ offices and had spent the past twenty years adding to the space to create more of a spa-like atmosphere and experience.
I loved that.
The exam went well.
When it was finished, we got back into the car and decided there would be no sightseeing this time.
No exploring.
No waiting around to see what else we might discover.
We were going home.
We made it back in about an hour and fifteen minutes.
I was exhausted.
And somewhere in our post-trip conversation, we summed up the entire experience:
“The room was a dud, but we got the job done.”
I think that’s going to be part of this new work-travel experiment too.
Last time, we woke up to a beautiful view outside our room, enjoyed breakfast, did the exams, and drove home wondering how we might make future trips more meaningful and memorable.
Well…
Be careful what you ask for.
This one was certainly memorable.
Not necessarily for the reasons we had in mind.
But even this trip had its moments.
An accidental diner that made us smile.
An unexpectedly beautiful office that completely changed how I felt when I walked through the door.
A successful exam.
And eventually, our own front door.
Maybe that’s the real answer to Where is work taking us?
We don’t know.
Some trips may give us beautiful views.
Some may give us places we want to explore.
Some may give us unexpected little discoveries.
And apparently, some may give us a 4:45 a.m. wake-up call that makes us appreciate home a whole lot more.
We won’t know which one we’re getting until we go.
And we’ll probably keep asking:
Is this worth it?
Sometimes the answer may be yes.
Sometimes it may be no.
And sometimes the answer might simply be:
The room was a dud, but we got the job done.
Reflection Questions:
- Have you ever arrived somewhere and immediately thought, What did we get ourselves into?
- How do you handle it when a trip doesn’t go quite as planned?
- Have you ever found something unexpectedly good in the middle of an otherwise frustrating experience?
- When something isn’t necessarily “worth it,” can you still find a way to make the most of it?
Theresa
Flexible Being
Empowering Your Journey to Healing, Clarity, and Self-Discovery.
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Theresa Martinez-Shapiro
Theresa Martinez-Shapiro is the founder of Flexible Being, a Reiki Master, Certified Oracle Guide, intuitive mentor, and writer based in Stockton, California. Through Musings of a Flexible Being, she explores healing, mindfulness, relationships, intuition, and personal growth with a grounded yet spiritual approach.
