Anyone travel for work?

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Next Monday, 1/19, starts an entirely new chapter of my life.

Since 2007 I have been a mechanic. I worked a couple other jobs a bit before that, movie theater, assembly work, but fixing cars is all I’ve know otherwise. I went to school for it, have invested 10’s of thousands into tools and education.

But I am done with it. It’s brutally hard work for not much money usually next to no benefits, the conditions are awful and the auto industry as a whole is in a bad direction and accelerating. I am just fed up with it entirely. The tedium of brake jobs and oil changes, the filth of the road grime, the nasty chemicals and cancerous airborne toxins, the terrible co-workers and burnt out bosses, there is no light at the end of this tunnel.

So I am leaving. A friend offered me a job that pays wayyyyyy more than what I’m doing with an entire slew of unreal benefits, it’s kind of hard to believe.

The catch is: it’s 75% travel.

I’ll be traveling to machine shop to commission, diag, repair, and maintain, machinery, as well as train the customers on how to most efficiently use them.

Travel out beginning of week, do the thing for the middle of the weeks travel home end of week to be home for weekend. There is a tele-help week once a month, which will be a local commute.

Hopefully I will be mostly in the northeast east once the team is assembled, but for now I’m kind of excited for the travel. I don’t really know what to expect tho, getting used to being away that much. Right now I work a mile and a half from my house, I come home for lunch and everyth ing. This is the opposite of that.

I don’t particularly have a a real question here, but I you guys are my homies and I need to talk about this situation with someone other than my wife lol.

Any other road dogs here?

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Staring to wind down now that I’m approaching the end of my mission, that and doing some online school, but typically I travel around 600 miles a week

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I’ll be looking at up 6-8 hrs driving to site, further and I’m flown out to site, at the beginning of the week.
And then again Thursday/Friday to get home.

Fortunately one of my best friends will be my boss, so he will do his best to keep me comfortable and sometimes local.

I’m gonna need to learn how to pack efficiently I think lol.

I think what has me thinking most is if I’m gonna be dealing with homesickness

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You will be homesick but you listed off all the reasons you are doing this so there is plenty of motivation to push through. I drove a truck for a few years and hated it but got the house paid for. I’m starting a carpentry course at the local trade school so I can fix this house correctly. At least it isn’t a new skill set you’re after. If you’ve been nailed down forever then getting out and about should be fun for a little while atleast. Congratulations on a better job!

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I think you are correct, all new positives will push me through the hard parts

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About 10 years back when l started at a hedge fund and was 50% travel in my contract that turned into being in a train to NY from DC twice a week every week for 2 years. Eventually I had to add in a day or two in Chicago Chicago quarterly and reduced my weekly NY visits to a few days monthly and did that until COVID sent me to work from home. Then my was traveling to DC from my north Va home monthly. In ny quarterly and Chicago like yearly. Eventually we closed the Chicago site and ny location before I was let go and the firm folded. As COVID slipped away we started to go back to a hybrid thing one ir two days a week.

Note I lived in VA that whole time and my office was in Maryland about an hour to two hours away with traffic.

For the last 4 years I’ve worked as a defense contractor fully remote. I do maybe 2-3 conferences a year that need a few days travel each, go to our HQ 45 minutes from me maybe quarterly and travel to a team summit annually that’s about a week long. Occasionally there’s a few customer site visits mixed in through the year or things I’ll do in the office. I do have the option to spend 3 months in the Arctic circle if I volunteer but I have no desire to do that. I probably travel less than 10% any given year now and I’m happier. I think my health was at its worse when I traveled all the time.

Biggest advice is use your per diem or take your meals or whatever. Don’t worry about saving if money at the sacrifice of your own well being. Also do everything you can to make family time quality time cause missing family is hard and travel can be really lonely

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Congrats on doing something scary and new! I’m glad you’ll be getting away from things that are eating at you.

Every time I’ve been pushed to the brink at a job and left it’s brought something much better and I hope this will be the same for you. At a minimum I like money and health insurance too.

My team operates more than a hundred call centers in more than 40 different countries, so when I was hired there was some expectation of travel. I went to the Philippines for 3ish weeks, some of it was great and memorable, some of it was me being alone and food poisoned on the other side of the world from everyone I know and love. Medical stuff happened and I can’t really travel anymore, doctor wrote a note saying don’t do it and everything. Which sometimes is a bummer because places like Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan are on the list. I was also relieved though because Pakistan, Guatemala, Benin, etc. countries where you have to set up security details to avoid being kidnapped, were also on the list.

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I really hope I do get to go abroad some! The company is very large and has machines all over the world, but the international stuff is handled by the senior techs typically.

The per diems are nuts, they will pay for my own personal car, all hotel and food while on the road, so it’ll add up nicely, and reduce household expenses. So the financial benefits are mind boggling from my current perspective

Looking forward to a shift to quality time with the fam over quantity. It’ll be an adjustment, but my family and I need me to take this due to our financial position, so that’s motivation as well :sweat_smile:

Oh ALSO!!! I will be taking any and all music and audiobook recommendations. My wife already has all the Wheel of time books and all LOTR related materials on audible, but let’s here what will be good to listen to while eating up the miles

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Good luck dude! If you haven’t ever read/listened to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series it’s a good one.

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Good luck with your new job! Don’t forget to take extra string.

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My mom is a Stephen king super fan, I’ll finally be able to catch up on all her favorites!

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I highly recommend the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks!

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YES, I will have a YoYo bug-out kit, that’s for sure lmao.
I plan to rotate what synths I bring, as well as yo-yos and my trusty GBA SP with flash cart. Down time will not be an issue fortunately. Thank you hobby A.D.D.!!
Heck I could even bring my custom watch and tools and just disassemble and reassemble like I used to for fun, im so familiar with it i could do it with a loupe rather than my microscope now.

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That sounds RIGHT up my alley lol

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Ohh right also good luck and congrats on the new job. You’ll do great. YoYo’s a bunch in airports and trains and while waiting for said transport

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If you find yourself near Panama City Fl give me a shout

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Check out terry Pratchett’s books too. Guards! And Mort are my favorites of the discworld books, but most of the books in the series are enjoyable!

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If you’re a super gamer, or at least want to catch up on some games, try getting a Steam Deck (or another inferior portable PC powerhouse) for those times when you can’t throw.

Also, congrats on the new job!

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Not a bad idea, maybe I’ll snag one with the first bonus!

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Those are a lot of fun! I loved my Steam deck, left it in a hotel on accident and replaced it with a Lenovo Legion GO Steam OS version and also love it.

I used to have to travel to headquarters quarterly before my disability and would have killed to have a portable Steam machine back then instead of watching hotel tv

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