There’s a certain romanticism around work trips in your early 20s. Years before I became a full-time freelance journalist, I worked for a celebrity-founded fashion brand—and my role required semi-frequent business travel. Photo shoots, store openings, brand events. Flights from New York to Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Nashville. In the beginning, I was wooed by the idea of airline miles and hotel points. I loved booking an Uber to the airport with a company credit card. I didn’t mind the early wakeup calls and later-than-average bedtimes. It all seemed glamorous, even if most days were, in typical business trip fashion, booked from sunup to sundown with meetings, events, and endless errands.
Although it wasn’t your quintessential business trip—I never experienced the life of a road warrior consultant or analyst—I eventually started to feel the weight and exhaustion that inevitably replaced the excitement of work travel. When you’re in the air or at an off-site during the week, it can be harder to fit in your day-to-day work. You end up waking earlier or staying up later to respond to emails or finalize the presentation that requires uninterrupted heads-down time. Your precious hours of sleep quickly diminish, which only makes coming back into the office, or signing on for a meeting the morning after a late flight, that much harder. Packing work event-appropriate clothes in a carry-on suitcase also tends to lose its luster.
On one particularly tiring trip to Nashville in early 2019, however, I was given the go-ahead on what would become my favorite thing to do on a business trip: order room service. I have an exceptionally vivid memory of a plate of spaghetti being delivered to my room at what was then the Bobby Hotel (it recently rebranded to The Nash), and the sheer delight it gave me to be able to relax in a bathrobe, get something to eat, and soak up a few minutes to myself. After a nonstop day surrounded by co-workers, I didn’t realize how much I needed to decompress—and a meal at a restaurant wouldn’t have provided the same mental relief. It also helped that the room service charge wouldn’t appear on my personal credit card statement—the perks of business travel.
To this day, I remain someone who will almost always choose room service when I’m traveling for work. Yes, my career has changed shape since my days of taking behind-the-scenes social footage at photo shoots and working with fashion influencers, but it’s no less busy. I have to actively and purposefully find ways to refuel my battery while I’m on the road. Countless room service breakfasts later—dinners are a bit more rare—I continue to feel a sense of elation when I hear the anticipated knock on my hotel room door. Even if I only have 15 minutes to fit in the meal, I still appreciate the peace and quiet that comes with sipping an orange juice or coffee from the comfort of a hotel bed, or the extra bit of sleep I get to squeeze in before heading out for the day. It’s these small moments that make even the least glamorous of travels feel a bit like a vacation, if only for a few minutes in the morning.
Granted, not every work trip is paired with a hotel stay that offers room service. When that’s the case, I’ll pick up something on my way back to the hotel, or I’ll order delivery. No, it doesn’t have the same luxurious feel as room service, and it often requires donning a pair of shoes or slippers and waiting in the lobby, but it’s still a welcome indulgence—and allows a bit of much-needed me time.
Read the full article here