Business Travel

Adrienne: So, Lisa, I see your suitcase out. You are going on a trip?

Lisa: I am. I'm going to Taiwan on a business trip.

Adrienne: A business trip. How do you feel about taking business trips?

Lisa: Sometimes I love business. I love getting out of the city for, you know three or four days and staying at a nice hotel and taking a flight somewhere, going to the airport.

Adrienne: So you like to travel?

Lisa: I love traveling.

Adrienne: You don't mind staying in different hotels and riding on the plane all the time. Don't you get bored?

Lisa: No, I never get bored. I mean, I don't always like going to... I don't always like the whole checking in the airport process because it takes a lot of time and then it's waiting for the plane, et cetera, but as soon as I'm in the plane and the doors close, I love it. No one can contact me. I can't contact anyone else. There are free movies playing and the food comes. It's wonderful.

Adrienne: So you kind of like the existence of living in a bubble. It's like a mini-vacation.

Lisa: Yeah. Even though, often I find when I go on business trips it's a lot busier than when I'm not on business trips in terms of my workload. It does feel like a mini-vacation. You stay in a nice hotels. I get to take taxis everywhere, which I love to do. You know, we eat at great restaurants and we're meeting with great people and doing some important things so yeah, I really do love the whole aspect of business trip life.

Adrienne: So what do you do to try to avoid being bored when you're waiting for the plane. You know, when you're waiting to board, when you're sitting on the plane, maybe the movies aren't working or something, what do you do to avoid getting bored?

Lisa: Well, the first thing I do is I don't get to the airport too early, so I'm a frequent flier. I always use my frequent flier card to earn points and I've earned enough now that I don't have to wait in the economy line even when I fly economy, but I get to wait in the first class or business class line and that makes me very happy. I check in and then I, unfortunately, I normally go to the duty free store and I say unfortunately, cause it's unfortunate for my credit card, not really unfortunately for me. I go to the duty free store. Normally I buy some perfume or cosmetic products cause they always have stuff that you can't get in department stores in the city. I'll go to the business lounge, where there's free drinks and food and if I do get to the airport with a couple of hours I'll go and do some work.

Adrienne: Do you ever buy souvenirs?

Lisa: I always buy souvenirs for my colleagues when I go to the countries, so when I am in the airport I'll buy them some souvenirs or some food or normally it's food that I'll bring for my colleagues in the office that I'm going to visit.

Adrienne: And what about brining souvenirs back?

Lisa: I used to bring souvenirs back but lately I've been going on a lot of business trips and so the novelty of souvenirs has warn off.

Adrienne: I see. Sounds like an exciting lifestyle.

Lisa: It's fun. I wouldn't give it up for anything else.