Wow you fly a lot! These things are out what, 2 months? :O
Doesn't that get exhausting? I used to have a job where I'd be on a plane every week and I couldn't hack it. It's supposed to be liberating to travel but basically just seeing the inside of a plane, taxi, meeting room and hotel room every day it was more like a moving prison. Sometimes I'd sneak out to walk through these strange places. But often I'd be forced to attend boring business dinners.
My last business flight was in 2018 and I don't miss it at all :) I even cancelled my corporate amex since I never use it anymore. And these guys keep asking for copies of ID and stuff for tax records or something (completely stupid because yes I'm still the same person duhhh) so in the end I just rolled my eyes and told them to stuff it where the sun don't shine :P
It can be tiring - and I don’t do it all the time. The reason to travel at all for work is fundamentally relational; I find if I am happy with the relationships the travel on balance is a net positive: it lets me work on what I want to and meet and befriend super interesting people.
That slight difference in agency and relational availability turns into a giant gap in feelings though, I agree. I’ve done the kind of travel you describe in my younger days and found it a mix of masochistically engaging and depression inducing.
Ah I see, I thought this was like a constant thing like it was for me. My flights were all regional so it wasn't so bad in terms of flight time, but it did take over my life. For example, I often had to be at a meeting at 10-11am monday morning in a country 3 hours flight away. So that meant leaving my house at 1am, driving 2.5 hours to the airport, hurrying through the airport, taking a 6am flight and rushing into a taxi to just get there in time.
By that time my whole weekend would be ruined of course and my week would start with a deep lack of sleep.
And I'm not a relationship guy, I'm a bit autistic so any business gathering means heavy stress for me, no positives.
I'm glad that "let's fly over and have a meeting" culture has been dampened a LOT since the pandemic. At least in the company I work at. It used to be basically a power move, for a manager to get a whole room of seats filled with people flying over to their meeting. Often there was hardly any need for us to be there in the first place. It was just a power move for someone to feel important.
But I'm glad you enjoy it at least some of the time!
That amount of flying in ~2 months sounds more like a pilot or flight attendant.
Edit: Or an exaggeration I hope! The guy looks to be in private equity.
To be fair I had like 300 flight miles July-September, but us PE guys occasionally do work for a living! I currently have deals in Japan and UK and family in the west coast of the US so it’s a realistic number.