Overseas Business

I embarked upon my first overseas (from Europe) work trip last week, a ten-day excursion to a strange, exotic and faraway land… none other than the southern coastal United States. I departed last Wednesday afternoon from cold, rainy, not-quite-done with-winter Zürich on a direct 10-hour flight to steamy Miami, where the war of man’s air conditioning vs. nature’s humidity never ceases. There began the first phase of my trip’s mission to meet and greet some key sales managers and a few customers, and begin the arduous process of assessing and planning our eventual attack on the U.S. petroleum market. Phase 2 of my trip was Houston, oil central, but that will come later.

My company hosts a demo laboratory about 90 minutes north of Miami, where customers come to evaluate or train on our products. The lab sits quite strategically in a locale people don’t mind visiting, thus fortuitous for me as well. So I engaged Thursday and Friday in my various work-related politicking and marketing-schmooze talking activities; I think it’s called “a job” in other vernacular. But doubtlessly more important were my various cultural explorations and re-introductions to that smorgasbord of uniquely American goods and services after now nearly 1-1/2 years (can you believe it? us neither.) living in Europe. Yes, Steph and I truly have two worlds of entertainment--still discovering Europe and now re-discovering America, no kidding.

Let me begin unfortunately with one or two negatives. The world economic crisis apparently forced all airlines (or at least American and Swiss Airlines) to economize and reduce already-cramped coach-class legroom by an additional four inches (or maybe I’m just a rusty traveler). Although an unexpectedly nice side effect is the laptop screen keeping my nose and cheek so warm while I type this blog entry in luxurious seat 27C. The other observation is what a car culture we are. If consumerism (which I think has largely positive effects) is first, cars are a close second. Since my years-long daily miserable suburban traffic-jammed commutes in Chicagoland way back when, I lost any zest for automobiles, and not driving now for 17 months has certainly bolstered that sentiment. So the vast quantity and size and speed of the vehicles, and the admittedly Southern regionally ridiculous preponderance of oversized pick ‘em up trucks, and the virtual total absence of any other transportation option--unless you count the airport group shuttle to the massive rental car complex as public transportation--tends to stick more than usual in my proverbial craw. But off that soapbox...

I landed in Miami last Wednesday evening, rented my car, drove to the nearby Hyatt where Steph finagled me a nice rate, checked in and then tumbled into the small, informal bar for a bite before bedtime. The Cobb salad was quite satisfactory, but not as delicious as the ice-cold Sam Adams--we have plenty of lagers in our Swiss neck of the woods, but none in the Boston micro-brew category. Luckily (?) everyone in the bar was mesmerized by that evening’s installment of American Idol, bantering amongst themselves after each performance as if each one held some enormous gravity. So silly. It was lights out after that for me, toes up into my oversized bed to start work in the morning.