Terrible but good

I was driving at 115kph and the sun wasn't up yet when I took it...that's why the photo above is terrible - or maybe it's because of my photographic skills. Surely I get some points for driving and taking photos at the same time though right?

Nope, it's bad, and wrong and dangerous and I should know better...but I did it anyway.

My day started at 5am when I woke up, took a shower and shoveled some food into my mouth and by 6am I was in my work vehicle heading north.

The work trip would take me away from home for a few days and would cover many hundreds of kilometres - more than I initially expected. It's almost 9:30pm and I've just finished up working on my computer, all the stuff I couldn't do during the day due to all the driving, and I'm feeling a little tired.

I drove for a total of 757 kilometres today, all high-speed open roads, and did four appointments in between at various locations. It was productive but the beeping of my work phone as emails came in was annoying as I knew I'd have to deal with them all later, which I've just done. Right about now that bed you see below, my hotel room, beckons and I don't think I'll be far off hitting it...but the annoying thing of it is I rarely sleep well when I'm away for work; just another terrible aspect of work trips.

Today was really productive, the good aspect of work trips and a testament to the power of working in person rather than via phone or digital means, and I'm really pleased despite having a fucken terrible headache. Tomorrow should be ok too: Breakfast at the hotel, hopefully good not terrible, a quick stop to see a mate for coffee who happens to live in the town I'm in and then I'm off for two more appointments 400 kilometres away and then it's a straight 350 kilometre run home - ok, not totally straight, there's some bends and hills and corners, I should arrive there by 7pm and I think I'll sleep like the dead that night.

It's interesting that when I'm in the moment, busy working, I don't think of what I do or have to do as terrible, the situations and workload, I just get on with it and make things happen...until later...that's when I look back and think how terrible it was, draining, headache-inducing, tiring and...well, in truth I don't feel that swapping my life for money in this way is how it should be...but it is and that goes for most of us.

I'm looking forward to a shower right now, and to sleeping (if I manage to sleep) and to getting tomorrow done and dusted and to going home. But thinking back on my day, as I will do with the entire trip, terrible though it was, I also see good in it, great benefit and I think my efforts were appreciated and will carry a lot of weight moving forward. So out of something terrible comes something good...but not that fucken photo up there, it's just plain terrible.

Have you ever made the effort to get face to face with someone in your professional life and had it turn out far better than if you had done the meeting by phone or video chat? Tell me about it if you like.