I am off to lovely Armonk, New York on business again today. I’ll be gone until Wednesday evening, so it’s not a terribly long trip. Still, I will miss the first day of school for my kids, and I’ll miss the first day of football practice for my son. That kind of sucks.
What sucks worse is the reaction from my daughter. It doesn’t matter where I’m going or how long I’m gone, if I have any trip that takes me away from home for at least one night, my daughter cries when I leave. She tries to be a big girl and not cry, getting that very distinctive “I’m trying not to cry” look on her face, but ultimately she cries every time.
Now, in some ways, that’s really nice. It’s obvious that she cares enough to be disappointed when I leave. It means that she misses me, and that’s really nice to know. Apparently I have not yet reached the point where she’s glad I’m out of her hair for a few days. That’s great.
But mostly, seeing my daughter cry sucks. It sucks doubly knowing that I’m the cause of it. And it sucks exponentially knowing that the reason behind it is so we can have face-to-face meetings on some damn fool project that could just as easily accomplish the same goals by teleconference.
As you can tell, today’s one of the days when I despise my job.
Filed under: Business, Corporate America, Family, Kids, Parenting, People, Travel, Work | Tagged: crying children, traveling for work, useless business trips
Your post is a great story of love between father and daughter. The other part of the story is the lesson that she is learning about inevitable life lessons. People come and go. She is learing that you always come back to her. Each trip no doubt builds on her trust in you and the role you play in her life. And, I bet that the low of you leaving is forgotten in the high of you returning!