What was your pointless work trip?

[Warks]

I was at a conference last week and there were various presenters from around Australia and some from overseas. The overseas speakers generally have a good roll up but they only speak for like 40 minutes and having flown all the way to Australia in J probably, staying in the expensive conference hotel and then flying back I do wonder if there was much point. Especially when the topic seems largely irrelevant to most. I've seen overseas speakers in multi-stranded conferences in the past with only a few attendees which must feel terrible if you've put so much work into your presentation and flown so far to get there.

For my pointless work trip I once flew to Cairns to do some work at Innisfail. I arrived in the evening, staying in Cairns. Overnight there was a huge rain event, flooding many of the roads between Cairns and Innisfail. I started out on my trip but found out the road was closed so went back to Cairns hoping it would drop. Nope, spent a couple of days there and flew home. Total waste of time and money, thankfully it was my multinational company paying back then.

So what's your pointless work trip story? Either you or someone at your company. I often heard people come back from overseas conferences and when asked what it was like they'd say something like "there was nothing in it for us!" (which is a bad move).

 

[Seat0B]

Mine was also to Cairns. Went to do some training in the month of February, which was always going to be hot and humid. There was the potential for a tropical cyclone, so I checked with them before I went if it was worth going and they said yes, important training, hard to reschedule, and the forecast here isn’t s bad as you southerners seem to think.

Arrive to bucketing rain the day before. Checked in at hotel, phoned to say I had arrived, and they said good, stay put, we will pop over.

About 30 mins later, my local contact arrived and said the weather was getting worse, they were planning to close the airport tomorrow at 12 noon and they had booked me on an early flight back to Canberra first up in the morning.

I spent an anxious night listening to strong wind and bucketing rain, paddled my way through several centimetres of water sitting on the tarmac to board my flight and went straight back home. The cyclone did miss Cairns, but there was still a lot of local flooding. I had to go back a couple of months later and deliver the training. By then it was April/May and the weather was just lovely.

 

[RooFlyer]

At the time of faxes there still needed some documents to be signed in original. So my investment bank flew me to New York, I presented the document to be countersigned, pick up the documents later and went back to the airport same day (IIRC) to go back. Thankfully I was much younger then!

 

[oz_mark]

I once flew from Perth to Sydney, then drove to Wollongong to be told the meeting I went there for had been cancelled.

 

[daft009]

At the time of faxes there still needed some documents to be signed in original. So my investment bank flew me to New York, I presented the document to be countersigned, pick up the documents later and went back to the airport same day (IIRC) to go back. Thankfully I was much younger then!

I met someone in suites who was similar. She flew from NY to SIN via FRA on SQ A380 only to sign some documents and then flew all the way back on the next flight back.

She said she only did it because she could fly suites

 

[AIRwin]

At the time of faxes there still needed some documents to be signed in original. So my investment bank flew me to New York, I presented the document to be countersigned, pick up the documents later and went back to the airport same day (IIRC) to go back. Thankfully I was much younger then!

Not pointless then (in more ways than one)

 

[TheRealTMA]

At the time of faxes there still needed some documents to be signed in original. So my investment bank flew me to New York, I presented the document to be countersigned, pick up the documents later and went back to the airport same day (IIRC) to go back. Thankfully I was much younger then!

Way to go, Bru!

There was a time when a fax or copy was not accepted as a legal document. How times have change when now we can do it all on a phone or watch.

 

[UP4014]

Meeting with customer in Johannesburg, flew from Sydney and he didn’t turn up or even leave a message to say he was unavailable.

 

[Archipelago]

When this popped up in my notifications, I first thought it was going to be about work trips where members were venting about being swindled out of Frequent Flyer points

On the actual pointless meaning for the topic.. have in past years woken up far too early for a 6am domestic departure in the country I work in - checked in before dawn, boarded, buckled up - only for the flight to be commandeered by the top brass (military junta where I am) and us plebs kicked off the aircraft so they can fly somewhere else on short notice. Absolutely no complaining or recourse available on those occasions.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Got flown in J to Manila for three days to see someone on a problem site. Couldn't find him during those three days. So I spent most of those days walking aimlessly around the site speaking to whomever was interested in talking to me. Turns out the guy I was sent to meet is rarely there. Which was the crux of why it was a problem site. Not really sure what I achieved, but I guess it ticked someone's due diligence box.

 

[dajop]

Quite a few work trips on Rex back in the day. And many in rural locations in various countries, such as China, Philippines, Indonesia etc at various random local hotels. All of these were pointless

But I do remember once on a DCIRC I was intending to travel from New York to El Paso to do a field trip before heading to our HQ in the midwest. The field trip was cancelled at the last minute but I still went ahead with the JFK-DFW-ELP flight and stayed there in my hotel for 24 hrs before continuing back on via ORD. If I'd changed I would have missed on a good number of SC's as it was all in "First class"

 

[Cynicor]

Not me, but my brother in his tradie days. Glazing, government contract for a hospital in port Hedland. Flown up for a few weeks of work. Construction not yet at the right stage. Hang around 3 weeks (on full pay in motel) with nothing to do.
Give up, fly home.
About a month or so later, same thing again. I think on trip 3 he finally did some work. Got paid for every hour away though.

 

[RooFlyer]

Not pointless then (in more ways than one)

Pointless for me personally in more than one

 

[Forg]

Most of my wife’s Federal Government Employee business flights were pointless … not statusless, but they were pointless!


I say most ‘cos she did have a couple of flights when she first started working there before the FF points-ban thing was introduced.

 

[SydneySwan]

On March 31 2003 flew SYD - HK on QF in J to give a 3 day course to a bank in HK. Upon arrival QF had a message for me - you are booked on the QF flight back to Sydney. So 2 hours later flew back on the same plane in J to Sydney.

It was the beginning of SARS and HK client had cancelled the course as some of their staff were quarantined.

 

[Pushka]

Husbands business trip was to New Zealand. Arrived into Auckland ok but bumpy but had to fly further south. They boarded and started to fly but were turned around back to Auckland. Workshop was next day but they couldn't get down to it. Were stuck in Auckland for three nights by which time the workshop had been cancelled and he flew back to Australia. This was pre Covid so Teams meetings etc not a possibility.

 

[HirafuHeartAttack]

Also Cairns, seems to be a trend here... Not pointless per se but sure felt like it. Was supposed to be part of a bigger trip basing myself in Brisbane and driving around there and the GC then a day trip to Emerald and finally a trip up to Cairns on the last day before flying back to Sydney from there. The Cairns job was priced based on this, however the day before departing I ended up in hospital after being stabbed by my surfboard and needed 8 stitches.

Skip ahead 2 weeks after I'd recovered and the Cairns job became quite pressing and had to be done separately, so I flew up via Brisbane, collected a hire car and then drove slightly north to complete the job. On the way I managed to collect a stone chip to the windscreen which was just the cherry on top. Completed the job, made a very small amount for the business, which was then wiped away by the excess on the windscreen claim and flew back that afternoon.

 

[Seat0B]

@HirafuHeartAttack has reminded me of a situation where I caused several people to make a pointless work trip.

I was providing some training in CBR for a client that was flying people in from all around Australia to join their Canberra colleagues on the program. I woke up on the day of the program feeling very unwell, but knowing that people had waited a long time for the training and that many had travelled, I pushed on and went to work. This was in the early 2000s, well before the post COVID culture of stay home if you're sick. I felt terrible, but started the training session at 0900.

By 1000, I had vomited into the training room rubbish bin twice - it was so sudden that I could not even make it to the loo. I was sweaty and apparently looked quite green around the gills. And no, it was definitely not caused by any over-indulgence on my part!

The client was lovely - they just sent me home, paid for my day's attendance, rescheduled the training for a month later and used the opportunity of having the whole team together to do some team bonding, which I understand involved putting faces to names, and then enjoying a few relaxing beverages etc before everyone headed back to their various home towns. I felt really bad about it, but the client just laughed it off. Some clients are keepers!

 

[jb747]

I did once have the perfect standby call out. Paxed half way around the world, but when I got there, I wasn't needed. So paxed home.

 

[JohnM]

Not so much a pointless trip, but a point-less trip.

I was on a rural roadshow in Qld for the week or so up to Tuesday 11 September 2001, due to fly home on AN, our domestic travel contractor, BNE-xMEL-PER on Thursday 13 Sept.

After being in Bundaberg overnight and seeing the 9/11 events unfold, and listening to ever-grimmer sounding news about Ansett while driving to the next stop of Gympie on Wednesday 12 Sept., I asked the organisers to shift my talk from afternoon to morning and got onto AN to bring my flights forward 24h.

Fortunately, I had a separate rental car. Gave my talk and high-tailed it to BNE.

Hit MEL and ended up being well on the way to PER by midnight EST when AN went into administration.

A close-run thing not getting stuck in the east for what could have been some time.