on the road

If Jack Kerouac had been a businessman instead of a beatnik, he would have been a road warrior. Instead of being the voice of a generation of Americans, he would have been travelling most of the time, trying to convince his market that his product was better than “theirs,” and I’d wager he would have been good at it. Instead of being a dharma bum, he would have been a dharma sales manager, trying to shave the last available cent off the bottom line to make a sale. Maybe he would have been one of the guys who spend their workweeks out in the field, installing the products after the sales guys shake hand with the customers at the end of the deal. Maybe he’d be one of the service guys that spend their weeks in unfamiliar places trying to make work what the engineers couldn’t on the shop floor of the manufacturing plant.

In any regard, I don’t think Jack would have been a nine to five guy, going home every night to the wife and kids. I’m sure he would keep expense reports in neat stacks, rather that taping them all together to make one long document that would unfurl for a hundred feet.

I spent most of my day today being brought up to speed by three very nice women who didn’t speak highly of the restaurant where I ate last night. I’m working on my story for tomorrow, because I went there again tonight and many of the same road warriors from last night were there again. I guess the difference is between fine cuisine and decent food, cheap. Most companies frown on their road warriors spending the company treasury on elegant food, and most guys on the road don’t want to spend a lot of time having a fine dining experience, being viewed askance by the couples and families in the better restaurants, and then going back to the office and explaining to the accounting department why it was necessary to spend so much on dinner. And then being grilled at home by the wife who reminds them that they never go to the nicer places together anymore and that they must love the job more than the spouse.

I am thinking the only thing worse than facing either of the above scenarios would be to have your spouse be the accountant who passes judgement on your expense reports. But in retrospect, at one time Jimbo’s girlfriend (an accountant by vocation) was responsible to checking his expense reports, but that was before they were dating. That particular situation never caused any problem, but she was dating someone else at the time.

So, rather than putting themselves in a situation where they are “praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive” as Meat Loaf suggests in the song Paradise by the Dashboard Light, most road warriors will defer to the reasonably-priced, but good enough quality place in which to dine. The scorn of co-workers is easier to take than that of the little woman or the person in the green eyeshade. Co-workers get phone calls and e-mails to pull them away from your ridicule. Spouses and accountants can remember long after you’d care to forget.

I’m writing again tonight from the road on Jimbo’s girlfriend’s laptop. Microsoft word doesn’t like Jimbo’s style and keeps suggesting he change his long sentences. If you are reading this, it has a difficulty of reading level of 65, whatever than means. I think that means you need to be smart to read it. I’m betting you are. We’re not writing for the lowest common denominator, here. But, until next time, stay warm and safe in your homes. This is Jimbo reporting from the road.

Because Jimbo’s world requires some degree of portability.