Chicago Recap: Part 1

This past weekend, I visited the Windy City not only for work, but also for play. A few months ago, a friend of mine in Chicago came up with the idea to have all of our college friends come into town for the Ohio State/Northwestern game, which was being played in Evanston, just north of the city. Seeing as I love a.) the Ohio State Buckeyes b.) the city of Chicago and c.) the opportunity to party in any place besides Cleveland, I made plans to head to the land of deep dish pizza for a weekend of pigskin and partying.

And then fate intervened.

As part of my job, I have the opportunity to travel to all of our sites around the footprint. It just so happens that my company has a site in Chicago. Being the clever little monkey that I am, I figured that I could probably combine the two trips and get work to help me get me out there in the process.

What I didn’t want to do was violate any ethical rules, so I cleared it with my boss and she said that the company would fly me out there and put me up for one night in a hotel. I almost did a back flip out of her office because my original plan was to drive out there with friends and then sleep on someone’s couch/floor/foot of bed/front porch or any other free area. Even though I had to work, this was definitely an upgrade.

I flew out of Cleveland on Friday morning and was scheduled to land at 9:00 Chicago-time and be at the office by 10:00 for a meeting. The fine folks at Southwest decided to burn a little more fuel than necessary and circle the city a few times while waiting for clearance from the tower to land. Didn’t they know who I was? I am a project manager/business analyst from Cleveland and I have important business to conduct! You will land this plane immediately!

I managed to keep this bit of internal monologue to myself seeing as I didn’t feel like dealing with the Department of Homeland Security. Again. By law, I’m not allowed to talk about that story, but it involves a man named Hamzid, an eyeglass repair kit, and several million dollars worth of uncut diamonds.

Anyway… So I landed about an hour late and then hopped in a cab to meet up with the team in Chicago.

I could bore you with writing about “work stuff” but it really isn’t worth it. You guys (both of you) don’t come here to read about “work stuff” do you? Didn’t think so. But there was one guy I met with who looked like he had an inch and a half booger on his shirt all day. It was one of those ones that after you blow your nose and look in to the Kleenex (yeah, like you don’t do this) you wonder how something that big was able to amass itself in your nasal cavity. When you were younger, you would’ve wiped something like this on a younger brother or sister. Well, this guy had one on his shirt the entire day and no one said a word to him. That was the highlight of the working part of my trip.

After wrapping up some meetings, I made my way out to the hotel and got settled. Since I had to wait for some friends to meet me there, I couldn’t really go out. Plus, in addition to the pouring rain outside there were 45 mph gusts of wind kicking around Chicago. Sweet. So, I went down to the restaurant in the hotel and had a nice steak and a few glasses of wine for dinner. By myself.

I have no problem eating by myself as long as I have something to do, like read the newspaper or watch TV. The one TV was about 30 feet away and I couldn’t read the closed captioning. I also failed to bring a newspaper because I thought I could sit at the bar and catch a game or something. So, I sat at a table in the bar and in between squinting at the TV and text messaging my friends the same message (“I’m eating at a hotel restaurant by myself. Love, Willy Loman.”), I tried to look like I wasn’t a complete loser. Of course, after my second glass of wine I really didn’t care. Just as I was about to start carving my name in the table, my food arrived and I devoured what might have been one of the top 3 steaks I have ever had. Good. Lord. You could’ve cut this thing with a fork. Good work, hotel restaurant.

When the check came, I was ready to hand over my credit card and settle up, but I noticed that you could just write down your room number and they would add it to your bill when you checked out of the hotel. I can understand why the hotel would do this, but what’s to stop someone (me) from putting down a random room number, signing the check, and then walking away? From what I gather, nothing. I filled out the receipt, stuffed it back into the folder and walked away.

I’d love to tell you that I put in another room number, but I didn’t since I’m not a terrible person. But, if there are any terrible people reading this thing (and you know who you are), if you ever want to eat for free, go into a hotel and try and pull this scam. I’m guessing it would work 95% of the time.

It looks like I’ll have to write Part 2 tomorrow, so stay tuned.