6 Tips for Traveling with Coworkers

Longer post about Stockholm coming, so for now I thought I would treat you to some top tips I have learned. Feel free to comment or email me with others and I can edit with updates ;-)

Disclaimer: this post is purely in regards to coworkers that you are not FRIENDS with, but are forced to travel with. These tips are also only for people like me who are concerned about coming off as a dick if they say no to time with said coworkers.

6) Pretend. I don’t know if you yourself are a talker or if you can sit in comfortable silence with your good friends or family or loved ones. Regardless, your coworkers are GOING to make silences awkward. Period. In order to avoid these awkward silences, you need to learn what they find interesting or how they tend to keep or start “conversations” and pretend like you are right on board and find it interesting. PARTICULARLY when they tend to repeat stories or observations over… and over… and over again.

Practice with me now:

“Ooooh wow, you say they forgot to add your airline rewards number to your flight and now you don’t know if you’ll get your points?? Wow. I can’t believe they did that.”

“Yeaa you’re right, lots of rock around here. Looottsss of rock.”

And when your coworker decides to spend 30 minutes wandering a grocery store on a saturday when you have agreed to drive with them and therefore you have no option but tag along, pretend it’s a museum or like you’re really intrigued by this cheese that your grocery store doesn’t have. It’ll make it seem more humorous than annoying.

5) Ignore. On a similar note, after faking interest in the uninteresting or surprise in the story you have now heard 8 times, You need to get your poker face on hardcore and DO NOT FLINCH when they feel no hesitation in doing their gross habits in front of you or doing those little things that annoy the SHIT out of you. These habits may include activities such as:

Blowing their nose in public
Spitting all over everything when they talk
Talking about nothing but alcohol and where they drank last or how drunk they were last weekend or last night
Getting drunk in front of clients
Making sure everyone around them is always aware that they have traveled to your current location more than anybody else
Mouth breathing
Inquiring about every item on a menu
Practically refusing to talk about anything BUT work
Turning on their blinker in the car 1 mile ahead of time
Assuming you want to hang out with them

4) Go solo. Find your own time. As much as you kind of feel forced into having all of your meals with this person or these people, every now and then there will be an organic moment where it would not phase anyone for you to do your own thing- TAKE IT!!! For the love of all that is sane, look for those moments and jump on them. Don’t look too eager about it, but take those opportunities to eat a meal with other people or by yourself, or to just go to your room and read instead of going out drinking. And sometimes, you will just NEED to say no and go off on your own- do that. When you are nearing a breaking point, don’t let yourself get there. Go find somewhere that makes you happy or calm and go there.

3) Say yes. Say yes to meals or activities when it is least inconvenient to you. Maybe you happened upon a day alone, you’re in a good mood, you are feeling amicable, and they ask when you want to grab dinner and it doesn’t make your blood boil, then go. Get an easy win when your mood can handle it and it will help you later on to get your time alone.

2) Stay strong. Although I do not think you should try to argue with them EVERYTIME they do something you disagree with (“Yes, Todd, ciabatta IS an Italian bread!!!!!”), but I absolutely recommend that you choose and fight the battles that are most important to you. Do not let them get away with something you find completely disrespectful and don’t feel pressured to do anything you really, really don’t want to do. When I say that, I don’t even mean that they are trying to get you do something illegal or whatnot… this could be something you don’t want to do for whatever reason… something as simple as “No, I can’t go to Red Robin again. I just can’t do it. I’m going somewhere to get a salad. See you in the morning”

1) Smile. So again, some coworkers are easy to travel with even if you are not friends with them outside of work. Some people ALSO want time on their own- these people are easy. These are NOT the coworkers that require tips to be around. For those others, don’t let yourself hate them for being bad travel buddies. You were both forced into this (probably), and just because they don’t travel the same way you do does not make them horrible people… as much as 6 weeks of watching them hail down waitresses from across a restaurant to ask for “a tall glass of ice, LOTS of ice” makes you think they are. Positivity will save your sanity.

See you soon!