Find The Boots

Rantings from a few corporate types about life, technology, travel, guns, politics, and everything good in the world.

GG on "Retreats"

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Ok, so not digital and this may be exposing my love of good clothes, but in this month's GQ (pages 95/96) there is a great article on the difference between boondoggles and retreats.

I'd recently accepted a new job, and my prospective boss called to tell me that his division was being rewarded with a five-day all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas. This adventure was scheduled to happen a few weeks before my official start date, but he invited me along anyway, thinking it might be a swell way for me to bond with the crew. Now, the thought of meeting my future colleagues unser such circumstances - shirtless, sunburned, and hungover - wasn't exactly appealing. but I like palm trees and string bikinis [ed - or speedo's for our female readers, natch] as much as teh next guy [ed - gal], so might have scammed the free vacation if the guy hadn't gon on to explain that this even was not a good old corrporate boondoggel but an elaborate planned "retreat."

Ok, well, that is beautiful in its own way.

Boongoggle=good, retreat=bad.

When you come home from a retreat you have a binder. When you come home from a boondoggle you have a logo'd golf cap, balls, a sunburn, and a hangover. Or silk shorts, whatever.

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Find The Boots

An executive goes on a business trip. When he arrives, it's raining cats and dogs. To avoid ruining his shoes, he purchases a pair of galoshes for $15, which he expenses under "Misc." on his expense report. A week later, the accounting department rejects his expense report, with a post-it note that says that the company does not reimburse for items of clothing. The next trip, the executive turns in an expense report without the galoshes, but with a post-it note that says "FIND THE BOOTS!".