I am A Business Woman

I had been working at my current job for about 2 weeks when my boss, Derek, asked if I would go on a business trip. I was so excited about it, the fact I had no idea what I was doing didn’t enter my thoughts until a while later; or more precisely, when I was on the plane heading over.

The set up is our company, Pueo Group Contracting, is going after a huge contract with the government that is based on Kauai. While pursing it, we are trying to be as intimidating and proactive as possible – thus, we held an open house on Kauai to find subcontractors to delegate some of the work to once the contract is ours. I ended up helping put together an advert for the newspaper, and set up all appointments, which is all fine and good, but once actually there I was kinda at a loss for what they were expecting of me. In retrospect, I don’t think they even knew what they were expecting of me.

Anyway, I left on Thursday night, to return on Sunday morning. Since I ride The Boat into work, the only way to get to the airport was to hop on a bus. Sounds simple, right? Ha! As if.

So I planned out my route, and emergency routes in case I messed up, which was highly probable. I headed out, with just the normal amount of stress that would be appropriate for one using a new form of transportation with a deadline. I arrived at my stop and waited around for a while, trying to remain inconspicuous while hanging with the locals. This was very difficult, since most of them were old Chinese women, the tallest of which was 4’ 5”. I swear one of them was trying to hide a chicken in her bag. As such, I had a great view over the tops of their heads to watch my bus zoom past on the opposite cross street, at which point my mouth flew open and I shouted something unintelligible, like they would hear me and stop or something. As I stood there in the aftermath I was feeling some serious anxiety, coupled with the fact that my head had suddenly imploded along with my stomach. Seeing my distress, one of the ladies helpfully informed me in broken English that I needed PriceBusters. In my head, my hysterical self was shouting, “ Pricebusters?! What the hell is that? Do they have a time machine or something?!?”

Looking back sometimes, I realize that my sense of wanting to be accepted by every person I meet on the planet sometimes makes me do stupid things. This was one of those times. Instead of asking for further instruction, my sense of wanting to fit in with the locals that has followed me around since I got here made me say, “Oh, Pricebusters! Thanks so much for your help!” Then go wander vaguely off in the direction she had indicated, like I had any idea what she was talking about. So there I was, wandering around Chinatown, looking like a giant, attempting to discreetly look for a store I had never heard of. However, I think my supposed indifference was given away by the nervous tick I was developing.

I eventually spotted the store, and thank God, the bus stop in front of it. Crisis Diverted. I might make my plane and not get fired, after all.

Of course, once on the bus I once again assumed the ‘I Must Fit In’ mentality that was ever-so-helpful before. I had no idea how the bus thing worked – did they tell you what stop they were coming to? Do they stop at every stop, or do you have to ring the stop requested line? Is that aromatic guy next to me trying to play footsie!? So I spent 30 minutes in a highly stressed state, as I attempted to look nonchalant even though I was sitting on the edge of my seat, straining to see each street sign we passed. I’m sure they were all fooled. Public transportation – you want to meet the locals? Hop a bus, my friend. I should have just told the bus driver I had no idea what I was doing, and only a vague idea of where I was going. I’m not sure what’s holding me back – Pride? Idiocy? Maybe I am a masochist, and enjoy attempting to fry my brain via stress.

I did finally get off at the right stop, and hiked about a mile to the airport. From there there were no more problems, and it was your basic business trip. My trip mates were mostly older guys from several different companies; Raytheon and Chugach were the big players. Most of them were from Alaska, so they were loving the temperate weather, which they remarked on fairly often. I got treated to nice dinners, so that was always fun. My favorite was this sushi place called Hanamaula Sushi – if you’re ever in Kauai, you’ve got to check it out. When we first walked in, it looked like a giant ghetto cafeteria, and it was basically empty, so imagine my surprise when a harried-looking waitress bustled up to us, and seemed exasperated that we didn’t have a reservation even though she had a gillion seats available. I mean, come on. If I were a restaurant owner, a bunch of businessmen with expense accounts walking in would make my day. What gives?

It ended up being my favorite place. Don’t let it fool you – I guess the front is just a decoy to weed out customers who only kind-of want sushi? In the back they have these amazing rooms. It has a line of little Japanese – style boxes, each separated by rice paper walls and facing a (guess what) Japanese-style pond. With Japanese fish. It was kind of all-around Japanese-y. In each box, there is a long table and while it looks like one of those traditional tables where you have to sit on the ground, but it actually has a big trench underneath so you can stretch your legs. I would have taken a few pictures, but I was busy attempting to be a Business Woman, and come up with non-retarded answers to questions like, "How do you think the 8(a) status will effect the position of our future proposal to the government, and with local subcontractors?"

Oh, and the food was good too.

The next two days went something like this:

Go to the conference area and meet/speak with potential subcontractors. (That's my boss Derek on the right)

At 4:30, it’s time to hit the free happy hour at the pool-side tiki hut to see who can have the most Mai-tais.

Dinner somewhere.

Back to the bar for yet more drinks.

I tell you what, those guys may be 25 years older than me, but I sure couldn’t keep up with them. I would try a few drinks with names like Tropical Island Paradise Explosion or whatever, since when I asked for things like Mojitos, servers would look at me weird. After having my drink, which usually amounted to something resembling Pineapple Dimetapp, I would sneak off to my room to crash out.

That’s how it went until the final day, when Wendy went stir-crazy and needed to get off of hotel property. We had only 4 hours, so we decided the scenic drive would be the best
thing for us.

“Oh, it’s perfectly sunny over on that side!” said the rental-car dude when asked about weather conditions.

Well, he lied. We basically drove up this scary, windy path in a rainstorm - risking life and limb - and then eventually into the cloud itself. So while we were 2 feet away from this




And this



What we saw was this:


I was sad for Wendy, as she has never been up there before. All she really saw on our little journey was chickens, and she was amazed by the amount of chickens at the gas station and everywhere else.

She was also amazed at the abundance of housing and lack of industry. After driving about 10 miles seeing only houses and not a single store she would exclaim, “Where do these people work!?” It became a theme.

Tired, but glad to have gotten away for a little while, we headed back to the hotel. I had fun, but was looking forward to going back home so my body could detox. And so I could have a conversation that didn’t involve missile ranges or contracting clauses.