I work for a company/project with people in multiple countries.
For a couple months, there had been talk of traveling to get everyone together in [far away country] at the end of this month, but I hadn't heard if it was confirmed.
When I asked, it turned out travel was confirmed, but I wasn't on the list of people to go, so simply nothing had been communicated to me. Now that I asked, I have been included on the trip.
It played out something like this:
Me: "Hey boss, we had been talking about travel to [country] at the end of this month. Is that happening? It's almost time and I don't know if I should be booking a flight."
Boss: "Yes, we're going. You weren't on the list of people to go. We didn't know that you wanted to go! It's not too late though! You're going now."
This all happened very fast and I wasn't sure how to react because I hadn't even thought about if I wanted to go, I didn't think it was up to me. Flustered, I complied with my boss and applied for my visa for [country] and began asking coworkers about their travel plans. I haven't booked a flight yet.
The more I think about this the more I really don't want to go, for reasons including:
- I am really, really dreading the long flights and layovers. I am prone to back and neck pain, I have to stretch a lot to mitigate that just from a regular work day. I don't know how I will tolerate 20+ hours of travel
- The meetings we will be having in [country] are, frankly, boring and pointless. I know because we do this every quarter. I prefer to take them from the comfort of home where I can call into the meeting and work on other things, rather than have to be attentive to something pointless in person.
- I am realizing I would have to cancel some plans next week. (These plans are not important enough to qualify as a good excuse not go).
As the dread builds I am considering calling my boss to ask if it's too late not to go. But that would involve specifically telling him I don't want to go, which I think may reflect poorly on me. If I had known that travel was confirmed but I was not on the list I would not have asked and would have been perfectly happy with that.
Can I try to backpedal out of this without shooting myself in the foot?