Many many years ago, when I was a fresh-faced young engineering geologist, the only one in a big multinational consulting engineers, I walked into the Victoria St office one morning, and was intercepted by the travel lady, asking me for my passport. Why? You're going to Saudi tomorrow. For a meeting.
Think I went out one day, back the next. And that was in the days before free booze on BA.
I get out of Saudi by ticking the OH VEY, I'M REALLY VERY JEWISH box on the visa form. They may have relaxed things, but probably not.
I think the worst meeting I got sent to was early in this section of my career when my boss and I went to a meeting we had scheduled. We figured we could do it in a day if we got up sometime in the middle of the night (an idea that always seems progressive less good the close you get to the alarm going off) and schlepped over to Heathrow for the early flight.
The guy we were meeting forgot about it then made a big fuss about the 'imposition' and 'found fifteen minutes' from his schedule of sitting around and drinking coffee. So he went and got more coffee and cake, which he shared with everyone in the meeting other than us as our bellies growled around the remains of a BA croissant.
And because it was supposed to be a all day meeting, I'd book the last flight out and, of course, they couldn't squeeze me on a earlier plane. I should have taken the opportunity to see the sights, but I was mostly a bit a fucked off. My boss has another meeting so flew off elsewhere. Oh, and I fell asleep in the taxi to the airport and the driver tried to stiff me for an epic fare (he lost his previous ability to speak English during this heated discussion). I threw some money at him and stomped off. Then got double annoyed but it wasn't my money anyway.
Austria has made me grumbly ever since.
Oh, and the time senior management dispatched me to Chennai to 'sort something out' with some new Indian business we were outsourcing too. Sure, says I. It turned out that somewhere in the morass of communications they'd not really told the Indian company this was happening or that I was coming. But in the usual way, the Indian company was so keen to stay in our good books (and keep the contract) they didn't admit they had no clue why I was there. I'd keep asking for stuff that I assumed they'd have and they'd all nod and say 'yes' and that was that, it wouldn't appear. This act lasted about three days, until someone fessed up that really, they weren't sure who I was or why I was there.