My very first business trip, day 4
Sep. 21st, 2011 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassThe short version: 11-hour workday, followed by quasi-work.
This morning I woke up at Too Damn Early O'Clock (a.k.a. 5:45 am). Actually, that's not quite true, I woke up at 2:23 am but managed to get back to sleep for another three and a half hours. I tell you, waking up at 5:45 is hard. My body was not happy with me. I checked my email, got dressed in my red crushed-velvet jacket (so that I might be "the lady in red"), and headed downstairs for 6:30 am.
Breakfast was just served as I got down. Odd fact of the day: there were fewer glasses for this morning's "breakfast for six" than for yesterday's "breakfast for three." Will oddness never cease? Breakfast this morning was a blueberry muffin, juice, and tea. I really wish there were something a little healthier than muffins, croissants, and danishes for breakfast. It starts my day off with too much sugar. But for a week, I suppose it's okay.
Shruti came down to the boardroom shortly after I did, and after we'd both had breakfast (about ten minutes) we started setting up banners. It was a bit tricky, because there's another conference's table right at the exit of the elevators, and anything we put there would just make it look like that was our registration desk, not theirs. But we figured it out in the end, and then set up for the hordes to descend.
We were only ready to start checking people in at 7:15, and the line was already huge. Thankfully, we had two nurses from one of the Toronto clinics helping us, because otherwise we would have been dead in the water. For an hour and a quarter, it was a madhouse. Most people got checked in pretty fast, but I was on "troubleshooting" duty, which meant I was the one my staff sent people to when things went wrong. So, for example, I had to deal with people who hadn't preregistered and wanted to sign up on the spot, people whose badges were lost or nonexistent, people who thought they'd registered for the President's Dinner but didn't have their ticket, etc. Some of these I could deal with moderately efficiently, but some I had to escalate to Christian the Event Planning Coworker. (Things like people who assured me they'd registered for the meeting but weren't in our database, for example.) I felt like I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to deal with two or three different issues at any given time and not have people get angry at me.
And then, right around 8:30, the wave broke and we all collapsed into our chairs. A few people trickled in for the rest of the morning, but mostly my staff and I sat around chatting and answering the occasional question. I got really good at answering some stock questions, like "Where's room X?", "What time can I set up my booth?", and "How can I upload the presentation I'm going to be giving?" And, of course, the ever popular, "Where's the bathroom?"
Some questions were stumpers, though. High on the list was an exhibitor whose speaker at one of tomorrow's sessions is sick, and they wanted to know whether he could give it by teleconference. (I had no idea and directed them to Christian.) We also had a lot of media presence. On the front page of today's Globe & Mail was a story about how doctors are considering new regulations to deny obese women (BMI 35+) fertility treatments. Apparently the clinics' phones were ringing off the hook as of 7:00 this morning, and I saw all sorts of TV interviews going on all day.
Also going on all day: more food. There were pastries and chocolate-covered rice krispie treats brought into the boardroom mid-morning, more brought in mid-afternoon, and the fanciest boxed lunches I've ever seen. (The boxes were actually spiffy bags like you might see used for packing up purchases from upscale boutiques.) We also had bowls of chocolates and candy bars at our reg desk. Given the circumstances, I was... mostly good. I had a peanut butter cup in the morning and a lemon square in the afternoon. I held out for a half-hour before eating the latter, but it got the better of me in the end.
Anyway. Around 12:30 I went into the boardroom to have lunch, telling me staff to just knock on the door if they needed me. I suppose I took about 15-20 minutes to eat, but I was interrupted every few minutes by a knock on the door, some of them from reg desk people, and some of them just other random interruptions that you'll get at the HQ of a conference. (Our AV guy needing to bring in some boxes, someone wanting to speak to my boss, etc.)
Shruti and I also packed up a bunch more satchels into the laundry bins because we'd run through the two full bins we'd packed up yesterday and needed more. Good times, good times...
It turns out that while I'd been on lunch, there had been a mini-rush of people who had come for the afternoon sessions that were all starting at 1:00. We had a bunch of mildly panicked people who were running late for their sessions and needed to be registered now, now, NOW! But then it was dead again and we sat around talking and answering questions some more.
That's more or less how it went most of the afternoon. A few very small rushes, and then more sitting around. Thank goodness for the women from the clinics; they provided variety to an otherwise monotonous afternoon.
Around 4:00 we had another rush, this time of exhibitors. Somehow, there had been a miscommunication along the way: a whole bunch of exhibitors thought they were allowed to start setting up at 4:00, when in fact they had to wait until 8:00. This led to a few really annoyed exhibitors. Also, we were missing quite a lot of exhibitors badges, and I have no idea why. Probably because they didn't give us the names of their people. We got it all squared away in the end, but I needed to call in Christian to deal with some of it -- it was beyond my extraordinarily narrow field of ultimate power.
We packed up the reg desk around 5:00, packed yet another laundry bin with satchels, and did a final count. Sadly, it looks like we're going to run out of bags before we run out of people to give them to: we've got 144 unclaimed badges and only about 90 bags. My plan for tomorrow is to not give them out to exhibitors unless they ask.
Another minor oops on my part: the reg desk was supposed to be giving out some extra stuff to the exhibitors (prospectuses for next year and stickers to use for our "exhibit bingo" game). But I don't think I was clear enough when I was giving instructions to my staff this morning, and most of the exhibitors did not wind up getting their stuff. Instead, we're going to go around the exhibit hall tomorrow morning and give it out to them there.
Anyway. By the time I finished squaring away the reg desk and turning in a found blackberry to the concierge (one of our delegates had turned it in to us, but no one had claimed it by the time we left), it was just past 5:30. I'd been seriously considering going to the opening lecture ("The history of reproduction through art"), but I was dead tired. I knew there was a reception dinner at 7:30, but all I wanted to do was sleep.
I spent an hour checking up on email, facebook (hate the new changes, but have found a few ways to mitigate it), and so forth, and then I decided I'd take a relaxing shower and a quick nap and see how I was feeling. Yes, another nap. The second in as many days. I never take naps! It's so weird! But results don't lie: after a 25-minute nap, I was feeling refreshed enough to go downstairs and mingle.
It was 7:30 when I left my hotel room, but there was no one at the reception yet. I figured they were all up at the opening lecture, and it turned out that's where they were. I managed to catch the last 15 minutes (it ran late), and it was indeed very interesting. I wish I'd seen the whole thing.
Then it was time for the reception. I went downstairs by myself, amidst many people who were paired off and chatting, feeling very alone. Dinner was buffet style, with stations for sushi, smoked meat, vegetables, and dessert. I got some food and sat down at an empty table, and soon enough was joined by two women I'd met briefly at the reg desk. They work for a nonprofit called Fertile Future, which helps young women with cancer preserve their fertility after the cancer treatments. Cool stuff. We were also joined by our PR rep, who's a very nice lady I'd been coordinating with all day as the media came to my desk asking about that I knew nothing about. It was, on the whole, very enjoyable. We got past the initial awkwardness to talk about our experiences on the conference circuit (one of the women from Fertile Future was also very new to the scene) and just random girly stuff. I even got a bit of a lecture about how embryo and egg preservation works, so I feel like I learned something today.
And, yes, it turns out that there is going to be a session on Saturday about weight and access to fertility treatments. (i.e. Should obese people be allowed equal access?) So it turns out the article in the Globe & Mail wasn't so random after all.
By the time the reception wrapped up, it was about 9:00. And now, having written a bit, it's 9:45. I'm hoping for a 10:30 bedtime because tomorrow I need to wake up at Too Damn Early O'Clock again, and I don't think I'll have much downtime after work before heading out to a presentation my aunt is giving. So that's it for me tonight. Team In Bed Stupid Early signing off for the evening.
This morning I woke up at Too Damn Early O'Clock (a.k.a. 5:45 am). Actually, that's not quite true, I woke up at 2:23 am but managed to get back to sleep for another three and a half hours. I tell you, waking up at 5:45 is hard. My body was not happy with me. I checked my email, got dressed in my red crushed-velvet jacket (so that I might be "the lady in red"), and headed downstairs for 6:30 am.
Breakfast was just served as I got down. Odd fact of the day: there were fewer glasses for this morning's "breakfast for six" than for yesterday's "breakfast for three." Will oddness never cease? Breakfast this morning was a blueberry muffin, juice, and tea. I really wish there were something a little healthier than muffins, croissants, and danishes for breakfast. It starts my day off with too much sugar. But for a week, I suppose it's okay.
Shruti came down to the boardroom shortly after I did, and after we'd both had breakfast (about ten minutes) we started setting up banners. It was a bit tricky, because there's another conference's table right at the exit of the elevators, and anything we put there would just make it look like that was our registration desk, not theirs. But we figured it out in the end, and then set up for the hordes to descend.
We were only ready to start checking people in at 7:15, and the line was already huge. Thankfully, we had two nurses from one of the Toronto clinics helping us, because otherwise we would have been dead in the water. For an hour and a quarter, it was a madhouse. Most people got checked in pretty fast, but I was on "troubleshooting" duty, which meant I was the one my staff sent people to when things went wrong. So, for example, I had to deal with people who hadn't preregistered and wanted to sign up on the spot, people whose badges were lost or nonexistent, people who thought they'd registered for the President's Dinner but didn't have their ticket, etc. Some of these I could deal with moderately efficiently, but some I had to escalate to Christian the Event Planning Coworker. (Things like people who assured me they'd registered for the meeting but weren't in our database, for example.) I felt like I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to deal with two or three different issues at any given time and not have people get angry at me.
And then, right around 8:30, the wave broke and we all collapsed into our chairs. A few people trickled in for the rest of the morning, but mostly my staff and I sat around chatting and answering the occasional question. I got really good at answering some stock questions, like "Where's room X?", "What time can I set up my booth?", and "How can I upload the presentation I'm going to be giving?" And, of course, the ever popular, "Where's the bathroom?"
Some questions were stumpers, though. High on the list was an exhibitor whose speaker at one of tomorrow's sessions is sick, and they wanted to know whether he could give it by teleconference. (I had no idea and directed them to Christian.) We also had a lot of media presence. On the front page of today's Globe & Mail was a story about how doctors are considering new regulations to deny obese women (BMI 35+) fertility treatments. Apparently the clinics' phones were ringing off the hook as of 7:00 this morning, and I saw all sorts of TV interviews going on all day.
Also going on all day: more food. There were pastries and chocolate-covered rice krispie treats brought into the boardroom mid-morning, more brought in mid-afternoon, and the fanciest boxed lunches I've ever seen. (The boxes were actually spiffy bags like you might see used for packing up purchases from upscale boutiques.) We also had bowls of chocolates and candy bars at our reg desk. Given the circumstances, I was... mostly good. I had a peanut butter cup in the morning and a lemon square in the afternoon. I held out for a half-hour before eating the latter, but it got the better of me in the end.
Anyway. Around 12:30 I went into the boardroom to have lunch, telling me staff to just knock on the door if they needed me. I suppose I took about 15-20 minutes to eat, but I was interrupted every few minutes by a knock on the door, some of them from reg desk people, and some of them just other random interruptions that you'll get at the HQ of a conference. (Our AV guy needing to bring in some boxes, someone wanting to speak to my boss, etc.)
Shruti and I also packed up a bunch more satchels into the laundry bins because we'd run through the two full bins we'd packed up yesterday and needed more. Good times, good times...
It turns out that while I'd been on lunch, there had been a mini-rush of people who had come for the afternoon sessions that were all starting at 1:00. We had a bunch of mildly panicked people who were running late for their sessions and needed to be registered now, now, NOW! But then it was dead again and we sat around talking and answering questions some more.
That's more or less how it went most of the afternoon. A few very small rushes, and then more sitting around. Thank goodness for the women from the clinics; they provided variety to an otherwise monotonous afternoon.
Around 4:00 we had another rush, this time of exhibitors. Somehow, there had been a miscommunication along the way: a whole bunch of exhibitors thought they were allowed to start setting up at 4:00, when in fact they had to wait until 8:00. This led to a few really annoyed exhibitors. Also, we were missing quite a lot of exhibitors badges, and I have no idea why. Probably because they didn't give us the names of their people. We got it all squared away in the end, but I needed to call in Christian to deal with some of it -- it was beyond my extraordinarily narrow field of ultimate power.
We packed up the reg desk around 5:00, packed yet another laundry bin with satchels, and did a final count. Sadly, it looks like we're going to run out of bags before we run out of people to give them to: we've got 144 unclaimed badges and only about 90 bags. My plan for tomorrow is to not give them out to exhibitors unless they ask.
Another minor oops on my part: the reg desk was supposed to be giving out some extra stuff to the exhibitors (prospectuses for next year and stickers to use for our "exhibit bingo" game). But I don't think I was clear enough when I was giving instructions to my staff this morning, and most of the exhibitors did not wind up getting their stuff. Instead, we're going to go around the exhibit hall tomorrow morning and give it out to them there.
Anyway. By the time I finished squaring away the reg desk and turning in a found blackberry to the concierge (one of our delegates had turned it in to us, but no one had claimed it by the time we left), it was just past 5:30. I'd been seriously considering going to the opening lecture ("The history of reproduction through art"), but I was dead tired. I knew there was a reception dinner at 7:30, but all I wanted to do was sleep.
I spent an hour checking up on email, facebook (hate the new changes, but have found a few ways to mitigate it), and so forth, and then I decided I'd take a relaxing shower and a quick nap and see how I was feeling. Yes, another nap. The second in as many days. I never take naps! It's so weird! But results don't lie: after a 25-minute nap, I was feeling refreshed enough to go downstairs and mingle.
It was 7:30 when I left my hotel room, but there was no one at the reception yet. I figured they were all up at the opening lecture, and it turned out that's where they were. I managed to catch the last 15 minutes (it ran late), and it was indeed very interesting. I wish I'd seen the whole thing.
Then it was time for the reception. I went downstairs by myself, amidst many people who were paired off and chatting, feeling very alone. Dinner was buffet style, with stations for sushi, smoked meat, vegetables, and dessert. I got some food and sat down at an empty table, and soon enough was joined by two women I'd met briefly at the reg desk. They work for a nonprofit called Fertile Future, which helps young women with cancer preserve their fertility after the cancer treatments. Cool stuff. We were also joined by our PR rep, who's a very nice lady I'd been coordinating with all day as the media came to my desk asking about that I knew nothing about. It was, on the whole, very enjoyable. We got past the initial awkwardness to talk about our experiences on the conference circuit (one of the women from Fertile Future was also very new to the scene) and just random girly stuff. I even got a bit of a lecture about how embryo and egg preservation works, so I feel like I learned something today.
And, yes, it turns out that there is going to be a session on Saturday about weight and access to fertility treatments. (i.e. Should obese people be allowed equal access?) So it turns out the article in the Globe & Mail wasn't so random after all.
By the time the reception wrapped up, it was about 9:00. And now, having written a bit, it's 9:45. I'm hoping for a 10:30 bedtime because tomorrow I need to wake up at Too Damn Early O'Clock again, and I don't think I'll have much downtime after work before heading out to a presentation my aunt is giving. So that's it for me tonight. Team In Bed Stupid Early signing off for the evening.
