My very second business trip, day 3
Sep. 6th, 2012 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassDay five of being sick, and I'm really ready to be healthy again. Any time now...
Woke up this morning feeling miserable. Sometime during the night, the congestion had moved into my lungs, and I felt like death warmed over. I wanted so very much just to keep sleeping, but I couldn't. Not today.
Got dressed and headed down to the office for 6:30 again. Christian the Boss had been there since 5:00, Ann the Coworker since 5:45. Only around these two will a 6:30 start feel like slacking. Anyway, I got down to the office and surveyed the breakfast choices. The pickings were sadly slim: yogurt parfaits, fruit, and croissants. I learned my lesson with yogurt parfaits yesterday, so I passed on those. I wanted more than just fruit, so I wound up having a croissant with peanut butter, which isn't ideal but at least it got me a little protein (in addition to all the wonderful, tasty fat in the croissant).
Finished a few more small details at the reg desk, briefed my staff of volunteers, and opened the doors at 7:00. It was actually quite slow to start, which was good and let us get out the kinks. The first session was at 8:30, so we had a slowly increasing flow until about 8:00, when the torrent started for real and continued for about 45 minutes. Kudos to my staff: they were great! Everything went super-smooth. I had a few last-minute registrations, a few badge changes, one or two people who thought they were registered but weren't, but all things considered, I was extremely happy with how things worked out.
Once the stream stopped, things were fairly slow for the rest of the day. I had some small issues to take care of: printing stuff, posting stuff to the website, dealing with financial things, etc. The big issue of the day appeared around noon, when I discovered the list I'd used to print the exhibitor badges was not in fact the right list, so there were a lot of discrepancies from what there should have been and what there was. I wound up reprinting a lot of exhibitor badges this afternoon. Oh, well. Unlike the regular delegates, the exhibitors came in throughout the afternoon, never in a clump, so I only ever had two or three people at a time who needed my attention.
In terms of food, I was... okay. Breakfast, like I said, was a croissant with peanut butter and a bottle of orange juice. I skipped the scones at morning break in favor of some mint tea (unsweetened and everything); had a decent lunch, with my only concession being a largish chocolate chip cookie; succumbed a bit at afternoon break with a teeny-tiny lemon square (and more mint tea); and had some pasta pomodoro and chicken for dinner. And despite the fact that we had a huge bowl of chocolates at the reg desk, I only had one all day. Go me!
It was, however, a very long day. Because of the congestion, most of today was spent watching the clock and waiting for small goals. When I came downstairs this morning, Christian the Boss said, "We've still got to work until Sunday!" Friends, Sunday was too far away. My first goal of the morning was to make it until the end of the rush, i.e. 9:00. Then my goal was to make it to our 10:00 break. Then to our 12:00 lunch. Then to our 3:00 break. And so on and so forth. I finally closed down the reg desk at 6:00, when the day's final session had started (the opening lecture, because the conference only "officially" starts tomorrow).
I contemplated going down to the opening lecture, or at least the reception that followed, but instead got back to my room, took a long, long, long shower (yes, I waste water -- guilty as charged) to get some of the crud out of my lungs, put on a bathrobe, and decided I didn't want to move anymore. When I went to order room service, I discovered there was a gift waiting for me at the front desk, which I had brought up with my meal. Turns out it was a menthol-and-eucalyptus vaporizer that Nicole the Hotel Liaison had bought for me because she knew I was sick. Thanks, Nicole! You're the best! It's actually quite pleasant, and it theoretically lasts for 8 hours, so I'll use it while I'm sleeping tonight.
So that's it for today. Tomorrow is probably another 12-hour day (today's work: 11.5 hours at the reg desk + 45 minutes in my room), and I'm hoping to get a really early bedtime and a full night of sleep before that happens. If I'm really, really lucky, I'll even be feeling better when I wake up. Please, Universe? Pretty please?
Woke up this morning feeling miserable. Sometime during the night, the congestion had moved into my lungs, and I felt like death warmed over. I wanted so very much just to keep sleeping, but I couldn't. Not today.
Got dressed and headed down to the office for 6:30 again. Christian the Boss had been there since 5:00, Ann the Coworker since 5:45. Only around these two will a 6:30 start feel like slacking. Anyway, I got down to the office and surveyed the breakfast choices. The pickings were sadly slim: yogurt parfaits, fruit, and croissants. I learned my lesson with yogurt parfaits yesterday, so I passed on those. I wanted more than just fruit, so I wound up having a croissant with peanut butter, which isn't ideal but at least it got me a little protein (in addition to all the wonderful, tasty fat in the croissant).
Finished a few more small details at the reg desk, briefed my staff of volunteers, and opened the doors at 7:00. It was actually quite slow to start, which was good and let us get out the kinks. The first session was at 8:30, so we had a slowly increasing flow until about 8:00, when the torrent started for real and continued for about 45 minutes. Kudos to my staff: they were great! Everything went super-smooth. I had a few last-minute registrations, a few badge changes, one or two people who thought they were registered but weren't, but all things considered, I was extremely happy with how things worked out.
Once the stream stopped, things were fairly slow for the rest of the day. I had some small issues to take care of: printing stuff, posting stuff to the website, dealing with financial things, etc. The big issue of the day appeared around noon, when I discovered the list I'd used to print the exhibitor badges was not in fact the right list, so there were a lot of discrepancies from what there should have been and what there was. I wound up reprinting a lot of exhibitor badges this afternoon. Oh, well. Unlike the regular delegates, the exhibitors came in throughout the afternoon, never in a clump, so I only ever had two or three people at a time who needed my attention.
In terms of food, I was... okay. Breakfast, like I said, was a croissant with peanut butter and a bottle of orange juice. I skipped the scones at morning break in favor of some mint tea (unsweetened and everything); had a decent lunch, with my only concession being a largish chocolate chip cookie; succumbed a bit at afternoon break with a teeny-tiny lemon square (and more mint tea); and had some pasta pomodoro and chicken for dinner. And despite the fact that we had a huge bowl of chocolates at the reg desk, I only had one all day. Go me!
It was, however, a very long day. Because of the congestion, most of today was spent watching the clock and waiting for small goals. When I came downstairs this morning, Christian the Boss said, "We've still got to work until Sunday!" Friends, Sunday was too far away. My first goal of the morning was to make it until the end of the rush, i.e. 9:00. Then my goal was to make it to our 10:00 break. Then to our 12:00 lunch. Then to our 3:00 break. And so on and so forth. I finally closed down the reg desk at 6:00, when the day's final session had started (the opening lecture, because the conference only "officially" starts tomorrow).
I contemplated going down to the opening lecture, or at least the reception that followed, but instead got back to my room, took a long, long, long shower (yes, I waste water -- guilty as charged) to get some of the crud out of my lungs, put on a bathrobe, and decided I didn't want to move anymore. When I went to order room service, I discovered there was a gift waiting for me at the front desk, which I had brought up with my meal. Turns out it was a menthol-and-eucalyptus vaporizer that Nicole the Hotel Liaison had bought for me because she knew I was sick. Thanks, Nicole! You're the best! It's actually quite pleasant, and it theoretically lasts for 8 hours, so I'll use it while I'm sleeping tonight.
So that's it for today. Tomorrow is probably another 12-hour day (today's work: 11.5 hours at the reg desk + 45 minutes in my room), and I'm hoping to get a really early bedtime and a full night of sleep before that happens. If I'm really, really lucky, I'll even be feeling better when I wake up. Please, Universe? Pretty please?
