Big surprise. It takes a tad longer to recover from my intense 3 days of conferencing. My legs took the brunt of the abuse and were quite achy by Wednesday evening as I reneged on cleaning the last monster pan the OH had used for cooking that night. Or perhaps it was from hauling the monster tub of goodies left over from the cocktail party; or the football sized exhibit hall I traversed many times; or the intense meetings I attended; or the three glasses of wine Tuesday night.... which really did me in. Ah well. As I now believe I have won every award possible and served every executive position I may now retire to "Elder Statesman" status and actually "enjoy" the conference like the rest of the old farts left over from my own "salad" days as an up and comer. Oh yeah forgot. I'm still the podcaster du jour.
Enjoyed a lot more booth duty than I anticipated and interviewed several "people in the street". I now understand the vendor's position much better; their complaints and eagerness to leave as soon as they can on the second day. I will plan this much better next year and actually assign booth sitters rather than rely on the vague "oh, I'll stop by and help out" promises. Great to see so many in attendance (over 2,000) as everyone seemed eager to conference face-to-face. Networking is a huge draw in addition to the classes and exhibits.
My first interviewee was a vendor who had the misfortune to be set up right beside me, but he was a good sport about it all. Actually, praised the conference almost like I set it up beforehand (I did not). However, his only complaint was he wished there were two cookies in the provided lunch. Needless to say, he got my cookie each day as a reward. I interviewed a few who did not want to see their 2-minute "on camera". Surprising the number of people who hate to watch themselves. One lady wanted to wax poetic about the MSC safety socks we provided and finished with a sock puppet show. Yeah, I don't know either. Interviewed a rep for the local Lansing Area Entertainment Authority and it really shows when someone is used to being interviewed-well coiffed and glib.
I startled one speaker I have worked with before when I mentioned her company does a lot of "Violence in the Workplace" training. She quickly corrected me with "Sheila, that's PREVENTING violence in the workplace". OOPS. I interviewed an MSC Board member and then lost his final words as I was trying to smoothly cut off the recording-not so smoothly apparently. I had a recruiter out looking for volunteers to interview so basically, they showed up and said Therese said I needed to come talk to you without revealing they were about to go live. Safety people are good sports and can do five minutes or two hours on a moment's notice. One of those required skills that is hard to explain in a job interview.
I invited the OH, my daughter and grandson to the Awards banquet as they all escaped, er er, I mean were deprived of the honor to attend when I was President during the lost years. My daughter surprised me by inviting the rest of the family of which my sister Kathleen agreed to represent. As usual, Joe was his charming self easily taking the attention, but acting very mature and non-wiggly during the boring parts. His drink was too cold, so he parked himself at a table and was found conversing with an unknown gentleman. However, his major moment was when he went up to the President after it was all over and complimented Frank on how well he did in front of all these people. Then Joe gave him a dime as a tip! No Shitoske! That boy is going to be on stage or a politician. He can talk to anyone.
Oh well another year until the next one and I am already sweating out my next podcast. I'll retire someday, I guess. Picture this week is my giving an award that I was not able to give during the lost years as President.
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