Gathering Place

The hotel where I’m staying in San Francisco has free wireless internet access in the lobby, so I’ve come down a little bit before my ride arrives to catch up on a few things. Needless to say, this free internet situation has set up a strange phenomenon that I think I will coin as the corporate water hole.

We all circle around with our laptops, looking for one of those really good red cushy chairs, avoiding the backless ottoman-type things. Some people are on cell phones, others just reading a paper, and most annoyingly, some take a whole chair just for their computer bags. I’m stuck on a couch now between two people from the same company, and it’s a little weird. I feel like I’m eavesdropping on something, but hey, all the red chairs are taken! It’s even funnier because the hotel is hosting a conference, and there are so many people (men, mostly) with nice tech toys and event badges milling around, sniffing around for wireless access. Then, after a time, when someone has finished up getting hydrated (or checking e-mail, whatever), he’ll get up and slink away, and another thirsty laptop-user will come to share the wealth. Such is the behavior of business travelers in their natural habitat.

Talent Show

I just got back from helping to run our company’s first-ever Talent Show, and I am bushed. (Note: The insanely late hour is due to the fact that I'm on funky west coast time, so it's not quite as bad as it seems.) I spent the whole day beforehand in deep discussions with people about company history and internal improvements – as is befitting for a company retreat, I suppose – but the evening was dedicated to burritos, margaritas (yay!), and some talent, or something resembling it. I became the default A/V girl, which is almost laughable when you think about my inability to program our VCR, and I did a lot of running around to find outlets, set up our projector, and display a presentation of slides during the dinner hour. But you should have seen those slides…

As a member of the planning committee, my main duty was to assemble a slideshow of company photos and trivia questions to be shown while people mixed and mingled, kind of like those pre-movie preview shows that ask which movie is the source of some obvious line. Our team collectively came up with the questions (and answers, thank goodness), while I compiled photos and put together the pièce de résistance of PowerPoint presentations, if I do say so myself. It probably took me over 8 hours to put the whole thing together over the weekend, but this bad boy is 150 slides of photo nostalgia, fabulous trivia, and superbly obnoxious animation. You heard right – I said animation, folks.

I finally had an excuse to use the Pandora's box of ridiculous entrance and exit animation effects that Microsoft released into the unsuspecting world. I am almost always dead set against any type of animation, unless it is a subtle entrance that will prevent the audience from reading a whole slide while you’re trying to talk through your first bullet. In that case, I will concede that it is in good taste to have a gentle fade or a slow fly in. I believe that these effects generally serve to induce headaches and irritability during excessively long presentations, and heaven help us if there are sound effects.

This show was a different story! I got to find out with the Bounce and Spiral In and Light Speed effects all accomplished, and I think it’s safe to conclude that none of those should ever be used in an actual corporate setting. I’m glad to say, though, that kitsch was the name of the game in this situation, and the ridiculous effects only added to the cheap movie feel of the whole thing. I did refrain from anything involving sound because, come on, you have to draw the line somewhere. Photos bounced in, birthday stats spun until they reached their destinations, and trivia flashed in and out, much to everyone’s amusement. I have to say that my proudest achievement was creating word scrambles out of a few people’s names; for example, "Tom Garrison" became "Starring Moo"! Yes, I am that nerdy (or cool!), and hello, Scrabble is one of my favorite games ever, thank you for asking. So of course, these word scrambles required an even more tacky effect, and I called upon the Faded Swivel, a letter-by-letter flip that made the scramble vanish as the solution appeared. It was a thing of beauty.

So when I say that we had a talent show, I do mean that we had a series of acts, like an a capella quartet and several strange skits. Really, though, outside of my old standard act of doing a human trick, this PowerPoint presentation actually was my talent. I know that it’s a little sad, but I’m darn proud of it.

It Hurts Me

When I booked my 9am flight to San Francisco, I knew it would be painful. When I confirmed with the airline that I should arrive two and a half hours before my flight, I flinched. When I reserved my 5:30am pickup by the shuttle service, I had a sinking feeling.

But, oh, when my alarm went off at 4:20am ... that was the worst of all. What is this strange dark morning I'm observing? The last time I saw 5am was the morning JG and I left for Ocean City, NJ, but I sure don't remember that trip, between my periods of nodding off. For this little excursion, I have to have the wherewithall to progress through all of the airport lines without dropping my e-ticket, misplacing my ID, or flipping over my roller bag. I'm not very good at the airport juggle, but I'm guessing that getting two-thirds of my normal amount of sleep won't help.

There was a time when I saw the early morning. I worked at a summer camp for two summers during college; we had to be up and at 'em bright and early, and I managed. Minus the bright. It was more of rolling out of bed, grabbing the first shirt and shorts I could see in the hazy blueness of my bunk, and staggering outside into the misty air to the long walk to the dining hall for breakfast. Or at least, it seemed long.

Ah, well, what can you do? I'd rather be sitting and waiting for my flight rather than standing in a line and wondering if I'll make it, so this being up early nonsense is definitely the lesser evil. It's still evil, though.

Bringing Work Home

Among other things, I’m most often a proofreader at my firm, and I have the freedom to scrutinize others’ work, compare it to style standards, and make revisions, largely without approval from the author. It seems that, lately, I’m having trouble leaving work at the office.

I was skimming through JG’s blog recently, and I noticed a typo. I know he doesn’t want me to pick apart his entries, so I generally leave well alone, but this error affected the meaning, and I was torn. It occurred to me that maybe JG didn’t realize that there was an error at all, so he might appreciate a little pointer. Or maybe I’m just obsessive, and he actually wouldn’t. But still… I wouldn’t feel right letting something like that slide. It's really a question of ethics, you see.

So. I asked carefully, “If I noticed a typo on your blog, would you want me to tell you?” And JG responded, “Yes, if it’s actually a typo.”

Ouch.

“Oh, well, you used pouring, like a beverage, when you actually meant poring, like looking carefully.”

“There’s a difference? I didn’t even know that.”

Oh. Well, okay. And that was that.

It happened again soon after with a different blog, whose author I don’t know personally, and when I pointed it out to JG, he recommended that I not bring it up, so as not to come off as a, um, not-so-nice person. I’m sure that the readers wouldn’t have substituted white win for white wine in the recipe, but still. When I consider it in my own case, I would be kicking myself if someone pointed out a typo. I like to think that I would thank the person and fix it ASAP, all the while swearing to proof things more carefully the next time. At least, that's how it (mostly) went down when JG found errors in my posts. At the same time, I can see how pointing out errors could come off as being kind of mean…

I don’t think I’ll say anything about the wine thing, but really, what’s the etiquette for something like this? Is it dependent on how well you know the person? Or how grievous the error is?

Of course, a short answer to all of this could be for me to stop being such an anal-retentive, hypercritical person…

Past Lives

While JG and I were getting the lay of the land at the beach, we found a takeout menu in the kitchen for a place called Oceanside Seafood. I have this thing where I like to have city-specific cuisine if I’m a tourist, and the beach means seafood! We walked in for dinner, unsure of how it all worked, so JG asked the girl at the counter, “If we want to eat in, do we seat ourselves?” It turned out that the girl was Joanna, one of JG’s friends from the high school years! She was living at the beach for the summer and waitressing at this restaurant that we had randomly picked. JG and Joanna tried to catch up quickly on the last five years of life, highlighted by Joanna shrieking, “You’re married, aren’t you?!” (Um, yes, nice to meet you…) Joanna ended up being our waitress, and she gave us great recommendations. The two of us plowed through steamed clams, crab Florentine soup, shrimp, flounder, and scallops, all delicious and even better, at the “regulars’ discount”. It pays to have connections, right?

This unexpected run-in with the past reminded me of how JG and I are slated to go to the wedding of one of my high school friends, Amy, in a couple of weeks. It’s the first wedding that I have from that set, and I’m a little apprehensive. I envision being seated with people I haven't seen in years and there’s stilted silence as we all try to make pleasant conversation until the wedding party arrives …

Where did you go to college again? … Oh, that’s right, I remember now – that’s great. And you’re working where now? … That sounds really interesting. … Oh, look, hors d'oeuvres!

Maybe I’m just being pessimistic. Maybe it’ll be a fun time: I can reminisce, JG will have a chance to meet people I grew up with, we can dress up and dance, and even have an overdue visit with my parents. Don’t get me wrong – I’m excited to be there for Amy; she was one of my closest friends when I was a teenager. We teased our calculus teacher, ate Ben and Jerry’s out of a community pint, and spent many hours at school for band and play practice. In middle school, we used to say that we were the “friend type, not the lover type” when we commiserated about never having boyfriends, and look – we’re the first two to be married out of our friends. It’s funny how that works.

I feel like I’m walking back into a world where I was a different person. These high school friends are accustomed to me on my own, since I never dated in high school, and now I’m a wife with an out-of-state license that has someone else’s name on it. I wonder if anyone will exclaim, “You’re married, aren’t you?!”

I guess we’ll see…