Welcome to the latest chapter in my annual NAB pilgrimage – where I set some new records of achievement. Most notably, this was my longest duration in Sin City, a baffling seven days of meetings, schmoozing, and melon platters. Why the melon platter? I’m still trying to figure that out myself. It is akin to all things Vegas and tradeshows. Don’t cantaloupe and honeydew melons EVER go out of season? It is always the same bland, tasteless crap too. If you’re lucky, some sour pineapple and unripe red grapes are tossed into the mix. You can count on two things with every NAB, sore feet and melon platters.
More cantaloupe please!
I grossly underestimate how long it would take me to get from my suite to the conference room where we were executing “Operation Bag Stuff.” By the time I arrive at 9:15 AM, a dozen skinny and gorgeous mostly French Canadian coworkers are sitting around a table eating breakfast, defying all logic by eating sugary breakfast pastries. I silently curse them as I help myself to the above-referenced mandatory melon platter, bypassing an almond croissant that is eagerly calling out to join the rest of my ass fat.
“Bonjour Kristen,” says Sophie, greeting me with the customary Montreal kiss on each cheek. “We are so happy to see you!”
I am happy to see them too, although not happy about the task ahead of me. I have been at my job for over five months now, and I really like my coworkers to the North even if they’re all unfairly smart, skinny, beautiful, and have a disturbing fondness of sappy Celine Dion tunes.
Our mission that morning is to stuff goodie bags with jackets and literature for our user group meeting the next evening. We also have VIP gifts, PR bags, and bags for our channel partners that all need to be assembled as well. I sigh and get to work.
My only motivator is that on this particular Saturday, I have my one and only significant block of free time for the entire week. After the bags are stuffed, we have lunch and a mandatory staff meeting, and then we are free to do whatever we want. I’ve already arranged for sunbathing out by the pool, catching a performance of Spamalot at the Wynn, followed by dinner at the Mesa Grill. Every activity will occur with several girlfriends from work. As NAB is a male dominated show, the idea of a ladies night in Vegas is unheard of and it sounds like a great time. But first, I have to get through those damn bags.
It takes almost three hours of hard physical labor and enduring an entire Celine Dion CD, but we get the 900 bags stuffed. Our euphoria turns to rage during lunch when a marketing manager discovers a formatting error on one of the flyers we stuffed, and makes us remove all 900 of them from our completed bags. I spend the next hour multitasking – as I help remove the flyers, my coworkers teach me how to swear in French. Fourche! Pétasse! C'est des conneries! Somehow the afternoon isn’t a complete loss with my language lessons keeping me entertained.
By 2 PM, “Operation Bag Stuff” is complete. I head poolside with my friend Shea, where we order beers, dodge date offers from two hairy rednecks sitting across from us, and breathe in the fresh air. While the next six days will bring additional cheesy pick-up lines, opportunities to show off my new French vocabulary, a dry throat from breathing in stale air conditioning and cigarette smoke, and sadly, more melon platters, I know all too well there will not be another moment of to relax like this. If there was more free time, this would be any ol' trip to Vegas, and not NAB. I smile and take it all in. For all my grumbling, I wouldn't have it any other way.
No comments:
Post a Comment