The Show Must Go On. And On. And On.
Yesterday I worked the booth at an IT tradeshow. Though it was local and one day only this is Silicon Valley- so it had an estimated 5,500 attendance.
My day started at 5am so I could shower, dress, and eat before heading over to the show in time for a 6:30am onsite meeting. I left the house just before 6, hailing a ride via Lyft in the pre-dawn twilight. I arrived at the convention center in good time. Traffic was light due to the hour, and there were no crowds yet at the conference.
Starting time for the show was a surprisingly early 7am. Surprising, because that's an extremely early hour for tech workers in this region to be onsite for work. Visit any tech office and it's a ghost town before 10am. For some that's because they don't wake up until 9- or well later. Others do wake up early but do so to get their kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door to school. Though they're up at 6am you won't see them at work until around 10am, either.
There was a silver lining to the dark cloud of the crazy-early starting time: Traffic at our booth was gentle in the 7-8am hour. That allowed us to ease into the work and familiarize ourselves with the particular materials and tools we were working with at this show. At many other shows the opening hour entails a reception the night before the first full day, and then the exhibitor booths are slammed with visitors there for the free food.
It was a long day. I remember feeling ready for a lunch break and looking down at the clock... only 9:15am! I made myself wait until nearly 11 before grabbing one of the free-but-crummy sandwiches provided to show sponsors. By then all the sponsors were taking turns grabbing lunch. Clearly everyone who was there early was ready for a break!
Similarly I remember thinking to myself, "This show should be done soon," only to look down at my clock at see it was 2pm. The show ran until 6:30pm!
Working a Trade Show Means You WORK!
It was a long day for the team so generally I'd cut my colleagues some slack for not being "on" the whole time. But there were a few instances that still peeved me.
One was a colleague who didn't come on time. After agreeing with me and his boss that he'd work the day, no problem, he arrived three hours late. He's done this at previous trade shows we've worked together so I assume this is just how he games the system.
"Traffic was bad," he explained. "Just getting to the parking garage took me 20 minutes."
I lost it for a moment, because it was clearly his planning, not the traffic, that was to blame.
"If you'd bothered to plan to arrive here at 6:30am as agreed, there was no waiting then," I shot back. "I know because I was here on time. There were no lines and no traffic."
Another bit that bothered me late in the day was several of my colleagues standing in the booth, not working. Look, I know we're tired, but face front and keep your game face on! Don't turn your backs to the visitors, carrying on a deep and totally off-topic conversation among yourselves, leaving me alone to handle the line of visitors trying to talk to us!
Blasts from the Past
During the day I met a few people from past jobs. One was a friend, J., whom I've never actually worked with but have known socially for about 20 years. We caught up for a few minutes as we haven't socialized in several months now.
While I was in the booth a colleague from a few jobs back walked by and recognized me. He was working for a company with a big booth on the floor. It was good to catch up with him and see that he's doing okay in the industry.
Also while I was in the booth a former colleague from this job stopped by to chat. "Former" was kind of a surprise as I didn't even know he'd left several weeks ago! While our company is good with announcing new hires, departures are frequently hush-hushed by Management and left to spread only by unofficial word of mouth. His departure was in the hush-hush category because several people resigned from his department in a short period of time. Management tried to avoid the embarassment of multiple departures raising suspicion there might be a problem in that department by instructing them not to send around goodbye messages. Of course, when the facts of the departures emerge, Management's attempts to hide it only serve to make this suspicions much stronger. So yeah, one of departments at my company is falling apart. I'd suspected that already, anyway, but know I'm certain of it.
One other "blast".... When I walked around to see other exhibitors at the show I made a point of checking out my immediate former employer's booth. I was surprised they were even here, as this show generally isn't in their wheelhouse. There were three staff in the booth, no customers talking to them, and none of the three were anybody I recognized from when I last worked there less than two years ago. Yeah, that company has always had an attrition problem!
Relaxing At The End
By early afternoon my colleagues were already making plans for where to have dinner together. Ordinarily I'd be happy to go to socialize- and eat and drink on the company dime to help make up for the long day. But I was tired so I begged off and met Hawk for dinner. We ate at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. Afterwards we watched some TV at home together and I relaxed with a small slice of cake and two glasses of port wine. Ahh, nothing like opening a dusty 2011 bottle after a long day!
My day started at 5am so I could shower, dress, and eat before heading over to the show in time for a 6:30am onsite meeting. I left the house just before 6, hailing a ride via Lyft in the pre-dawn twilight. I arrived at the convention center in good time. Traffic was light due to the hour, and there were no crowds yet at the conference.
Starting time for the show was a surprisingly early 7am. Surprising, because that's an extremely early hour for tech workers in this region to be onsite for work. Visit any tech office and it's a ghost town before 10am. For some that's because they don't wake up until 9- or well later. Others do wake up early but do so to get their kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door to school. Though they're up at 6am you won't see them at work until around 10am, either.
There was a silver lining to the dark cloud of the crazy-early starting time: Traffic at our booth was gentle in the 7-8am hour. That allowed us to ease into the work and familiarize ourselves with the particular materials and tools we were working with at this show. At many other shows the opening hour entails a reception the night before the first full day, and then the exhibitor booths are slammed with visitors there for the free food.
It was a long day. I remember feeling ready for a lunch break and looking down at the clock... only 9:15am! I made myself wait until nearly 11 before grabbing one of the free-but-crummy sandwiches provided to show sponsors. By then all the sponsors were taking turns grabbing lunch. Clearly everyone who was there early was ready for a break!
Similarly I remember thinking to myself, "This show should be done soon," only to look down at my clock at see it was 2pm. The show ran until 6:30pm!
Working a Trade Show Means You WORK!
It was a long day for the team so generally I'd cut my colleagues some slack for not being "on" the whole time. But there were a few instances that still peeved me.
One was a colleague who didn't come on time. After agreeing with me and his boss that he'd work the day, no problem, he arrived three hours late. He's done this at previous trade shows we've worked together so I assume this is just how he games the system.
"Traffic was bad," he explained. "Just getting to the parking garage took me 20 minutes."
I lost it for a moment, because it was clearly his planning, not the traffic, that was to blame.
"If you'd bothered to plan to arrive here at 6:30am as agreed, there was no waiting then," I shot back. "I know because I was here on time. There were no lines and no traffic."
Another bit that bothered me late in the day was several of my colleagues standing in the booth, not working. Look, I know we're tired, but face front and keep your game face on! Don't turn your backs to the visitors, carrying on a deep and totally off-topic conversation among yourselves, leaving me alone to handle the line of visitors trying to talk to us!
Blasts from the Past
During the day I met a few people from past jobs. One was a friend, J., whom I've never actually worked with but have known socially for about 20 years. We caught up for a few minutes as we haven't socialized in several months now.
While I was in the booth a colleague from a few jobs back walked by and recognized me. He was working for a company with a big booth on the floor. It was good to catch up with him and see that he's doing okay in the industry.
Also while I was in the booth a former colleague from this job stopped by to chat. "Former" was kind of a surprise as I didn't even know he'd left several weeks ago! While our company is good with announcing new hires, departures are frequently hush-hushed by Management and left to spread only by unofficial word of mouth. His departure was in the hush-hush category because several people resigned from his department in a short period of time. Management tried to avoid the embarassment of multiple departures raising suspicion there might be a problem in that department by instructing them not to send around goodbye messages. Of course, when the facts of the departures emerge, Management's attempts to hide it only serve to make this suspicions much stronger. So yeah, one of departments at my company is falling apart. I'd suspected that already, anyway, but know I'm certain of it.
One other "blast".... When I walked around to see other exhibitors at the show I made a point of checking out my immediate former employer's booth. I was surprised they were even here, as this show generally isn't in their wheelhouse. There were three staff in the booth, no customers talking to them, and none of the three were anybody I recognized from when I last worked there less than two years ago. Yeah, that company has always had an attrition problem!
Relaxing At The End
By early afternoon my colleagues were already making plans for where to have dinner together. Ordinarily I'd be happy to go to socialize- and eat and drink on the company dime to help make up for the long day. But I was tired so I begged off and met Hawk for dinner. We ate at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. Afterwards we watched some TV at home together and I relaxed with a small slice of cake and two glasses of port wine. Ahh, nothing like opening a dusty 2011 bottle after a long day!