Salient Facts About New Guy

1. He has a very loud ringtone on his personal cell phone, and it is some country song.
2. When I snark about exhibitors after they’ve left the desk, he tells me I’m very negative rather than joining in.
3. The book he’s reading is some Christian non-fiction thing that he could not explain to my satisfaction.
4. He left me alone on the busiest day of the show to tend to his sick kid. Apparently his wife couldn’t leave her highly pressing job in data entry.
5. He habitually falls out of chairs, knocks phones off desks, and trips over cords with much flamboyance and little finesse. Read the rest of this entry »

2:15 pm – A little old man working at the door just came over to tell me I have the most beautiful red hair, especially when my head is directly under the lights. The harsh yellowy fluorescent lights. He said he was going to head back to his post by the door and continue to look at my hair. And none of it was creepy at all. I guess not all people at trade shows suck.

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There were long stretches of nothingness at Coffee Fest this weekend. Very long stretches. So Mckenzie and I filled the time will all kinds of childish diversions. We took personality tests to determine everything from our dominant chakras to our Native American power animals. We did enneagrams and horoscopes and discovered our inner goddesses. (Turns out Mckenzie is a bossy whore and I’m a verbose stalker.)

When that book ran out of entertainment value, we started reading some of the 1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said. And I even read aloud some anecdotes from a book I was inexplicably reading about coming up with ideas for advertising.

But all that was Day One. And there was a whole lot more boredom stretching out before us. Despite the abundance or rude and/or stupid people to make fun of (behind their backs, of course — we are in the customer service industry, you know), and despite the fun rubber yoyo toy that looked like a jellyfish, we needed more distraction.

Yesterday, our desperation reached junior high levels, and we made cootie catchers and played MASH.

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If you ever decide to be an exhibitor in a trade show, conference, or expo, I have a few rules for you. These rules will keep your experience more pleasant and ensure that you won’t be slaughtered in a brutal way by an innocent-looking desk worker.

1. Read the information that’s sent to you prior to the show. All of it. And actually do what it says. People don’t write and send out this stuff just for the fun of it.

2. Don’t assume you’re different and special and that you don’t have to follow the rules. You’re the same decaying crap as everyone else, and you’ll be treated as such.

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