Been a busy couple of days as my office has done some strategic moving this week. Since I have had this job my office had been part of a miniature cube farm stuck catacomb style in a basement of a dorm on my beautiful campus. Wasn't particularly bad as I don't mind a cube that has a bit of space but it was close quarters with the rest of my office. Essentially nine of us were crammed in various corners of our basement with no windows and no real ventilation. It made being on the phone difficult as it could get loud quickly and you had to get used to the notion that there was no such thing as a confidential conversation and so forth. As I mentioned, we are in the basement of a dorm and as it happens the campus Residence Life office was housed directly above. This year we opened a brand, spanking new dorm on the other end of campus complete with a new and improved residence life office. So off they went and up I went! My department now has a front door which is above ground and a bit more ideal for meeting with students and so on. So, I, for the first time, have my very own office AND it has a WINDOW. Now, I actually am somewhat indifferent towards windows, they are nice and the like but to the rest of the campus I may as well have been given a bar of gold. So, I shall not take it for granted *drops pants, presses ass on new window, loses job*
Anyhow, another fun aspect of my current gig is that I often have weird and different kinds of events both on and off campus where sometimes speak, sometimes, sit a table and look pretty, sometimes just direct people to and fro and today had one of the weirder of my many weird events...I was a chamber of commerce networking luncheon. I go to a couple of these sorts of things each fall and every time they can be slightly different as they are always trying different things to get more and different businesses, consultants, entrepreneurs together to hob-knob, compare notes, try and manipulate each other, and generally just get to know who and what else is around the area. Each town and village has it's own chambers and then their are larger regional chambers that the smaller ones are part of and all of them are loaded up with all kinds of members and organizations. Although they tend to be largely small business owners and consultant types. To say it was boring would be incorrect but I can also say that they are not exactly thrilling either as really they are just kind of bizarre in a low key sort of way.
Today's event was the absolutely most unique one I have been to yet as instead of the usual lunch, guest speaker, awkward, "forced-smile" conversations this particular chamber group (one of the larger regional ones) went for a speed dating approach. They had four rows of chairs lined up and people were assigned to a row and seat and you had a minute to tell the other person across from you what you do, company does, etc. and then you move to the next person. We were there largely to act as a sort of community reach out from our college and to hopefully suck in a few people who might want their MBA and so on. So I had to pitch my entire list of programs and services in basically 30 seconds then they got to tell me about their shit. Their shit included, various financial advisers, credit union types, finance consultants, a eco-friendly paper shredding organization, a pest control service (Rentokil!), a party room director from a Schaumburg restaurant, a company Human Resources provider, a personal health insurance consultant, a small business developer, and a dude from New York Life. It was intense, annoying and at the end I felt like i had just finished screaming at a concert THEN it was time for the luncheon part of the networking luncheon...
We then were assigned tables carefully choreographed so that you wouldn't be sitting with any of the people you just shouted your job description to in the speed-dating line and here's where the magic happened. I enjoyed my fine lunch with two small marketing's company reps, a printer, someone who sells payment systems, a mortgage sales person, a security consultant/sales guy and my favorite...A Disaster consultant! That guy was a McCain voter, had the gut, belt buckle and cell in a gun holster to prove it...And he really wanted to scare the crap out of all of us. Naturally, as we began to dig into our catering we each took a few minutes to tell each other what we do for a living and when it was his turn it was 9/11 time! He talked about floods in Iowa, train derailments in Wisconsin, poisoned cattle, failed computer networks, and even mentioned that next week he was going for some training for dealing with "active shooters." So, he gave us this whole talk about how every company needs a disaster plan and they need him to think ahead for them. Not that he isn't correct, he is absolutely correct about those things, it was just the way he communicated it was classic, "THEY'RE COMIN STRAIGHT FOR US!" reactionary, fear-mongery and just plain awesome. It also helped that the security guy was next to him so he was able to piggy-back his security talk along with him and by the end I was ready to create a secure disaster plan that is infallible!
It also lead directly into an "Oh, 9/11 is tomorrow" conversation which is another good conversation to have with strangers let me tell you! You have to wade in carefully so as not to cross into political waters which is SO FUCKING HARD to do, especially for me. The disaster guy was quite serious about it and lost good friends in the towers so you really had to be careful and after he said that I decided it would be best if I simply nodded and didn't say anything. The mortgage sales guy was quite an experienced networker so he then tried to take the 9/11 talk to, "Boy, I remember exactly where I was that day; do you all remember where you were then?" which is a good way to try and get every one talking though I almost said no just to see what they would do. I didn't and everyone at the table then nodded vigorously and started to tell where they were all at once. Quickly it became a case of each trying to top the other with how their parents almost visited the towers that day, or their sister's ex-husband's dog was there up to the guy who was friends with firefighters who died in the towers. My favorite was one of the marketing people who chimed in with, "Oh, I remember that day really well! Wasn't it early in the morning?" To which I really wanted to say, "No, that was the third Iraqistanian war in 2004!" Marketing people RULE! Hell, small business people RULE!
So, naturally after the desserts I promptly jumped up on the table itself and condescended personally to each and every person there, took a dump and flew out of the room through the ceiling propelled by natural gas.
Uh, I didn't have a funny ending so I thought I would make one up.
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