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28 February 2006
What's your Hell on Earth like? Mine is the tradeshow I am going to have to work this week.
Being crammed between a certain ex- and a certain former co-worker on a 12-hour car trip (without Dramamine); and someone has spilled soda on me so I'm all sticky; and someone else is having some interminable, totally fucking stupid, insanely inane cell-phone conversation that simply does not need to take place; and Wham and Phil Collins are on an endless loop. And then they start having an in-depth, heartfelt conversation about American Idol or The Bachelor.
The people at my work, we're not really "friends", we don't actually "like" or "respect" each other at all. "Barely tolerating" is the phrase I find most apt.
Once or twice a year the manager decides that we need a dose of forced socalizing, and that after work we're going for beerz.
Of course, I work way the crap out in the suburbs, so there's no good bars and we always go to some Tipsy McSwagger's Good Time Funtorium or whatever.
And since I'm carless, and, as I say, we're out in the suburbs and have to drive to the bar, I have to catch a ride with someone, usually my team lead. And he *really* likes Andrew Lloyd Webber and Yani CDs on his car stereo.
Being in a crowd of strangers and not being able to see an exit.
Being trapped in a car and having to listen to the other passengers talk about how drunk they were last night, detailing precisely what they drank.
Going through alcohol withdrawl on a Greyhound from Portland to Salt Lake City, finally passing out on the ground outside of a gas station in Provo with the other riders stepping over me.
A PR committee meeting, in a small room, and all the PR people from all around have come down to the big city (Asheville) so there aren't enough chairs. And it starts at 7:30 a.m. and I have to be there. And at least half the ladies have decided to really whoop it up with the perfume this morning. And the coffee is horrible and weak, the doughnuts are stale, and the guest speaker is from Gatlinburg.
And king of prontopia, I feel your pain on the trade show front- they can suck. I worked one last August where the AC was broken. We all nearly died from the heat.
My hell on earth? Crowded and hot and people are using their outdoor voices inside. So, Xmas at the mall, really. Bonus hell points for users of perfume and German opera.
Well, I don't think we will have trouble with the air conditioning here, for one, it's a new convention center, and the other is that it is winter in Michigan hehe. What gets me is the repetition, I have little tolerance for it in the best of times, but when you are there for nine hours over four days and you hear the same question, over, and over, and over.... AHHHHHHHH!
It's enough to erode what little sanity I possess. Thanks for the commiseration though, and I hope your next one is easier.
It breaks my heart when parents do that things where they pretend to be listening too.
I'm guilty of this on occasion. In my defense, I've got a non-stop talker and occasionally have to tune her out in order to read a menu or check a price tag. Sometimes "mm-hmm" is all you can muster.
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