I am back from the short few days in Florida. Was it sunny? Was it warm? Yeah! It was warm and sunny and I am not talking only about the weather. For those who don't know, I was dreading going to Florida for a week. But it turned out to be.....not so bad.
The working hours were still too long, the food disastrously good (catering team rocks!), the wine alright, the room (a Marriott suite) was luxurious, the room view fantastic, and company of fellow-IHI'ers.....priceless. Every day started way to early around 4:00AM. I tried to get some exercise in, but failed miserably somedays. Breakfast was set in our staff office (two of the conference rooms made up our staff office) at 5:00AM and was not cleared until 9:30AM. And they kept refreshing it with tones of food, from French Toast to Oatmeal to whatever. So, most of us had breakfast A at 5:30AM and then breakfast B, C, D and E, and then by the time 12noon rolled in we had fabulous lunch and then on to evening de-brief of the day with wine and beer. Ok, so it was not all feasting, we managed to get work done too.
There are three teams: the registration team, that helps people pick their badges, their tote bags with goodies and helps making session changes or making payments or help in computer kiosks; then there is the room check team, that ensures that room are refreshed by hotel staff, handouts for the session are set, check in with faculty for the next session to ensure that everyone is settled, and then there is the shuttle team... (nah, Cape Canaveral is close, but not we don't use that), this comprises of shuttling the attendees from neighboring hotels, and no we don't drive, we are there to answer attendee questions and shuttle around assuring attendees, that they will get to their sessions on time. Did I say there are three teams, well, I belonged to none and all of them, so, maybe there is the fourth team.... the floater team, and I was the only member in there. My job was primarily on the registration section, but it was also pulling reports, and latest live lists of changes for my boss, so she had latest greatest information at the tip of her fingers when she needed them, pulling just-in-time attendeelist, closing sessions as they came close to the capacity, informing the registration for room-fire-code capacity, directing people, herding people, running back and forth to the business center for copying and special printing and faxing, room check with one of my good friends and generally hanging out in the staff office and answering calls, taking messages. Whoa! That was tones of work, but not all was me alone, (so I cannot claim credit on any single one of them). But, save for the shuttle, I was everywhere and loved it. It beats hands down, sitting in front of the computer at the onsite registration being trampled upon by your boss and your (then) best friends being unnecessarily nasty.
So, in short it turned out to be great, but I am glad that it is done. I am glad to be home, and got the warmest welcome from two kitties, who I believed they would disown me for leaving them alone for the week.
Good deed of the year done, check, and 363 days to the next one. :) And now to the gym and dumbbells to work off that nasty 5lbs.