I had a lot of time on my hands today so I started typing on my phone... the length ought to tell you something about quite how much time I did have and might also indicate the risk category I fall into for arthritis of the thumb. It's just a ditty about my week I wrote for my own amusement.
Training for the job was a simple affair. It being an IT–conference (a very prestigious one at that, with tickets for the 7,000 attendees ranging from €1,500-€2,000) the technology is pretty advanced. On "my" desk, as on all other Registration desks, are no less than 4 computers for the self-registration process. I've lost count of how many attendees paused at the monitor and exclaimed "How do you work one of these?" before laughing at their apparent originality. Being the polite hostess, of course I politely engaged in a hopefully-not-too-obviously-
That was Sunday in a nutshell. It was not a busy day, on the contrary, the actual conference events didn't start until Tuesday so it was a small occasional trickle of people to deal with only. Given that there are about 20 manned Registration desks, at the sight of an unregistered attendee entering the large hall, faces lit up in the hope of attracting the generally overweight, stereotypical pasty computer nerd, who tended to look slightly surprised at the wall of neatly attired women vying for their attention with our professional 'come hither' smiles. Little else work-wise happened, but of course on the more interesting social end, you'll always find interesting people in new workplaces. Plenty to be found here and with the large gaps of empty time to fill, needless to say, we all formed groups with the sole purpose of entertaining each other to kill time. Much fun of course.
Monday morning, 07:00 began another day of registering. Busier but only in spurts when bus loads of attendees arrived. Lots of lulls and this went on until closing time at 20:00.
Tuesday began on Registration, large crowds now piling in, the taped off snake queue finally losing its status as an obstruction. For perhaps 2 hours solid, there were 2 people at any one time registering at each of the desks. Printers working working working to get the badges to the eager faced conference nerds. After the rush, all died down again as the nerds assumed positions in the various rooms, halls and areas. I don't mean to be cruel calling them nerds, but if you only saw (most of) them, I know there would be enthusiastic nods of agreement. The other breed prevalent here I shall call Managerial Knobs. I'm basing this category on two over heard conversations with the slick distinguished and slightly oily looking suit types. The first conversation I heard was between two of these who clearly had just met here and were engaging in an virility contest:
MK1 "So how many kids do you have?"
MK2 "I have 2, how about you?"
MK1 *oozing smarm now* "2 yeah? I have 6 of them"
The second example was at the welcome drinks when a group of MKs were chatting business. A regular nerd walked by them, but got stopped by one of the louder MKs who slapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed loudly for his new MK friends to hear, "John, put a smile on your face. I'm paying for you so enjoy yourself and look happy, haw haw haw!" John went from pasty to puce faster than the the processors his company sold and skedaddled pronto. Turning back to his MK buddies, he said in an off-handed manner, "Yes, he's just another of our IT technicians. Now, where were we?"
There were a lot of regular nice people in the mix too of course - it's just hard to miss the sore thumbs sometimes.
So after my brief stint on Registration that morning, the rest of the day was assigned to being a guide in the main hall: now this job borders on cruelty. Basically it involves standing in one spot for hours on end in case somebody wants to know where a particular room is, event is being held or toilets are located. It's boring and painful. Some of this time was spent overhearing the conversations I mentioned above, the rest I was miles and miles away in a nice daydream filled with armchairs and foot massages.
Back on registration desk this morning. The conference finished at 16:30 today so it was always unlikely that anyone would register at this stage. One, as it happened, did register. On the first 2 days, the free bottle (a stainless steel jobbie from Dell) hadn't arrived so vouchers to be redeemed were handed out. There were stacks of these bottles behind us today so swapping bottles for vouchers promised to be the most exciting event of the day and indeed it was! There were 10 of us at one point on Registration for this task, would you believe. Presumably it makes for good optics to have us smiling white shirted staff perched there when our heads are not buried in phones composing stories.
There promised to be little more work to be done for those poor souls working on the floor as 'guides' in the main rooms. I can only sympathise with the agonies of many hours standing stationary or almost stationary. I had the strangest physical reactions to Tuesday's 9 hour standing shift in the Atrium: in order to relieve the expected stiffness that creeps into the joints, from time to time I would lift up one foot and stretch by pointing my toes. As I did this, joints started cracking in the middle of my foot, followed by a loud crack of my ankle joint. This happened on both feet, and as the day drew slowly out, the intensity and volume of the joint popping magnified. But this wasn't all: not long after the feet and ankle popping took off, the knees decided to join in the symphony. By 19:45 just as things were winding down for the now tipsy nerd fest, taking a step unleashed a rhythmical clattering of internal joint popping. Very strange, but it killed the boredom somewhat playing with bodily joint popping rhythms.
Back on registration desk this morning. The conference finished at 16:30 today so it was always unlikely that anyone would register at this stage. One, as it happened, did register. On the first 2 days, the free bottle (a stainless steel jobbie from Dell) hadn't arrived so vouchers to be redeemed were handed out. There were stacks of these bottles behind us today so swapping bottles for vouchers promised to be the most exciting event of the day and indeed it was! There were 10 of us at one point on Registration for this task, would you believe. Presumably it makes for good optics to have us smiling white shirted staff perched there when our heads are not buried in phones composing stories.
There promised to be little more work to be done for those poor souls working on the floor as 'guides' in the main rooms. I can only sympathise with the agonies of many hours standing stationary or almost stationary. I had the strangest physical reactions to Tuesday's 9 hour standing shift in the Atrium: in order to relieve the expected stiffness that creeps into the joints, from time to time I would lift up one foot and stretch by pointing my toes. As I did this, joints started cracking in the middle of my foot, followed by a loud crack of my ankle joint. This happened on both feet, and as the day drew slowly out, the intensity and volume of the joint popping magnified. But this wasn't all: not long after the feet and ankle popping took off, the knees decided to join in the symphony. By 19:45 just as things were winding down for the now tipsy nerd fest, taking a step unleashed a rhythmical clattering of internal joint popping. Very strange, but it killed the boredom somewhat playing with bodily joint popping rhythms.
That's it from this temp.
Pop on.
FIN
