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Conferences are such fun...
Sep. 13th, 2007 03:04 pm...if you like spending 7.30am to 10.30pm in constant company with your boss for best part of 3 days. It wasn't so bad that violence was pending - though it could have been without too much difficulty or one more day. Instead the urge to say inappropriate and impolite things did get quite insistent at times.
I would have liked to attend more than one session. I would have liked the opportunity to try to talk to other attendees on my own, rather than my boss. When I say I do not handle too much sun well, that does not mean pick seats for both of us right in the sun for a couple of hours and tell me how much you like the heat. When I move to join a conversation between 2 other people all of 4ft away at the end of a meeting we ran, do not look as though your handbag had just got up and walked around by itself. If I say I don't really want a drink, do not buy me a cocktail you knew I drank.
OTOH, everything was paid for by not-me. The accommodation was quite nice and all the free lounge stuff (tea/coffee/herbal teas/water/fruit juice/soft drinks/biscuits/mint chocs/fresh fruit) was great. I was happy to be introduced to the handful of academics my boss did know and did not mind the chaperoning the first evening and up to about 11 the next morning. The guy who brought the cocktail was moderately cute, anxious that he'd mixed it right for me and might have been worth starting a conversation with had I been able to get away.
I have reached the conclusion that conferences are quite reasonable and nice for a change if I am not the one paying for them, but before the next one I need to develop some kind of strategy for autonomy. I am not an appendage.
I would have liked to attend more than one session. I would have liked the opportunity to try to talk to other attendees on my own, rather than my boss. When I say I do not handle too much sun well, that does not mean pick seats for both of us right in the sun for a couple of hours and tell me how much you like the heat. When I move to join a conversation between 2 other people all of 4ft away at the end of a meeting we ran, do not look as though your handbag had just got up and walked around by itself. If I say I don't really want a drink, do not buy me a cocktail you knew I drank.
OTOH, everything was paid for by not-me. The accommodation was quite nice and all the free lounge stuff (tea/coffee/herbal teas/water/fruit juice/soft drinks/biscuits/mint chocs/fresh fruit) was great. I was happy to be introduced to the handful of academics my boss did know and did not mind the chaperoning the first evening and up to about 11 the next morning. The guy who brought the cocktail was moderately cute, anxious that he'd mixed it right for me and might have been worth starting a conversation with had I been able to get away.
I have reached the conclusion that conferences are quite reasonable and nice for a change if I am not the one paying for them, but before the next one I need to develop some kind of strategy for autonomy. I am not an appendage.
