Archive: August 2006

The hotel where I’m staying in San Francisco has free wireless internet access in the lobby, so I’ve come down a little bit before my ride arrives to catch up on a few things. Needless to say, this free internet situation has set up a strange phenomenon that I think I will coin as the corporate water hole.

We all circle around with our laptops, looking for one of those really good red cushy chairs, avoiding the backless ottoman-type things. Some people are on cell phones, others just reading a paper, and most annoyingly, some take a whole chair just for their computer bags. I’m stuck on a couch now between two people from the same company, and it’s a little weird. I feel like I’m eavesdropping on something, but hey, all the red chairs are taken! It’s even funnier because the hotel is hosting a conference, and there are so many people (men, mostly) with nice tech toys and event badges milling around, sniffing around for wireless access. Then, after a time, when someone has finished up getting hydrated (or checking e-mail, whatever), he’ll get up and slink away, and another thirsty laptop-user will come to share the wealth. Such is the behavior of business travelers in their natural habitat.

I just got back from helping to run our company’s first-ever Talent Show, and I am bushed. (Note: The insanely late hour is due to the fact that I’m on funky west coast time, so it’s not quite as bad as it seems.) I spent the whole day beforehand in deep discussions with people about company history and internal improvements – as is befitting for a company retreat, I suppose – but the evening was dedicated to burritos, margaritas (yay!), and some talent, or something resembling it. I became the default A/V girl, which is almost laughable when you think about my inability to program our VCR, and I did a lot of running around to find outlets, set up our projector, and display a presentation of slides during the dinner hour. But you should have seen those slides…

As a member of the planning committee, my main duty was to assemble a slideshow of company photos and trivia questions to be shown while people mixed and mingled, kind of like those pre-movie preview shows that ask which movie is the source of some obvious line. Our team collectively came up with the questions (and answers, thank goodness), while I compiled photos and put together the pièce de résistance of PowerPoint presentations, if I do say so myself. It probably took me over 8 hours to put the whole thing together over the weekend, but this bad boy is 150 slides of photo nostalgia, fabulous trivia, and superbly obnoxious animation. You heard right – I said animation, folks.

I finally had an excuse to use the Pandora’s box of ridiculous entrance and exit animation effects that Microsoft released into the unsuspecting world. I am almost always dead set against any type of animation, unless it is a subtle entrance that will prevent the audience from reading a whole slide while you’re trying to talk through your first bullet. In that case, I will concede that it is in good taste to have a gentle fade or a slow fly in. I believe that these effects generally serve to induce headaches and irritability during excessively long presentations, and heaven help us if there are sound effects.

This show was a different story! I got to find out with the Bounce and Spiral In and Light Speed effects all accomplished, and I think it’s safe to conclude that none of those should ever be used in an actual corporate setting. I’m glad to say, though, that kitsch was the name of the game in this situation, and the ridiculous effects only added to the cheap movie feel of the whole thing. I did refrain from anything involving sound because, come on, you have to draw the line somewhere. Photos bounced in, birthday stats spun until they reached their destinations, and trivia flashed in and out, much to everyone’s amusement. I have to say that my proudest achievement was creating word scrambles out of a few people’s names; for example, “Tom Garrison” became “Starring Moo”! Yes, I am that nerdy (or cool!), and hello, Scrabble is one of my favorite games ever, thank you for asking. So of course, these word scrambles required an even more tacky effect, and I called upon the Faded Swivel, a letter-by-letter flip that made the scramble vanish as the solution appeared. It was a thing of beauty.

So when I say that we had a talent show, I do mean that we had a series of acts, like an a capella quartet and several strange skits. Really, though, outside of my old standard act of doing a human trick, this PowerPoint presentation actually was my talent. I know that it’s a little sad, but I’m darn proud of it.

When I booked my 9am flight to San Francisco, I knew it would be painful. When I confirmed with the airline that I should arrive two and a half hours before my flight, I flinched. When I reserved my 5:30am pickup by the shuttle service, I had a sinking feeling.

But, oh, when my alarm went off at 4:20am … that was the worst of all. What is this strange dark morning I’m observing? The last time I saw 5am was the morning JG and I left for Ocean City, NJ, but I sure don’t remember that trip, between my periods of nodding off. For this little excursion, I have to have the wherewithall to progress through all of the airport lines without dropping my e-ticket, misplacing my ID, or flipping over my roller bag. I’m not very good at the airport juggle, but I’m guessing that getting two-thirds of my normal amount of sleep won’t help.

There was a time when I saw the early morning. I worked at a summer camp for two summers during college; we had to be up and at ‘em bright and early, and I managed. Minus the bright. It was more of rolling out of bed, grabbing the first shirt and shorts I could see in the hazy blueness of my bunk, and staggering outside into the misty air to the long walk to the dining hall for breakfast. Or at least, it seemed long.

Ah, well, what can you do? I’d rather be sitting and waiting for my flight rather than standing in a line and wondering if I’ll make it, so this being up early nonsense is definitely the lesser evil. It’s still evil, though.

Among other things, I’m most often a proofreader at my firm, and I have the freedom to scrutinize others’ work, compare it to style standards, and make revisions, largely without approval from the author. It seems that, lately, I’m having trouble leaving work at the office.

I was skimming through JG’s blog recently, and I noticed a typo. I know he doesn’t want me to pick apart his entries, so I generally leave well alone, but this error affected the meaning, and I was torn. It occurred to me that maybe JG didn’t realize that there was an error at all, so he might appreciate a little pointer. Or maybe I’m just obsessive, and he actually wouldn’t. But still… I wouldn’t feel right letting something like that slide. It’s really a question of ethics, you see.

So. I asked carefully, “If I noticed a typo on your blog, would you want me to tell you?” And JG responded, “Yes, if it’s actually a typo.”

Ouch.

“Oh, well, you used pouring, like a beverage, when you actually meant poring, like looking carefully.”

“There’s a difference? I didn’t even know that.”

Oh. Well, okay. And that was that.

It happened again soon after with a different blog, whose author I don’t know personally, and when I pointed it out to JG, he recommended that I not bring it up, so as not to come off as a, um, not-so-nice person. I’m sure that the readers wouldn’t have substituted white win for white wine in the recipe, but still. When I consider it in my own case, I would be kicking myself if someone pointed out a typo. I like to think that I would thank the person and fix it ASAP, all the while swearing to proof things more carefully the next time. At least, that’s how it (mostly) went down when JG found errors in my posts. At the same time, I can see how pointing out errors could come off as being kind of mean…

I don’t think I’ll say anything about the wine thing, but really, what’s the etiquette for something like this? Is it dependent on how well you know the person? Or how grievous the error is?

Of course, a short answer to all of this could be for me to stop being such an anal-retentive, hypercritical person…