The Conference

It really irks me to admit it, but the conference last weekend was excellent.  I was able to check my bags at the hotel around 9 a.m. and spend some lovely wandering around time waiting for a room.  Down the escalator and around the corner and into a mall.  Sat down and drank an enormous cup of coffee.  Watched busy Vancouverites rushing around doing whatever busy Vancouverites rush around doing.  My roomate turned out to be a lovely girl who has been with the company only six months, so definitely not into the whining stage of employment yet.  I tried REALLY hard to nix the negative comments.  She was newly married, newly licensed, young, cute, happy.  I think I was like that once. So I tried to imagine THAT me stuck with the PRESENT me for an entire weekend, and cleaned up my act considerably.  I can be nice.  Yes, that was meant to be serious.

The food at the hotel was delightful, although B.C. is a province that tends to go a little bit overboard in the seafood category.  W. told me to be sure to have the baked salmon.  How long have we been married?  Has he never noticed that I have not once  in my life ordered anything even remotely resembling a salmon steak?  Fish should be white and breaded and deep fried and taste like seafood sauce.  And come with fries.  I did eat some by mistake though – a big slab of undercooked pink stuff cleverly camoflauged on a bun stuffed with some colorful leaves and things.   Well, I’m no food review writer, obviously.  But for everything the presentation was a huge percentage of the appeal.  Everything tastes better when it looks good first.   Except for that undercooked pink stuff.  Yech.

At the afternoon optical session on Friday we were bombarded with all the new stuff that’s up and coming.  It was nice to finally put faces to the names we’ve been e-mailing about all our frustrating work related problems.  Then we joined the pharmacists and played that team game where everyone is assigned a position and together you have to construct a leggo thing exactly like one that is already made up.  Except the Builder is far removed from the prototype and never actually gets to see it and has to rely on verbal communication to get the job done.  The Director is supposed to give clear instructions on what is to be built and how.  The Runner must pass this information on to the builder also without seeing the finished model.  The Observer can see what is supposed to be built and what is actually being built but is allowed to say only “that’s right”, or “that’s wrong.”  A second observer takes notes on what works and what doesn’t work to share with the group when it’s all over.  And the Manager gets to leave the room and be accesible for meetings which the group never thinks to call because they’re too busy trying to get this stupid thing built before the time runs out.  So was this supposed to make us all aspire to be managers??  One team had it done and done right in about ten minutes.  I think our team got about four pieces put together.  Our builder was a pharamcist, so we could have been there all night!  HAHA!  Okay, final pharmacy dig, I promise.

Saturday was a full day of education sessions, new products, new technology, new slogan.  Our focus is supposed to be on health and living better.  It’s not about selling stuff.  Of course we’re hoping people who want to be healthy will BUY stuff.  In the afternoon we got to visit a whole lot of vendor’s booths and tables and fill up bags with free samples.  There was a pharmaceutical company giving away clocks.  So I took one.  Why did I do that?  Maybe deep down inside I think it would be rude to refuse a gift from a nice man.  I had a hell of a time stuffing that thing into my suitcase, but it’s now hanging in our doctor’s room.  I also have travel mugs, eye drop samples, lanyards, antimicrobial phone pads, tons of printed material, note paper, and three bazillion pens.  To end the day we all met in the lobby and in one great big group walked to another hotel for the awards banquet where they honor the pharmacist and optician of the year.  And also students in each category.  Two lucky people won GPS’s in a draw.  Sunday was more of the same, but shorter.  I’m really impressed with the speakers and the quality of the presentations.  I’ve been to other seminars that put me to sleep in less than five minutes, but that was not the case here at all.  I sincerely hope next year they don’t have restrictions on how many opticians can attend.  Everyone should have the opportunity.  (Well I’M not going, but people who express an interest should be allowed to go.)  (I’ve had enough optical fun to last me the rest of my career.)

It seemed like a long time between the end of the conference and the various plane departures, but factor into that a last quick shopping trip, having my bags go missing (they somehow made their way into a special locked room and had to be tracked down) (gawd, I could have lost that damn clock!!|)  and getting back to the airport and having a quick supper and making our way to the departure gates, all timed rather well but……sorry to inform you, your plane has been delayed.   It was only forty minutes, and only mine.  We all seemed to be booked on different flights even if our destinations were the same.  Just for fun, let’s put this one on a flight to Edmonton that stops in Kelowna!  HAHA!!  Let’s fly this one little Manitoban to Winnipeg at midnight!!  She has to be at work in Brandon the next day, so that makes perfect sense to us random flight bookers from hell. 

Oh yeah, I said I wasn’t going to be negative.  Okay, so I had a direct flight, when it finally got airborne, and I made it home.  W.  picked me up at the airport and I put his eleven dollar parking fee on my expense claim.  I also claimed mileage for his trip to the airport and back.  I did not claim for duress.  Because there wasn’t any, in the grand scheme of things.  Well, maybe a little coming back from the humid shirt sleeve weather to the dry and dirty snow.  But I’m glad I went, happy I saw a little bit of Vancouver, had a bit of a break, and that somebody else paid for it all.