Pawns in Our Own Game

At conference each year, we tour on three motor coaches. Each coach has a "captain," one of the conference planners, and each captain is armed with a heavy-duty walkie-talkie in order to coordinate with the other two coaches while we're on the road. Are you with me so far?

The captains are not normally armed with tape dispensers - this photo was taken just as I had put all of the the bus signs up. I had the best bus, by the way. Did I mention that I had the best bus? Well, I did. Go Green!

Conference is intense and it's a lot of work. But we have a lot of fun too, and one of the most fun things that we do is the bus cheer. It's funny how these things get started. From what I'm told, there never was a bus cheer until conference two years ago (I didn't work here yet, then), when the host city delegate assigned to each of the three tour buses stirred up the spirit of competition. It was a huge deal, that year. "I think by the end of the week," the delegate from that year's host confided to me last week, "we were just about ready to kill each other."

A few people from that year's host always attend conference, though, wherever it is, so the tradition has continued. My Gator Green bus cheer, last year, was written by an attendee from that city. But this year, the delegate had to leave partway through the week - and we pressed on regardless.

It's funny how things take on a life of their own. She started a cheer; no one much cared for it, and I thought it would fizzle out after she left. My two bosses were the captains of the other two buses, and they thought the whole thing would fizzle out too. But our attendees wouldn't let it drop. One of my bus people wrote us an awesome new cheer. I've told you how we actually ended up rehearsing in my room after hours, thereby ruining whatever reputation as a virtuous innocent I might heretofore have held (but let's not kid ourselves).

All that happened, though, was that my boss mentioned that on her bus - the blue bus - she was surprised at who had written the cheer. He's someone from our office, a good friend of mine. He's a funny, intelligent person, but not exactly someone you'd picture as a cheerleader. His supervisor happened to be assigned to my bus. So it all went down like this:

"Hey, you guys," I told my bus, "I heard a rumor that the Blue bus is really good. I heard they've been practicing. And I heard their cheer was written by a professional writer."

My bus immediately began to murmur. A professional writer? Who could it be?! "Isn't Charles on that bus?" asked one of my attendees, but his boss piped up right away: "Oh, I don't think that's the sort of thing Charles would do."

"I know!" I said significantly, "I wouldn't have thought so, either."

Her eyes flashed, and from that point it was GAME ON! Rehearsal was held in my room later that evening. Here I am with the photographer for whom I sacrificed my reputation, by the way. You have to admit he is pretty cute.


But even egging on our attendees this way - and there is some very strange sociology going on here, I have to admit - neither of my bosses, nor I, really knew quite how it got to be so big, or quite where some aspects of the whole phenomenon started off. I mused about it after the cheer competition, which I still think the Green bus should have won. "Does it ever seem to you," I asked my two bosses, "that we are merely pawns in our own game?"

They looked hard at me. "Well, duh," they said.

Just checking.

Forget the tape dispenser. If only I could dress like this for work every day!

Rolling

We knew we were whipped when the yellow bus smacked themselves on the ass and started singing: "Don't you wish your bus was HOT like us? Don't you wish your bus was a FREAK like us? Don'tcha!" and then, when they snapped on their sunglasses in perfect unison and started walking like an Egyptian and the audience started yelling and howling, it was pretty much all over.

The green bus was still awesome anyway. So here, since I published this last year, was this year's cheer. I won't tell you what tune it was sung to.

(Clapping) Left my good job at the center,
Traveled on down to San Angelo,
(snapping)Met a lot of people,
Ate a lot of good food,
San Angelo's been so happy to give!
(rolling hands) Green bus keep on turning,
Good times keep on burning;
(rolling hands and pointing to the guys as they sing) Rolling! (Guys sing "Rolling!") Rolling! (Guys sing "Rolling!") Rolling down the Concho!
Rolling! (Guys sing "Rolling!") Rolling! (Guys sing "Rolling!") Rolling in San Angelo! (Guys sing "Rolling in San Angelo," deep and slow, as we girls sink to our knees before them and fan them with our jazz hands.)

Don't you wish you'd been there to see it? Don'tcha?!

But the blue bus just sucked.

Anyway, it's over, it's done, I'm back, it was a success, and I had a blast. Now it't time to start getting ready for hurricane season. Meanwhile, off to Eeyore's Birthday Party to sell some beer! Film at 11.

Day Three: You Learn Something Every Day

Day Three was yesterday, I'm late, sorry. Been kinda busy.

Okay, so yesterday we started off with a motivational speaker/trainer. I liked her better than last year's, and I definitely liked her WAY better than Mr. Wave My Hand in Front of Your Face Oh Look You're Inexplicably Weakened Now I Can Push Your Arm Down for No Readily Apparent Purpose (who, based on a couple of quick interactions with him on the phone when he called for my boss and he assumed I was "just" the secretary, is also a prick) but let's face it, a motivational speaker is a motivational speaker.

There are four types of people in the world, and if you're one of these, you may have learned to ACT like another one some of the time, but you are by nature and in your comfort zone one of these only:

A Director: Speaks in nouns and action verbs. Makes decisions and gets things done. Focused on the ends.

A Socializer: All about the good times, a dreamer, dynamic, vain, self-centered, fun, talkative.

A Relater: Cares about peace and harmony above all else, will do whatever it takes to negotiate a happy balance among others.

A Thinker: Analytical and detail-oriented, goes nuts if things are out of place or don't go according to plan.

Naturally, the problem with putting people in boxes (even if you do remember to poke plenty of air holes) is that they don't necessarily fit into just one - though, when questioned on it, the speaker insisted everyone does. There are four of us here in my group, as it happens, and a couple of the others eagerly seized on the notion that, hey, we've got one of each! A Director (my overall boss, whom I'd classify as a Socializer, if I had to pick), a Thinker (my immediate boss - good enough, but she's nowhere near as inflexible or as uncomfortable with shifting situations as the speaker was saying), a Socializer (me) and a Relater (our section admin). I tried explaining that I'm actually very shy, but nobody would believe me.

Ah well, it'll all blow over.

After that we were back on the bus for tours, as well as our group photo. Have you ever organized a group photo of 90 people? I bet you think it can't be done within 20 minutes. Well, I did it. (I guess maybe the photographer helped.) I was down there with the group screaming at everyone to divide up by height and maneuver everyone into position (the PA system on my bus doesn't work, so I've done a lot of screaming the last few days) and damned if we didn't get that shot done and everyone on their way back to the buses in 10 minutes flat.

I rock.

We also have to do a big cheer for our bus (the green bus again!) and last night, after all the touring was done, I actually had everybody up to my room to practice. This didn't look suspicious at all. First I had to run down to the hospitality suite, where one of our sponsors poured me a glass of wine. "Here," he told me, "this is a really nice red, give this a try.

"Oh thank you," I said as my glass was filled, "I have to go take care of something. Excuse me." On my way out I caught Kevin, the photographer, who's on my bus but was taking care of other duties during our tours this afternoon, so he didn't know about our rehearsal plans. "Hey, could you come with me for a bit? I need help with something," I told him, and led him off to my room.

Hotel rooms are not all that big, it turns out, when you get twenty excited, giggling people into them. We practiced our cheer several times, occasionally shushing each other lest someone from one of the other, lesser buses might be next door. They must not hear it yet. They must not know how badly their little blue and yellow butts are going to get kicked later today.

And then my phone rang. General panic ensued, but everyone shushed down into subsided giggling and I answered it calmly. "Hello?"

"Oh, hi, Elizabeth," said an unfamiliar man's voice, "Is Kevin in your room by any chance?"

Uh-oh. "Um," I said. "I don't, um. Who's calling, please?"

It was someone I don't know, an industry person in town for the conference. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and gazed frantically at Kevin. "It's [so-and-so]," I whispered, "what do I do?"

"I know him, I know what he needs," said Kevin, "I'll talk to him." So I handed over the phone.

That's my old reputation over and done with, and a whole new one just starting out. Hopefully I can 'splain everything tomorrow after our big debut.

Although when you get down to it, why should I care? I'm a Socializer!

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

Not really, I've been doing so much, like, omigod you guys, I am sooooooooooooo tired.

Okay. Tuesday I was on by 6:30, breakfast at 7, on the buses at 8, 7 stops and 3 drive-by tours, lunch and dinner, coordinating videos and step-on guides on the bus and making announcements, back at the hotel at about 9pm, check my room set-up for the following morning, go find a banquet manager to make a small change, visit the hospitality suite, back to my room about 10pm.

I was wiped, if you can believe it. Oh and get this, they delivered bed down gifts Tuesday afternoon and they left my door unlatched and the sleeping room doors are not self-closing - in fact they swing open - so I get back to my room at 10 and the door is just wide open. Hello! iBook on my desk and iPod in my backpack and all!! Thank goodness nothing was messed with, but we're having a little word with the hotel about that at the post-con.

Okay. So yesterday it was general session in the morning, and I did not hate the speaker anywhere near as much as I expected to - she was actually pretty funny - but still a motivational speaker, so it can only be so good of course. That being over we boarded the buses and went for lunch, an afternoon of quickie little tourlets, and a dine-around with a couple of bars downtown. This was really fun. Saw a gator wedding..

Now, there were three buses, right? Mine was Gator Green. You have to come up with a cheer. Not my idea; cheers never are, but my boss' boss was on my bus and she was pretty insistent, so we came up with, and last night at the final bar performed, in a cheer-off with the other two buses, which I would like to point out that we won, the following:

Clap four times and shout, "Go Green!
We're hot! (We're hot!)
You're not! (You're not!)
We're mean! (We're mean!)
We're green! (We're green!)
That's right! (That's right!)
We got bite! (We got bite!)
So get back on your bus! And don't you mess with us!
Don't be a hater, cause we're the Green Gators!
Na na na na, na na na na, Green Gators, Number One! (repeat a few times)
Woo Hoo!!! (etc.)

Okay, so we did that at the bar, but there were a whole bunch of us - a busload, not to put too fine a point on it - but back up to yesterday morning, when -

Okay, I'll continue this later, I gots ta go, yo.