The Conference

Got back from the Conference Thursday night. Here's my daily highlights.

SATURDAY
Reluctantly went to the airport by taxi. Amazingly my driver was good, had recently bathed and showed me a much quicker way to the airport. We chatted the whole way. Once in Sydney we got picked up and then headed for the Blue Mountains. Day 1 mostly consisted of golf and food and drink. The golf was awesome fun. We played 2 man Ambrose. I went with a guy called Milton from WA. We didn't go so well. The most fun was driving the buggy. On the back 9 I teamed up with Mark from NSW and we played against Mike from QLD and Dan from SA. Had some laughs. At night we had a good buffet dinner. Night finished up with a few people tiring of my "American Gangster" review, which was fine by me as it meant I could go to bed.

SUNDAY
Pretty much in a conference all day with our E-Commerce team. At night we had a posh dinnner. I had a fancy steak and it was awesome. I'm learning sometimes it is quality and not quantity. The brandy snaps and ice cream dessert was also a triumph.

MONDAY
Had a free morning until the rest of the sales team arrived. I spent it watching tv, doing some work and reading. The other guys arrived after 2 and the real conference started at 3. We started with one of those team building exercises where we had to construct a building out of pasta and marshmallows. Highest one standing won. Normally I just stand back and yawn but eventually I got into this one. In the arvo we got to ask our management questions about the company, then at night we had a buffet dinner. Again.

TUESDAY
Conference all day, which was actually pretty decent. At night we were all given a "fiddy" and told to go into town and grab some tea. Most of our Vic team went into town and decided on a Chinese restaurant. They seemed pretty annoyed that we showed up to their empty restaurant withou a booking. Everything was too hard. It took ages for us to settle on whether we would get the banquet or everyman for themselves- eventually we settled on the banquet. Thankfully the food was great, especially the honey chicken. It was chicken cooked in honey. Delicious. We then came back to the motel, grabbed some drinks and went to bed.

WEDNESDAY
Again conference all day, then at night we had an "Awards Night". No prizes for Paul, unless you count the DJ who was stuck in the 80's. He sure played an unusually large amount of Billy Ocean. Was a good night though.

THURSDAY
Workshop presentations in the morning, then off to the airport for the trip home. One of our team suggested we try getting an earlier flight. I told him they never let you. When I went to check in though I was offered an earlier flight. Ironic. Sadly most of the others had already checked in and only two of us got on the "earlier" flight. Unfortunately there soon came a delay, and in another ironic twist, our "earlier" flight left about 10 minutes after their flight. The other good thing about that was that we had a prisoner on board, escorted by 5 cops. I think he was a terrorist, so that's what you want on a flight.

A long time to be away from home but it was good for a work conference.