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This week: HELP! I'm Trapped at a Convention! Edited by: Sophurky  
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Two friends were staying at a Chicago hotel while attending a convention. Since they weren't used to the big city, they were overly concerned about security.
The first night they placed a chair against the door and stacked their luggage on it. To complete the barricade, they put the trash can on top. If an intruder tried to break in, they'd be sure to hear him.
Around 1 a.m. there was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" one friend asked nervously.
"Just thought you'd like to know," a woman on the other side yelled, "you left your key in the door."
Hi, I'm Sophurky ~ your editor for this edition of the Comedy Newsletter. This week we'll talk about how to turn a going into a work convention into comedy gold! |
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Convention Hell
I just returned from a convention in a large Midwestern city where I spent eight days with thousands of people attending the same work-related convention. And let me tell you -- home never looked so good! The good news is, attending a convention like this, which many of us are forced to do have the opportunity to do, offers multiple sources for comedic writing -- from travel mishaps to hotel room mix-ups, or the actual meetings themselves. The opportunities are endless, much like the lines for coffee in the mornings at the Convention Center!
I arrived on a Friday afternoon after an easy one-hour flight, after which, it took me longer to get through the airport, find my luggage, and get to the shuttle bus for the ride to my hotel than it took me to fly the 500 miles. This airport was so big, you had to take trams from your gate to the luggage carousels, and then another tram to the shuttle buses. And no, I was NOT in Chicago - O'Hare is like a visit to a fun amusement park compared to this airport. I left the comfortable temperature/low humidity we'd been enjoying in my Midwestern town, and arrived in what can only be described as what entering the gates of hell might feel like. It was 20 degrees hotter than home with 1000% humidity as I swam through the steam bath to find my bus, dragging 50lbs of luggage behind me. Fortunately the shuttle bus had AC. Unfortunately it was crammed with people attending the same convention I was headed too, and they were all excited and chatty.
I sat next to a woman from a tiny town in Michigan who was very excited to be there. Being from a tiny town in Michigan I expect she would have been excited to be just about anywhere. It was her first time at one of these conventions (it was my 7th) and she couldn't wait to arrive at the hotel, register at the Convention Center, and begin her experience. I didn't have the heart to tell her the truth about what was really going to happen for the next 8 days, so I just smiled and nodded and pretended to give a darn.
The bus fought it's way through the Friday afternoon traffic from the airport to the hotel, and finally began to drop us off at the six hotels we were booked in near the Convention Center. Mine was the last on the route, of course, and when I finally dragged my bags into the lobby I was met with a ridiculously long check-in line. But a nice woman offered us ice-cold water or lemonade, and the desk clerks were competent and efficient, so I didn't have to wait very long to check in and get the key-card to my room. Fortunately I have been to enough of these conventions to know that it was worth the extra cost to get a single room. If you double up and room with a complete stranger, your entire room is paid for -- but if you get a single room, you have to pay for half of it. Best $500 I ever spent, because during the rare occasion when we had 2 minutes of free time, I had a place to go, by myself, to get away from all the crazy people other conventioners. Not to mention avoiding the possibility of a crazy roomie. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.
Geeze this is getting long and I haven't even started writing about the convention itself yet. Okay, well, this convention had two parts. The first four days were spent meeting in smaller committees of about 60 people. The job of these committees was to work on a variety of issues and then bring recommendations to the entire plenary which, 700+ strong, would meet and vote on all the committee recommendations for the final 4 days. Supposedly we were all randomly assigned to committees by a computer which evidently was possessed of an evil spirit had it in for me and put me on the most boring committee in existence. Now yes, it goes without saying that committees, by their very nature, are boring -- but this committee topped every other committee in terms of boredom in the history of committees. My committee was the "Committee to Assess/Study Committees." Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
After that stimulating discussion was over, we moved into our plenary session, where 712 of us sat with little wireless remote voting devices to use to approve or disapprove the committee's recommendations. Suffice to say our recommendations were all approved unanimously by the group since no one dared to ask any questions and prolong the agony any longer than necessary. Wise people. Not so lucky with the other committee reports. We used "Roberts Rules" to make motions, amend motions, make substitute motions, amend substitute motions, call for the question, and other general mayhem. Talk about FUN! We barely got out of there by the time the convention schedule concluded on Friday night.
I flew home the next morning with visions of name tags swimming in my head, stifling myself from "calling the question" during boring conversations for the rest of the day. Suffice to say, I am VERY glad to be home. But, I am grateful for the comedy goldmine I discovered at this convention, and look forward to the gems it will offer in weeks to come.
Sophurky |
Below you'll find some offerings from other WDC members about :
First, a few about WDC conventions of the past, which were no work and all fun, and not boring at all!  :
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And a few more about conventions and conferences in general:
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Now for a comment about my last newsletter, "My First Real Job - The End" ...
.....:::::::::: CRICKETS ::::::::.....
Oh wait, there's one!
From NaNoNette 
You are so brave. I would have told on Mark.
And ... elegant solution to giving him a good description @#$%%^&*
I wasn't brave, I was afraid if I told on him he'd just make things worse for me, lol. The good news is, even without my telling, in the end he got what he deserved, and was demoted soon after I left the employ of the Magic Kingdom.
    
That's all for this month -- see you next time! And on behalf of the other regular Comedy Newsletter Editors, Robert Waltz  and Ẃeβ࿚ẂỉԎḈĥ  remember to WRITE AND LAUGH ON! Sophurky |
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Comedy: July 14, 2010 Issue [#3853]
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