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9:05 CET
I've finally succumbed to the temptation of noding whilst on a business trip...
I hate being here. We have to stand up for 90% of this tradeshow, with the other 10% comprising of walking or lifting heavy boxes. I suppose we have to do it to get the business however...
I'm at IBC, a broadcast industry tradeshow where Sony executives shake hands with the heads of the BBC, salespeople try to sell things that they don't understand and I have to use this icky laptop.
As with many stressful situations in my life, I've found myself daydreaming more and more over the past week. I've been accused in the past of not paying attention by managers and friends. That is because I am not. I would rather be saving princesses, forming amazing eco companies that solve world pollution problems, writing amazing software or travelling to distant stars. This isn't to say that I don't consider what people are saying to be unimportant, but just sometimes I want to be elsewhere.
I had a wonderful moment on the train from Schiphol to RAI station; The perfect ambient beauty of global communication's 14:32 started echoing through my mind. Suddenly, I wasn't sitting on an uncomfortable train seat, I was floating in zero gravity in a huge space station with music all around me and a pristine unspoilt ocean planet looming huge in the viewing window. It's a little worrying to me that I can shut myself off from reality so totally, to the point where people can be trying to get my attention with little success.
11:25 CET
Two completely different people
I said to my two managers: "I want to try and pack up our show equipment completely tonight so that I can spend some time in Amsterdam central tomorrow morning before flying home."
My Project Leader thinks "Why the hell do you think you can slack off tomorrow when you're still on company time. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that you don't get any free time from now on."
My General manager thinks "Good, dizzy has realised that to have fun later he has to put in extra effort now. I commend him on his priorities. He has been working hard and deserves to have a little free time."
Mental Note: My project leader is a bastard. He always has been and always will be. The best I can do is to turn the other cheek.
17:30 CET
Group Euphoria
There is only half an hour left of the trade show. Right now, there is a strange kind of group euphoria spreading among everyone on the Sony stand. Normally dour people are smiling, taciturn and withdrawn people are cracking jokes and laughing with child-like abandon. It's almost like a mass hysteria is gripping everyone here.
it's almost as though my feet have stopped hurting. It is so strange that my mental state has such an effect on my physical well-being