And now it seems like it takes several days to recover from a short domestic trip. What gives? I guess I’m out of practice. Either that or these shows just suck the life right out of me.
Show was fabulous and horrible all at once. Can that possibly be? Well, yes.
I LOVE these things - the excitement, the lights, the people, the schmoozing, the dinners, the booze, the flirtations…
And I also HATE these things - the bullshitting, the competition, the late, late nights that are followed by rough early mornings, complete with hangovers that you have to power through all day until you get to the evening where you have to have dinner and drinks and flirty-flirts and dancing all over again until it’s time to go home.
And going home…getting to the airport and through the airport to your flight. On this particular trip, I got to the airport on ONE hour of sleep in the wee early hours of Friday morning (the near-zero sleep is 100% my own fault, and I consider it worth it because Best Bud and I spent the whole of Thursday evening/night bonding again and I LOVED that). Anyway, I suppose I looked pretty rough on that one hour of sleep because not one, but TWO TSA agents pulled me aside and asked me if I was OK. I’m SERIOUS! Two agents thought I looked like I was having an extremely difficult morning! Yikes. Still, special treatment. Yay.
And nervous flyer over here - you’d think that with all the flying I’ve done in my lifetime I’d be over my nervousness, but we were flying through storms and those get me going every time, so that meant zero sleep on the flight home.
Got back to town around 10am and had to go into the office to do recaps and such (because of the fear that Boss puts in me), and finally hit the wall around 2:30pm when I just HAD to go home. I could not get anything else done no matter how I tried.
So I did something that I rarely do. I went home. But about 3/4 of the way home, I realized that I’d promised to drive one of our Chinese team members downtown close to my place because she was staying for the weekend in the hotel (the one in the building that I wanted to move into!) and I was going to be showing her some of the area over the weekend.
Nevertheless, someone else from the office was able to take her, and all was OK.
Next day I took her to a typical American brunch - complete with mimosas and delicious breakfast treats! Another woman from work joined us so that we could talk business and do a little trend shopping to show our Chinese colleague what the US aesthetic looks like in person. Our Chinese girlfriend declined the mimosas (was horrified that we were drinking in the middle of the day!), and clearly didn’t understand what we were doing and why we were talking about the people at the office and why on EARTH we were walking around retail stores after brunch because in China NOBODY shops like that.
Sadly, she just didn’t get it. All she wanted to do was compare the US and China and that wasn’t why we were doing what we were doing with her. This was not a sight-seeing trip, honestly. This was to try to get her to understand what American consumers do and like. It was supposed to be a fun field trip for her, and I think she had a decent time, but clearly didn’t get the message.
I also took her to dinner on Saturday night and we ended up going to a really nice restaurant close to her hotel and my place. This time, I was looking for her to relax and enjoy herself - trying to get her to open up.
At dinner, we sat out on a covered patio area and listened to the sounds of the city and the people all around us. It’s kind of a trendy restaurant and I was happy that we were able to find a table right away. The scene was loud and happy. I think she was overwhelmed. At one point, a guy at the table next to us noted some things that were happening on the street and wanted to talk with us a little. I loved talking with our table neighbors, but she seemed confused. And yes, I understand culture differences, but this is why we go out in each others’ countries. We want to show each other our worlds.
Another kind of funny thing that kept happening all evening was that strangers just naturally wanted to talk with me for one reason or another - people being friendly, people being flirty, and that completely threw her for a loop. I told her that it was unusual for that to happen (tiny fib) because I didn’t want her to think that I’m this crazy, crazy redhead (even though I kind of am).
By the end of dinner I was ready to hit the underground cocktail bar in my hood, but I could tell she wanted nothing to do with it, so I took her back to her hotel. I offered to take her to breakfast the next morning, but she DECLINED, telling me that she wanted me to have a day off and that another guy from work had offered to take her to the next town over, and that was that.
I don’t think she likes me. At all.
So fine. Went home and to bed and spent a relaxing day with the dog yesterday.
Today I picked her up at her hotel and we had a really nice talk/drive into the office together. She told me about this awesome ride share program that they have in China…sort of a community Uber/Lyft situation, where if you have a car and you’re not a serial killer, you can drive people wherever you’re going for a nominal fee. It’s a million times cheaper than a taxi or Uber, but it also helps with the insane traffic and especially helps if you don’t have a car. This conversation was the best one I’ve had with her - ever. Maybe she’s warming up to me.
Anyway. Back in the office. Long day. Boss said in his staff meeting that somebody stuck their foot in their mouth at the trade show in front of the CEO, and she’s pissed. He wouldn’t say who - just that he was going to have a private conversation with that person about what they said. Will be interesting to say the least. The man avoids confrontation like the plague. I’m now wracking my brain trying to think of all the stupid things I said at the show. It could very easily be me. VERY EASILY. I can have a foul mouth if I try hard enough, and my foot fits in there quite comfortably. Ugh. Please tell me it’s not me.
Gotta roll.
xox,
GS
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