Trade Show Day 3: Feeling Burnt

Trade shows are always an endurance test. Day 1 was long but I made it through. Day 2 was shorter and easier; I even had time for some humor about it (previous blog). Day 3 was the toughest. Even though the exhibit floor had the shortest hours, open only 5.5 hours, I was suffering from too little sleep for 3 nights in a row. I felt burnt out.

It's especially irksome that I got too little sleep Thursday night. I went to bed at midnight, which was a bit later than I wished I'd stayed up. The real problem, though, was that I woke at 3:30am. I tossed and turned for the next few hours. I couldn't get back to sleep!

By 5:30am I decided, "Fuck it" and started my day. I showered, dressed, and sat on the sofa to surf the web. At 7 I went downstairs for breakfast then came back up and switched to work for an hour or so. Around 9:30 I packed my bags and went downstairs to check out and wait for my colleague to arrive with his car to drive to the show. By the start of the show at 10:30 I felt satisfied with everything I'd gotten done that morning— and I felt ready to go back to sleep.

Thankfully traffic at the booth was slow on Day 3. That's a typical pattern for trade shows. Many of the contacts we had were other vendors coming by to check each other out. That's also a typical pattern.

We did have several existing customers come by, plus a few legit prospects We had a pretty big technical staff at the booth, so we gave them quality time. The part I was happiest about was one of my sharpest technical experts had just put together a new demo on disaster recovery, and one of my customers who's trying to improve DR came by. He got a lot of value out of that demo. And it strengthens our relationship at a time when we're looking for the next level of growth in their use of our products.

But, oh, the day felt long. I felt unsteady on my feet already by noon. I got by with a little help from my friends.

I perked up after 3pm. Traffic at the booth picked up because we were doing our raffle drawing for a PlayStation 5 at 3:30. The booth coordinator picked me to be the face man for the raffle. She knows I know how to put some showmanship into it and I like doing it. We had dozens present for the raffle. We got a winner (must be present to win) on the first draw! Too bad it was a college student— i.e., someone in no position to influence a buying decision from us. Maybe next time we'll be smart enough to rig the system. 😏

Keep reading: The Road Home from Detroit

The Road Home from Detroit

The road home from Detroit Friday afternoon/evening felt long. And it was... though it could have been worse. Here's a rundown of the good & the bad:

• I left the show just before 4pm, after raffling off the PlayStation 5. Another colleague left at the same time as we both had Friday evening flights to catch.


• We called a car with Lyft. It took for-freakin'-ever to arrive. Like, "Driver arriving in 5 minutes"... then 10 minutes later, "Driver arriving in 6 minutes." At least we included the likelihood of crap like that happening in planning our schedules, so we still got to the airport with time to spare.


• Security at the airport was slow. There were only 10 people in front of me in line. It was still slow. All across my trip this week I've observed that plenty of people in Detroit don't care about working fast. The job is the job, and nobody working there cares that there's a line or customers are getting frustrated because staff are lackadaisical and inefficient.


• As I was deciding whether to grab some dinner at Detroit or try to do it between flights at Chicago I spied a Lufthansa lounge. Oddly there's no United Airlines lounge but there is one for Lufthansa. And on the signboard outside it noted that Star Alliance Gold members are welcome. I have *A Gold, from United— which doesn't allow me in its own lounges for having that status. But this partner airline I've flown, like 1/100th as much, does!
  
  
  
  
• The spread in the Lufthansa lounge wasn't stellar, but it was certainly better than nothing. I enjoyed two small sandwiches and two glasses of wine. It wouldn't be enough to fill me up for the evening but it was a great start.


• The flight from DTW to ORD got delayed, for no discernable reason. We arrived 20 minutes late. Irrespective of that I did get about 45 minutes of sleep on the flight because I was so tired. But those 20 minutes lost sitting on the ground in Detroit meant that I had to run to catch my connection two concourses away at ORD.
  
  


• I didn't have time to grab more food at ORD. Or rather, I thought I didn't have time to buy food. United was showing the connecting flight departing on time. It actually left 20 minutes late. The reason for the delay? The people loading food were running late! 🤣
  
  
• United has a new buy-on-board food option since the last time I flew them: a cheeseburger! For $10 it's kind of crummy compared to food choices on the ground (and outside of an airport, arena, or convention hall) but compared to other eats available at 38,000' altitude it was pretty reasonable. It's at least better than the free food still served in coach on international flights.


• I got no sleep on the 4-hour-plus flight from ORD-SFO but I did watch a Liam Neeson action movie, Memory. As this is the 2020s I watched it via aircraft wifi on my own phone, instead of on a seat-back screen or— remember this from TwenCen?— a shared projection screen at the front of the cabin.


• Despite leaving 20 minutes late we landed a few minutes early at SFO. No, the pilots didn't "make up the time in the air" like they often say. Pilots actually have almost zero ability to fly faster. The simple reason we arrived ahead of schedule is that the schedules are planned assuming that 20-30 minutes of delays (way more on certain routes!) will occur.


• At SFO I called a Lyft ride as soon as I entered the terminal. This Lyft driver actually arrived on schedule. He waited for me at the pickup point before I could get there myself. It was great having someone waiting to provide me service for once this week, instead of me always waiting around for workers to get to me.


• With the flight arriving on time and the car ready when I wanted it, I got home— as in, walking through my door— just before 11:15pm. I was worried it would take until almost midnight. I was happy again for something working right.


• I showered, unpacked my suitcase, and got to bed, all before midnight. Hooray!