Today is Friday – POETS Day ! I always aim to finish work by 4pm if I am in my office on a Friday, I don’t always manage it, but it’s good to aim.
Today it’s pretty much essential that I leave the office early as I have plenty to prepare and pack ready for an excruciatingly early departure for Heathrow on Sunday morning (bad planning on my part – I forgot the clocks go forward that morning – ouch). It’s Trade Show Season!
Three large crates and numerous boxes are due to arrive on a certain little patch of concrete in an exhibition hall in Hamburg for which we have paid an eye-watering amount of Euros. For that we get the privilege of creating a stand (more Euros) and standing on it for 3 days next week before putting everything back in the crates ready for next year.
And people say my work life is glamorous! On Sunday afternoon and all day Monday we will be dressed like Michelin men to counteract the cutting wind which blows through all the massive open doors to the exhibition halls. It’s actually colder indoors than out, you can’t hear yourself think for the sound of drills and saws all around, and there is paint and dirt and sawdust everywhere. Lovely!
Out of all that chaos an exhibition emerges like a butterfly. Not quite that pretty actually, but I can’t think of another analogy.
Then we do our sales bit – long hours of standing around bored with aching feet, drinking coffee, punctuated by intermittent moments of frantic activity as, inevitably, clients are like buses and all turn up at the same time, wanting coffee and attention. B makes a lot of coffee during these shows while I talk a lot. Well, that is my job!
But somehow its fun. We work hard and play hard. At the end of the day it’s strangely impossible to get from the hotel door to the lift without going via the bar – Prost!
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