Chauffeur

This is a busy week for me. I am on the Board of Directors of the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education, and this week is our annual conference. I'm an outgoing member of the board (I'm the representative on the board for the Northern Kentucky school districts), and my last act as a member of the board is to be a slave for this conference.

For the most part the work I've been doing has not been much fun. Today I was in charge of vendor setup for the vendor room of the conference. As vendors arrived I directed them to check in and once they'd done that I helped them take their equipment to their booth and then I helped them with whatever they needed. So it's been a day of, "Can I get another table?" and "I need two more electric outlets" and "I can't seem to connect to this school's wireless." Fun, fun, fun. And for a guy like me, who by his very nature is kind of shy with people when I meet them the first time (though not at all shy with people once I get to know them), it's painful talking to 100 strangers (thought truth be told, I knew most of the vendors anyway from past conferences).

On the other hand, yesterday was MUCH more fun. I got to pick up our guest speakers at the airport. Now, on first thought, the idea of picking people up at the airport doesn't sound like much fun. But think about this: How often have you landed at an airport and seen a chauffeur standing holding a sign that says "Mr. Johnson" or something like that? And how often have you thought, "You know, I'D like to do that!" Of course you have! Well, I got my chance yesterday. Before I left to go to the airport I printed signs for each of the gentlemen I was picking up and held them up at the airport while I waited for them at baggage claim! It was fun!

But you could tell I was a newbie. First of all, I didn't have a cool chauffeur hat. Secondly, I didn't have a neon clipboard, just a plain piece of paper. All of the other chauffeurs had hats and clipboards. I'm pretty sure they were all looking at me and smirking in derision.

Oh well, I'll know better next time!