March 2nd, 2010 - An American in the Nuremberg Messe
Holy crud, it was cold this morning! Even the walk from the hotel door to the cab was painful. Then, I forgot my wallet, and needed to have the cab turn around & dash back to the hotel.
The previous day’s hangover had not cleared my brain, apparently. Yikes, I know I’m a lightweight these days, but I felt worse than a colleage three-day weekend consecutive bender. Even the elevator ride two floors down to the breakfast restaurant nearly made me dry-heave. This aging thing creeps up on you when you least expect it, I tell you…
When we arrived at the convention center, there were several other conferences, and no signs whatsoever on where my taxi should go for my conference. Many zigs and zags later, we finally arrived at the conference entrance. However, I had forgotten to register for the show. Overcoming this hurdle by simply asking for an exhibotrs pass to my compoany’s booth (which was given to me with no ID check at all – hello) , I hi-tailed it into the show floor. I was met with a maze like plastic canopy over several walkways into enormously large show halls, that were all interconnected with additional maze hallways. Could it get any worse? How is it possible to have two examples of poor German engineering in one trip? I was starting to lose my faith in the stereotype.
Nevertheless, I made it to the booth just in time for my first of about 300 meetings in the next 2.5 days. What I quickly learned from my colleagues was the important cultural bias of Germans to meet face-to-face to do business. Boy, they weren’t kidding. As conferences wane in attendance in the US and most other places in the world, they are alive and kicking in Germany. The only show I could recall being as busy was at a LinuxWorld many years back when we gave away a plush toy in the shape of our logo, and every geek and their mother wanted one for their kids back home.
The other interesting part, was that although I requested most of these meetings, it was the companies themselves that told us what they wanted. This was an interesting phenomenon. So much for the hours I spent on the meeting briefs for the executives. Many occasions our agenda was just thrown out the window, as we tried to corral the talks into something more friendly & less demand-focussed.
At the end, my feet were crying so hard they were wet from tears, not sweat. Yet my colleagues insisted I attend the show afterparty, where they said people would dance like it was 1999. After the 3rd Brazilian bossanova jazz standard, something told me the dancing would not quite be up to expectations this year. However, the bonus was that I could eat & escape early using the mellow music as an excuse. This almostworked until, just as we were walking out, a colleague was hi-jacked by some old workmates, who proceeded to grill him for another 45 minutes on some hot burning issue, clearly.
As I was weighing the options of public humiliation versus the excruciating pain of keeping my shoes on, he broke free and scrambled for the exit without anyone else he knew seeing him. If I had known him better, I would have harassed him & made him buy me a drink the next day, but he seemed like one of those super shy & uptight German geek dudes who spend half-an-hour with the lint brush before walking out in the morning. Sweet guys, but hard-pressed to release the sphincter.
Safely on our way out from the booth, I almost began to skip down the show steps at the thought of being so close to my hotel bed, and shoeless feet. Then my collegues had to steady me from feinting when they interpreted what the security guard told us: the taxi stand is a block or so up the street on the left. Only a 3-minute walk. Yeah, 3-minutes for a non-crippled person.
It’s amazing how the will to impress Europeans that Americans are not whiny cry-babies when we don’t get what we want can bring about stoicism in even the most painful bi-pedal moments. Choking back an urge to scream like the famous Edvard Munch painting, I carried on to the taxi stand, where the only taxi there pulled away 30 seconds before we arrived. Steady now, steady.
Just a few minutes later another taxi arrived, and I was on my way, having successfully held back a complete 5-year-old meltdown. Partly it was the kindness of my Eurpoean colleagues. Despite what people say about the excellent public transit and infrastructure in Euroipe, travel chaos seems to occur often enough that many Europeans have a higher tolerance for inconveniences like no taxis to a hotel on the outskirts of town when it’s –15F at night. Bless their sselfless crowded-city hearts for it.
Labels: conference, convention center, Germany, meetings, Nuremberg, taxi
