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Updated: July 19, 2005
April 26, 2004 Mailcom
You'd think working in shipping and receiving you wouldn't have opportunities to travel and see the country but you'd be wrong. Each year hundred of mail professionals flock to the boardwalk and descend upon Atlantic City for a week of seminars, showcases, and late night parties.
8:00 a.m. It's the first day of my Mailcom journal. I'm sitting at the United gate watching the luggage being loaded into the plane. There are two men sitting behind me discussing which rental car company is the best and which ones they have discounts with. They're obviously on business trips and obviously travel a lot but I find it amazing that this is all they have to talk about. It's been like a fifteen minute conversation. This whole plane looks like it's going to be filled with people on business trips. There are a lot of polo shirts and dress pants on the people sitting here in the waiting area. I can already feel how long this flight is going to be. I'm praying for a decent movie because the only book I have with me is this month's book club selection. I really should have done a better job packing my bag but I think I was in total denial about this trip really happening.
9:45 a.m. Well for a pretty full flight I'm feeling lucky because I have no one sitting next to me. For once I'm not fighting for control of the arm rest and I can actually stretch my legs out because there was room in the overhead luggage container. That's the positive. Of course what would positive be without a negative? The negative as always, is the meal. I think I need to say goodbye to the vegetarian meal and live on the edge. If I had not ordered something special I could have my choice of fruit and a danish or a cheese omelet with potatoes. Instead I was brought boiled potatoes with onions and bell peppers in a super oily sauce topped with, you guessed it, a boiled tomato. if I had had two salt packets I might have been able to get through half of it. As it is I had a few potatoes which I'm sure will give me indigestion for the rest of the flight. Along with the potato medley I was served a seven grain bagel with fat free cream cheese and some unsweetened apple sauce. Thank god for the orange juice. Also I've seen the movie. that's two of the five hours I could have killed on this flight. I may just watch it again, but I don't know it was bad in the theater, I can't imagine it would improve any the second time here on the plane. One more noteworthy item Joe Montana is sitting in first class. I guess the days of chartered airplanes are over for him. I hope his breakfast was better than mine.
12:30 p.m. I was right the movie wasn't better the second time around but I've made it to the part in the plane trip where they pass out the warm lemon scented towelettes. I think I fell asleep too. I could feel myself start to watch that movie your mind starts playing when it wants you to stop thinking and I thought cool I'll sleep through the flight. No I think I fell asleep for oh, fifteen-twenty minutes. It's just so wrong.
2:45 p.m. It's raining here in Philadelphia; not pouring just a steady sprinkle. I'm sitting in the baggage claim area waiting for my shuttle to leave. There are two names on the list that haven't checked in. The first thing that hits me while I sit here is the smell. It's like a bar where thousands of cigarettes have been smoked through the years and no amount of open windows can possibly clear the air. I already want to take a shower because i can feel the coating starting to make its way in to my hair and clothing. Welcome to the East Coast. it's hard to tell who in this group is headed to Mailcom. There's a woman in faded stretch jeans and white slip-on's with a short blonde bi-level haircut that I'm willing to bet on. She's got the stamp of the Great Lakes written all over her. There are a couple of men doing the open dress shirt with a blazer thing that look like they could be mail professionals.
3:45 p.m. I'm on the shuttle, where to begin? Can I just say there are mirror panels on the ceiling mixed in with aqua blue and gray carpet squares. We're riding in a van conversion made to feel like a limousine. There's even a wet bar and the vehicle has a slight hint of spilled alcohol. Today it's stocked with soda. The interesting thing to note is that there are eight of us and seven people chose diet soda. The only person who had a real coke is from Canada. I'm not sure what it means but I couldn't help noticing it. There is one woman who hasn't said a word and she's been reading the same page in her book for the last fifteen minutes. I think she's holding the book open so no one will talk to her. She didn't even respond when offered a soda. So here's the rundown of shuttle users. The two guys in the dress shirts are from Minnesota. The woman in the stretch jeans who introduced herself by saying "Hi I'm Mary Kay Schindler from Appleton Wisconsin. Go Packers!" is of course from Wisconsin. She has family in Sunnyvale so we've already bonded. Then there's a woman from Texas, another woman from Savannah Georgia, the Canadian guy from Toronto and the mystery woman with the book whose pages never turn. We're 34 miles from Atlantic City now but it's very difficult to write since I'm sitting just above the axle in a van that obviously hasn't had it's suspension serviced in quite some time. I think I'll just relax and enjoy the soft rock coming from the speaker just above my head.
6:00 p.m. I'm at the hotel sitting in Planet Hollywood in the "no smoking" section. It's literally one foot away from the smoking alcove. Thankfully it's pretty empty in here. I checked in and requested a non-smoking room. I got a room in the Centurion Tower. It had a great view and I had just started unpacking my bag when I saw the ashtrays. I don't know why it is that I am constantly plagued with smoking rooms. I was in Memphis, again at a work related training session, and asked for a non-smoking room. I get to the hotel desk to check in and the woman behind the desk says "Oh, all I have are smoking rooms, but they clean them really well so they shouldn't smell at all." I asked her if she had been in the rooms and she said she had. I asked her if she smoked and of course she did. So then I asked "Well, if you smoke then how are you really going to know if the rooms smell or not?" She cut me off at that point with "That's all I have available, you can check tomorrow for a non-smoking room". Actually I don't even know why I push the issue. I'm in Atlantic City. By the time I walk down from my hotel room, across the casino and out the front door, it's like I've smoked a pack. It's quite frightening to see little old ladies parked in front of the slot machines in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks; masks strapped to the sides of their faces and cigarettes hanging out of the corner of their mouths. I made a quick tour of the casinos since I found the secret passageway to Bally's Wild West. I spotted one Mailcom couple so far. No one else looks familiar. Who knows if people come to this every year, aside from the instructors. I guess I'll know tomorrow.
April 27, 2004
2:00 p.m. I'm in my first Mailcom seminar; Implementing Mail Security Screening. It's been a busy morning. I stayed up late last night watching movies and trying to get accustomed to the east coast time change. Consequently I slept in. The conference didn't open up today until 11:30. I ran into a few folks I met last year. We went to lunch at the brew pub across the street from the conference center. There was a heated discussion on BPM. BPM is bound printed matter. One of the women at the table is having a problem with a local USPS clerk who won't let her send BPM with parcel post. I was completely lost.
April 28, 2005
11:00 a.m. The day is off to a bad start. My alarm didn't go off this morning and I missed Dr. Joyce Brothers. She is one of the featured speakers this year at Mailcom. It's probably best since I felt like absolute crap this morning. I had one too many drinks last night. I am so not dong that again tonight. So what happened last night? Well after the mail security class I went to two others in my quest to earn the manager's certificate. I have three more to do. The first class was interactive. The instructor passed out an "icebreaker" and then gave everyone ten minutes to go around the room and collect signatures of people who had things like "a hobby", more than three kids, or a pet other than a cat or a dog. Of course the whole point of the exercise was to see if anyone would ask the other questions like "What kind of pet?" The instructor was happy very few did because that just proved his point about team building; "you have to be personally invested for a team to be successful!" The class after that was on time management. One of the women I met last year taught that one which was good because the guy that was suppose to teach it was horrible. I took a class from him last year and it was tough to sit through. After the lectures Mailcom sponsored a "mixer". I got in line for food right in front of Mary Beth from Wisconsin (Go Packers!) and Pat from Austin Texas. They were two of the women on the shuttle. Of course as we walked into the dining hall they started rounding people up for the electric slide. If they had done the chicken dance the whole evening would have been complete. Food was buffet style; big slabs of ham and roast beast but there were also different salads and some pasta. Mailcom provided free soda, beer and wine. That was the beginning of my downfall. Two glasses of red wine and I was done. I should have gone up to my hotel room like Pat and Mary Beth but no. I ran into Jeff who was rounding people up to go to the Irish pub. There's one guy in this Great Lakes party group from California. We spent a while talking at the mixer until Marv stopped by. Marv and I have the same birthday except he was born in 1944. He's a wild guy from Minnesota that wore black leather chaps and red white and blue underwear to a party last year.
