I have deteremined that my stress level the last 1.5 months has been pretty high and I am sure it revolves around #SQLPASS. Here let me explain.
First there is my company that made me dance around like a puppet and sit on pins and needles while waiting to find out if I was going to get to attend this year. You see last year the “boys” went and I didn’t get to. One of them, who happens to be my boss’s boss would come by and rub it in that he was going and that I wasn’t then I got the drop by stories from PASS for months after. There was also continual badgering from KLT on my status and etc. Yeah that really helps. They finally tell me I am going and then some level of panic sets in. OMG OMG OMG I AM GOING TO PASS! Then there was the SHIT! the conference hotel was full days ago and the alternate just became full. The amount of stressing out I did for the last couple weeks is just crazy. I got a meeting invite to attend a special “let’s book PASS”. WOW! After that I was pretty much on my own for all the other travel plans. I have never traveled with my current company I don’t know the policies, I don’t know what to do. They mentioned in the meeting that we should use Expedia, uh NO! I explained that we need to get as close as possible to the conference facility and that gave us a free pass to book a room. Whew!
Okay, that part is done I am registered for PASS and have a hotel reservation. Now what? FLIGHTS! You see Kerry got his company to pay registration, we still have to cover his flight and etc. So I book flights on Southwest Air, not without a call to customer service. Bad news is that we had to “adjust” the flights, I couldn’t book a free flight home for KLT till the Monday after. Now we are headed to SEA on Monday 10/10 and going to miss the phot walk. BOOO! 🙁 Flights, hotel and registration we are well under way. Now there is the extra days we are staying gonna need a rental car, and did I mention the company is getting a break on the hotel rental because the extra days (extended stay) get us lower rate?
That then leads to last week’s last minute OMG we need business cards. Our company doesn’t provide them so we need to print our own. How? Where? WHO? Well we used a company recommended by a fellow SQL person. Paid extra for shoter delivery time (to bad we found out they came from Louisville KY and got here 2 days early). But then we had issues getting 2-sided cards worked out so I spent an evening designing cards. 😀 They arrived today and I am really happy with them.
So one of my co-workers wants my help figuring out how to enter a expense report. I realize that OMG I am going to need to do this. That took about 4 days and 4 hours of reading. No stress there! I have read two sets of documentation and decided that per diem would be easier and prolly cheaper for them. Just sayin. But today I even got logged into the system. To bad my boss wasn’t listed as an approver and I had to fix that. I would of thought someone would of wanted to take the time to provide some sort of “offical” training/documentation about what is covered and what isn’t. Oh well next week when I burn an entire day doing my expense report I will remember the good old days of working at a .edu.
Once I had all the details taken care of came the onset of sheer panic of “WHAT WILL I WEAR!?” For one time I totally became a girl and freaked out. There were suggestions for shopping, borrowing, buying when I got there and wearing the same thing over and over. SOme of those things just really don’t pan out. I did make it to Old Navy for a killer sale to pick up a few tops and some t-shirts. That however didn’t prevent me from having to try on every thing I own to see if I could put together enough clothes for 8 days. And even after that I still got to spend some quality time with my sewing machine. 2 pair of pants to hem and a couple tops to take in. WHEW!
I ordered a new laptop/overnight bag. It’s pretty cool but the handle is far to short to be practical for running through an airport. I picked up a very handy rain coat at Sam’s club. It’s cute, has some linning in it so it should be fairly warm. I also borrowed luggage to check. My poor suitcase has been traveling for sometime and when the handle decides to stop working it becomes a big problem. Airlines don’t like it stuck in the up position and I don’t care to lug it around when it is stuck in the down position. Can’t win! I would buy a new bag but who knows how much I will actually be traveling.
Alright #SQLPASS and Seattle I am ready!
It seems that all in all I have everything ready to go. It is the first time I have traveled and not cleaned the house from top to bottom before leaving.
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