#mmltdc2c

I had some!

Now it's time for more coffee!

Also, the outlet is fixed.  The room service delivery guy saw the outlet and just shoved it all back into place.  

INT. HOTEL ROOM - EARLY MORNING

The room is a nondescript high-rise hotel room, curtains drawn, dark save for a lamp burning dimly on a desk, and the soft glow of a laptop. MMLTD is staring into the screen, toiling away on a series of mind-numbing emails. He stirs, a thought coming to him in mid-sentence. He looks at his tablet. The battery is low. He's going to need that for his long flight home later today. He better plug it in.

MMLTD: I have a long flight home today. I better plug this in! Hmmm. The outlets are all occupied. I don't need this little lamp plugged in. I'll just unplug it and plug in my tablet charger. Yay!

MMLTD reaches down and unplugs the LAMP. As he does, THE ENTIRE OUTLET COMES OUT OF THE WALL, and all the LIGHTS GO OUT. Even the laptop dims now running on battery.

MMLTD (now in darkness): That seems bad. I should fix it. Yay!

MMLTD reaches forward to the distended electrical socket fumbling blindly to push everything back into place and plug in his tablet charger. The music rises, a dissonant string section building in intensity as CERTAIN DOOM looms near for our hero as he slowly reaches for the broken outlet. He reaches out, the strings grow louder. Reaches... Louder.... Reaches... Louder. MMLTD touches the plastic on a power cable still plugged into the dangling outlet. The small movement allows brief metal-on-metal contact, and SPARKS fly from the light socket. MMLTD stands bolt upright.

MMLTD: This is fucking stupid. This is how you die.

MMLTD goes across the room, opens the curtains, turns on all the lights in the room, then moves his computer to a location that isn't about to electrocute him.

I filled out my little Room Service Breakfast placard with a time set for 7:30-7:45am for delivery.

I forgot that I'm keeping myself close to East Coast time, so I've been up since 5am.

Hello, Tumblr.  

I was a bit absent yesterday.   It was the last day of my conference, which primarily consisted of morning department directional meetings, and an afternoon of meetings in which 4 people sat around me at a table and tried to politely tell me I was doing it wrong.  In this instance, the 'it' is the direction of, and how I lead, a couple of my meetings.

So, you know, that was fun.  

I knew it was going to happen, and to some extent, I agreed.  I spent part of last week re-assessing everything about those meetings (attendees, length, days scheduled, etc).  I prepared a pitch for my leadership.  I started presenting, was interrupted and told how my approach was wrong, then told the preferred approach, which sounded a lot like my pitch but with my VP's voice.  Entertaining, that.  

I'm going to stop here and kind of call myself out a bit.  This wasn't all doom and gloom, and this week wasn't a sky-falling, end o' tha world kind of thing.  This week was good, overall.  Long, tiring, and a bunch of work, but not bad.  So while my meetings yesterday afternoon kinda sucked because I was put on the hotseat a bit, I think they were important, and most importantly, I walked away with clear direction and feedback.  Sometimes you need to get some feedback you don't want to hear to move forward.  I'm trying to convince myself that.

Back to the meeting-meeting, there were some changes proposed my pitch didn't cover, and I took them in.  We all ended up in agreement, and it all ended pretty well, I think.  Well, could have been a lot worse.

When yesterday ended, we all said goodbye, and I realized... I don't fly out until this afternoon.  My original thought was to schedule time in the office here to work this morning.  But I've already said my goodbyes...