A Good Disco?

(The challenge was to write a story based on the line: “It was a good disco, the teachers were selling fags and booze in the classroom”. This was what I came up with.)

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Those few days on America’s West Coast will live long in the memory. I was attending a conference on behalf of my company – all expenses paid – and the best thing about it was that all I had to do to justify my attendance was come back with sheaves of notes that I could plonk on my boss’s desk. The more notes the better.

Gathering what I needed did not take long – the notes had all been prepared in advance for every session and consisted entirely of reprints of the PowerPoint slides that the conference presenters duly read out in front of their audiences. Actually being in the room was completely unnecessary, as prior experience at such events had told me long since.

I didn’t even need to visit the conference venue, because everything was available via the Intranet that the organisers had set up. A link had been established to all the hotels that the delegates had been assigned to, so it took less than an hour to download all the relevant papers to my data stick, making sure that I didn’t make the mistake of claiming to have been at two sessions that took place at the same time.

Once back in England all I had to do was print everything off and scribble a few comments in the margins to give the impression that I had been following everything with rapt attention. As long as it was good enough to fool my boss, that was certainly good enough for me.

It was certainly not the first time I had performed this sleight of hand – I was an old hand at this, having had my fill of being a proper conference delegate at venues all over the world. It was always the same – a programme of sessions that were either far too basic or completely mystifying, with the same unedifying rush of hundreds of people pouring out of all the sessions at the same times and heading for the bars or the loos. And all one ever had to show for it was a pile of reprinted PowerPoint slides!

So what it all meant was that I was free to enjoy myself for three whole days in sunny California. I was even spared the famous fogs of the Bay area. 

I did the tour of all the best beaches, although I took the precaution of not getting myself too good a tan, just in case it excited comments back at base. I thoroughly enjoyed a beach volleyball tournament – especially when the women were playing – and at other times there were fantastic views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Whenever I’m overseas I usually have problems with my accommodation. Don’t ask me why, but if something is likely to go wrong at a hotel, it’ll be me who is the victim of the problem. I often find that the keycard doesn’t work the first time I try to use it, and I have to make another trip down to reception to get it re-programmed. But this time everything went swimmingly – one click with the card and I was in. 

I could write a book about all the dodgy hotel rooms I have been in – lights that don’t work, dripping taps, torn sheets, faulty windows, I’ve had them all. But on this occasion the hotel room was almost perfect. My only cause for complaint was that the minibar only stocked Bourbon and not Scotch, but that was a minor setback.

In other words, it was a really good trip, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and the boss was duly impressed when I got back. I’m looking forward to the next one, wherever that might be.

To sum up:

It was good in Frisco, great beaches, few hotel snags or queues for the bathroom.

 © John Welford