Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Bad luck series 2: The conference

Actually, what happened in the conference isn't bad luck, but for continuity we will keep the same title. These are just complaints, although I am not the only one to make them.

The first thing is that I must have submitted to the wrong conference. I didn't notice that Banff is another national park (after Yellowstone in 2003). It all felt like a family retreat. In a very expensive hotel/conference location. There were no air conditioning in your room at over 30 degrees Celsius. Some people paid 120 canadian dollars for an extra banquet ticket which actually is nothing more than a common buffet. And so on. (By the way, they had a "game" or lottery during the banquet, which (1) is a bit too silly to describe here, and (2) no one understood it at first, and (3) no prize was given out at the end as if it never happened.)

But the real interesting thing is this. Usually in these conferences the organizers will arrange some tours or things like that. This time, they listed a "conference fun day" in the programme. A whole day in the middle of the conference without talks, but they never mentioned what it really is. Last time the experience in Sanya was already very "memorable". This time you simply can't complain about the tours, because there was nothing as such. It is a "fun day on your own". And no one told us so (well, until you ask). Come on, people who want to have fun at the national park can choose to stay behind by themselves after the conference. Why on earth do you want to put it in the middle of the conference? Haven't we wasted enough money already?

Coming up: What would you feel if this happens to you? While you are taking a shuttle to the airport, 5 hours before the flight departure time, the driver of the shuttle semi-jokingly tells you that your airline is not flying today...

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