Lets workshop that

Conference. Day one. I am so well behaved these days.
Once upon a time I would have been here with a friend, a friendly colleague, or bumped into someone I knew from another organisation. We would have giggled about other people or speakers. I would have slipped out after lunch for a nap upstairs and then come back mid arvo to rejoin the conversation. Maybe. Today, I stay fighting the post lunch weariness, in an almost dark room, with speakers on and on, and only a short walk at lunchtime to wake up my metabolism. I look half heartedly at displays in the break, I even strike up conversation with a stranger and then include the man standing kind of alone with his lunch plate, and then listen to details of organisations and organizational politics of a restructure, so similar to so many I’ve been in I can almost recite the issues by rote (but am well behaved, so don’t). I nod and smile and try not to say anything stupid, try to seem like a sensible, serious person who knows stuff (a bit much really when you’re tired from a late arrival in town the night before, feeling a little grey and run down like the weather outside, and trying to fork your meal held torso height and not smile leafy teeth at anyone or dribble oily pesto pasta down one boob.

I sit through the afternoon session, again taking notes, listening to every words, thinking of people who I might tell about particular programs, until the nagging sense of tiredness threatens to dissolve me, and I muster my courage, push to one side my concerns about how the speaker will feel, what anyone else might think of me (derr – likely nothing, likely no-one will notice or care), and like a true rebel, I leave, one speaker, that is, 20 minutes, before the day ends. Woo hoo!
You see I could have stayed for the last talk, endured that last bit of sitting in the dark being bored, but there is a dinner, and drinks in the foyer start directly the last session ends, then drinks in the dinner room, then dinner. It could have morphed into one long, 14 hour day of smiling and making small talk with strangers. Which is just about my idea of hell.

So I slip out, walk briskly the few blocks to my hotel, take off my shoes, make a cup of lemon tea, and enjoy the feeling of being alone, in quiet. Anticipate a quick 10 minutes on the freshly made bed, maybe a little read. Maybe do something to my hair, change my top, put on lippie. Modern workplaces and their associated events are not very considerate of the introverted amongst us are they? Turns out I am not a very good mingler, except in short bursts, or when I feel like it. I have to reserve some mingling energy for dinner. I estimate that every 10 minutes alone now helps recharge my batteries for approximately an hour of being around people later in the night. Heaven forbid I live somewhere actually crowded, or in a family of loud people – how would I cope?

NB if the post lunch nap were reintroduced to daily life I think much of my urgent need to get away for a break would be averted.