June 18th of last year, I was embarking on my second trip across the country for an event. Not only was it the second trip across the country, it was the second trip I had been on period. The first being to Vegas a month or so before. So, today last year, I was hopping a plane to fly to LA. If I remember correctly, I had a connecting flight in Chicago, but, neither here nor there I suppose. It was a scary thing.. the first trip I had been with 5 other people, and with this trip there were only 3 of us. The one benefit, as I remember, was that the other 2 people were already there and had taken care of most of the initial work. It was my job, once I got there, to help with presentation setup and then to work the actual presentations when the time came.

The problem, as I remember it, was that I had never actually RUN a presentation before. The first event that I went on, my "training event" as they liked to call it, was mostly automated. All we had to do was copy a presentation over to a computer and the presenter started it. It ran itself. We weren't even in the room with them when it was happening. This event.. was quite different. I got a chance to actually see what running a large conference (the nuts and bolts, not really the planning) was all about. I got to see the sound guys do their thing, the video guys do their thing, and I got to finally see how to do MY thing. It was.. hectic, it was frightening, it was completely amazing. The first show that I actually "ran" was.. insane. The actual event coordinator hadn't worked out a system yet for the presenter to key slide changes, so I was pretty much watching for hand/eye signals to alternate slides. All in all, that went off without a hitch. If I remember right, I did.. at least 3 more of those that day. It was a crazy experience, as the two other people that were there with me couldn't really help at all.. one had to man a registration booth we'd set up, and the other was running shows on the opposite end of the hall.

The entire trip/experience was something else.. the amount of overtime I pulled in that week, with travel and everything included, was immense. And it certainly wouldn't be the last time I ended up with lots of overtime due to traveling and running shows. Though, in the end, it wasn't meant to continue much past 6 months of starting here. That show was one of the biggest that I was a part of, aside from the one that I helped with in Chicago.. that one doesn't necessarily count, though, because I wasn't running anything.. none of us that were in Chicago actually were, it was all run from a data center here in Youngstown, we were there to relay and facilitate mostly.

So, June 18th of this year.. I'm sitting at my desk, looking at spreadsheets and trying to test a software product that seems to get worse with each new build we get. I'm sitting at my desk, doing four times more work than I'm being compensated for. I'm letting the stress of trying to fix a broken system tear my up inside, and it's not a happy thing. I remember a year ago.. so excited about these trips, about the chance to do something new and see things I'd not seen before. That was fun. This is not.

Ah well.. leaving a position for new things (whether by choice or necessity) is something that happens. I'm making the best of what I have to do here now.. and I just keep hoping, most likely too optimistically, that it will all work out for the best if I just keep working at it. I guess we'll see.