Spring Training

This Thursday and Friday are "Spring Training" at The Hotel. It's that lovely time of year when the unwashed masses convene in the convention center (where better to convene, really?) to learn tidbits about aspects of The Hotel we might not know.

Last year, we got to taste gluten-free cookies from the Bakery, saw a sneak peak of the newly re-designed rooms (including the sweet flat panel TVs), learned about the Swarovski flip flops for sale in the women's shop, etc.

Each little booth is manned by the managers of the location. Last year, due to The Boss's impending back surgery and the fact that he and The Chef had an awards ceremony to attend, Girl Chef and I had fun running the last round of presentations. Ironically enough, I dished out food while she talked. And in case you were wondering, 4-star cuisine can look like dog food on a plate, but it still tastes great!

This year, I imposed my will on my bosses early. About 6 months ago, I found a stash of old menu paper and proclaimed that we would use it to make this year's hand-out. I held onto it, and last week I finally got around to making the hand-out. Actually, I made two. One was visually pleasing, but quite verbose. The other was a large print bullet point list of facts. And The Boss and I actually agreed that the pretty one was the way to go, even though half the staff of The Hotel probably couldn't read it even if they wanted to! Good for us for not catering to the lowest common denominator!

The Boss also decided he wants my help during the event. That's slightly problematic for the following reasons:

* the first session starts at 8 am. That means two 14-hour days.
* the last session runs from 3-5 pm, which I couldn't do because of my "real" job.
* did I mention 8 am? or the 14-hour days?

I know from experience that when The Boss wants me to come in for something special, it means running around doing a whole lot of random errands/odds & ends. I imagine this particular project would mean a bunch of trips between the convention center and the office.

I'll probably go... even if the days will be long and painful. The food is good at Spring Training, and I know from last year that they feed the managers even better stuff between sessions. And it'll be one more thing to add to my list of "this is why I deserve a raise" at the end of the year. Isn't that what's most important? ;-)