Conventional Wisdom

Conventions, now they are strange things. You either choose to go to one for pleasure or you are made to go to one for work. You go into what is usually a big empty room to be confronted by a plethora of stalls and people sitting/standing at them promoting their product.

May I suggest that if you are going to a convention then you go with someone. It can be very awkward when walking past a stall that could be someones livelihood, and taking a quick look, ignoring them and moving on. Think of how annoying/awkward it is when you walk into a shop and you are the only one in there. The shop assistant immediately is on you, like a hawk on a mouse - ‘Do you need any help?’. The response is always ‘No mate just looking thanks.’ Now multiply that by about 10 fold. Instead of having a nice big shop with some clothes or big stands to hide behind, you have to stand there in front of a table, in a 3 sided box less than the size of a small toilet and try and say ‘No thanks, just looking.’ Now even if you can do that I bet you can still feel that person’s eyes bearing into you, trying to see inside your very soul.

Let’s focus on the work convention. I had to go to one of these things just today I’ll have you know, yes very exciting for the both of us. It was to do with stationary. I see that has piqued even more of your interest. I can honestly say I cannot believe how much people have to say about pens and paper. There are a lot of innovations out there, I do have to say I am impressed. At one particular stall, we were talking to a lady from one of our suppliers. She could not get her words out quick enough. It was as if she had a script that she had written and learnt the night before and she was shit scared of forgetting her lines. My god, trying to understand what she said was hard but when you take into account that she was talking about pens and the type of ink they use then it was nigh on impossible. I don’t care really if this pen uses an ink that makes it impossible to forge a signature (bollocks by the way), or if a certain pen was hugely popular with students. Why did she think that last bit of information would have interested me?! On my name badge (oh yes there are name badges and I will touch on that in a sec) it says what company I am from. Surely this is an indication to the speed demon that I am not interested in what pens the kids these days are getting. There are people everywhere trying to network, to get an advantage on their competition and you are the target.

The convention that you choose to go to is a competely different beast. Yes there are still the stalls, and the people staring at you but you want to talk to them. You probably have so many questions for the people at the stall that there aren't enough hours in the day. There are conventions for everything. Obviously the most well known are the sci-fi ones. Every character that you can think of from a sci-fi programme or comic is there. People get really into it by dressing up as their favourite characters or just wearing the uniform.

The people at the stalls are also a very eclectic mix.There are the ones that as mentioned before talk at 500,000 miles a minute about the crap they are selling, there are the very energetic and charismatic sales people that could sell ice to the eskimoes and should be at times on stage and then there are the people that sit there. They wait for you to aproach their stall and when you do they will give you a cursory glance. Only if they think you are genuinely interested in what they are selling and they may make some money down the line will you be worthy of their time. Their time is precious, so don't you be wasting it. To these people I say 'why the hell do you bother?!' Just don't turn up and do everyone else a favour.

Long live the convention. Whoever thought of this weird get together of like-minded or business-orientated people created what has become one of the best things to look at and watch. That is the thought for today, tune in tomorrow for something else. Laters