Milwaukee or Bust...

10/22/2008

AirTran flight 231, heading northwest in a near cloudless sky, row 27, seat “A.” The seats around me are empty; the plane is about half full.  I suppose not many people, including me, want to go to Milwaukee today, perhaps not on any day.  This is a business trip, although I don’t fully remember why I am going there – where it is just 46 degrees.  I am supposedly going to work a conference exhibit with the local sales rep, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is about other than it being one with educators in attendance. 

Educators tend to be a nice group of people, as a whole.  By educators I, of course, mean anyone connected with educating kids, and that includes those who work behind the scenes – from the bookkeepers to the maintenance people, bus drivers, lunch room staff, etc.  I love them all.  All of them have a hand in the process of making kids the best they can be, and they all can buy my stuff.

Everyone needs a break.  Educators are no different, and they need their party time, too!  This doesn’t mean these conferences are all play, quite the contrary is true.  Educators go to these things to get educated on new trends in education, school business, food service innovations, and, yep, even new buses and cleaning products.  Education is big business.

But along with the work comes the play, and educators know how to do that as well, and that is when I really love to be with them.  In private business, an awful lot of it gets done on the golf course.  Some of that might happen with educators, too, but I have always found I get it done with a beer or two after hours. When the daily work of educating is done, educators let their hair down, so to speak, and educators have been known to have a drink from time to time – judiciously, of course. 

So here I go to Milwaukee, clean shirts, coats and ties, and a thirst for business.  What a deal!!!

And that is all I have to say about that…