Swept Along for the Ride

And here we go again...

While the first few weeks of getting back on the road for BER were exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating, and stupefying, I didn't feel like getting back to the blog right away. I tend to fall into the trap of complaining a lot when I'm surrounded by inefficiencies, or rather, things that I would do differently. The company is changing up a few practices in the interest of saving money, and my first couple of weeks were sacrificed to the alter of making it work:

I started out the year on the road alone, setting up my seminars and piecing together my paperwork at the agonizingly slow speed that only 4.5 months away from something can provide. As the week progressed, I added a second presenter to the car and therefore a second seminar to my morning responsibility, and nearly melted down while waiting for my voicemail to be set up to ensure I had reliable contact with the office.

The second week out was more or less fine, although the finer points of getting along with a presenter took some refreshing... although the memory that all mistakes are forgiven if you make a Starbucks run was the quickest to return.

This last week, once again burdened with two seminars, I managed as best I could while FedEx attempted to foil me over and over. Problems that I had never run into in the whole of the last year cropped up--the missing tech case, the wrong CEU paperwork shipped to me, and a box packaged inside of another box with all identifying information destroyed. That along with managing the personalities of two male presenters, one of whom was extremely hard of hearing, with two opposing senses of humor was a lot to handle. My sanity was saved in Manchester, at my Hampton Inn with a Sauna and at the best meeting facility in the whole USA--SERESC. There will be future posts about SERESC, perhaps even an ode.

This week, I had already had my Monday seminar cancelled when I got a call Sunday night letting me know that my packing procrastination had paid off--no Tuesday seminar either (sadly, due to a death in the family of the presenter). Two days working in the office in Bellevue, and a flight out tomorrow morning. I only regret the time I didn't get to spend christmas shopping in Manchester.

All in all, I think the complaining can come to a rest now, and I can go back to buzzing around the country marveling at how great life can be. And since my photos from NZ, Fiji, and Sydney are all up on Flickr now, I think I can start taking pictures again. Hope you're all ready for this...