Travel, disappointments, home

I have been on the road for the past four days; since Sunday evening. The time was spent in Athens, AL at a training facility they call Leak City. All in all, it was a good week. The classes I had to present were not the best material – at least not the caliber of material I would have liked to present to a crowd of people with that level of experience, so I adapted. Especially with the second class (Wednesday). I had a person in class with me that is an expert on evaluating employees like those that were in attendance. I stopped my presentation when I saw the class lagging and asked him to do a full walk-through of what his expectations would be with regard to a performance of the task we were addressing in the course material. That thirty minutes of demonstration was a huge success. So effective that in the second half of the class I had Jeremy repeat the process with an evaluation relevant to that topic. Each demonstration generated so much involvement that I think we have a pattern for future classes. Prior to the demonstration, the class was disconnected, uninvolved. I could not buy a comment. After the demonstration I almost lost control of the class. That was a good thing. I made the week a success at least on the classroom level.

We, as a company, were hugely disappointed by the response of the organizing company to our involvement and financial participation in the event. We supplied (free of charge to the organization) personnel to host and teach two classes. We provided a booth in the vendor area with a lot of giveaway items. We gave a very generous donation to sponsor the event. However, we were constantly skipped over for any mention of our involvement. Any appreciation of our donation. Our CEO, who attended three days of the event, was not happy with the oversight – which was possibly more of a slight. Time will tell. Anyway, it is done now.

I got to fly home Thursday afternoon. The CEO and I ended up on the same flight, so he invited me to lunch at an airport restaurant as we waited for the flight. His exasperation was measured, but evident. We had a good visit during the hour we spent at the bar-b-que restaurant. Not that that will amount to anything for my benefit, but it gave me a chance to witness gently as I refused an alcoholic drink – even to the point of politely declining the offer of the olives in his drink. We share stories from our past work histories and got to know each other a bit better. There are times when I would like to convince them that is can do far more than they are asking of me, but it is probably for the best that I do not.

I am home now. And happily so. Mama and I had a strained evening because I always come back from road trips emotionally wrung out. She has learned to give me time alone with my thoughts as I let the stress go from such an event. By this morning, I was okay. I should be okay through the weekend, which is a good thing since we are having seven or eight people over for Sunday dinner. We have several students from BBTI attending our church this year and Mama has been antsy to have them over. The issue is that we usually go to the restaurant for lunch every Sunday afternoon because Alex likes to feed us when we take the girls to church. Well, he is having the restaurant retrofitted to become a Japanese/Chinese restaurant. Doing away with the buffet altogether. The remodel will take a month. During that time Mama and I will take the girls with us and have our Sunday dinners at home. The girls are very excited. Mama and I are too.

Mama is out today with Kim Cantrell looking at yard sales for items they can use in their growing business. I am not sure what they are looking for because they will not know until they see it, but I am sure they will have fun looking even if they get nothing…which is not likely to happen.

As for the rest of the weekend, I have nothing special planned. Yesterday, we got the two beehives I ordered accidently. I will probably take time to assemble those, but they will not be needed until sometime in April next year. By then Mama and I will have decided where to put the hives and who we will order our bees from. Mama is excited about our bee keeping venture. In fact, I had her order the tubes for making bee’s wax lip balm. I will order the bee’s wax today and perhaps next week, we will make the balm as a test run of our first bee related product.

It should be fun.