Well, here I am, back from RSA Conference 2020. It was quite a
week, and there are a couple of things in particular I’m grateful for today.
First is the army of service workers it takes to put on a
conference of this size. All the cleaners—especially this time, what with
coronavirus and all; the food workers; the trash emptiers…
All no doubt low-wage contract labor for Moscone, with few (if
any) benefits. The ones I saw were mostly non-white and over-40ish.
Also, the ones brought in by the various exhibitors to pizazz up
their booths—making margaritas for this one, lattes for that; baking cookies on
the spot (which were not handed out to Expo-only badge holders, BTW). I did not
see one crabby-looking person, and the latte I got was just as pretty as any
coffeehouse’s:
And the hotel housekeepers, God bless ‘em. You could not pay me
enough money to clean up after someone else, so I always leave a fiver of the
local currency and a thankyou note after each night of my stay. For the first
time ever, I got replies. Tuesday’s:
Wednesday’s:
Thursday’s:
(Yes, I left a fiver and a note for whoever cleaned up after I
left on Friday, too.)
The other object of gratitude today is the confraternity of
product management. The one party I was really looking forward to was the “Luxury
Whisky Tasting” set for Thursday night. Wednesday I was at a lunch event and
chatting with a couple of fellows who are also PMs. I thought the company one
worked for sounded familiar, so I said I thought I’d signed up for a party they
were hosting. He got an odd look on his face and said they were holding a
whisky tasting.
Yay!
But—a lot of people were going to get no-room-at-the-inn emails.
Damn.
But, he suggested we connect on LinkedIn, and he’d send me the
suite number on the sly (it was being held in my hotel). And indeed, late
Thursday he emailed me the info and suggested that there might be room later in
the evening.
So I held off until about 45 minutes before end-time and then shot
up. Man—the aroma of that nectar filled the lobby as I got off the elevator. My
PM pal escorted me in, and I had one of the best times ever at a conference
event. It wasn’t just the whiskies; it was the conversations as well. Cyber sec
folks are very congenial; even more so when they’ve wrapped themselves around
some single malt.
They’d run out of the Belgian whiskey by then, but I tried the
Japanese, Welsh, Israeli and Scots stuff. The first did not suit my profile,
but the others were divine.
And I’d never have had that opportunity had I not chatted with my new
PM pal the day before. (I learned that the company had had 650 replies to their
announcement. They gave 250 the lucky golden suite number, figuring about 40%
would actually show up. More than 200 did; they were lined up down the corridor
by the time the party officially started.)
So here’s to the professionalism of service workers, the generosity
of PMs and the discovery of new worlds. Much, much gratitude today.
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