# The joy of professional conferences. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 14, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288 "2003-05-14T22:48:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/1 "2003-05-14T22:48:08Z")
When the boss sends repeated e-mails telling you to sign up for a conference, at some point, you can no longer ignore them. So you sign up, knowing full well, it will not be a pleasant experience. And it wasn’t. I spent the last two days at the Air Vehicle Engineering Conference here in Jacksonville. It continues tomorrow, but I’m going back to work. I can’t take it any more. Of all the presentations listed in the program, only one was remotely interesting to me - Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. And it was interesting enough that I have a point of contact for a possible new job when I move to Maryland. I’ll be sending off an e-mail tomorrow. One man was discussing the history of carrier aviation. That could have been a fascinating session. However, he was not a very good speaker. I nodded off twice. I wish I had recorded his monotone for use on a sleepless night. There was the admiral who gave the opening talk (I was stationed with him when he was a lieutenant commander 20 years ago) and he wandered thru the crowd asking questions and pointing fingers. We were not well prepared for _that_ fiasco! But he made one very good point - we need to stay more in touch with our customers - the fleet sailors and pilots. He spent over an hour making that point. Other bits of the conference that stand out in my mind - the overuse of the word “basically” - I _hate_ that word! Then there was the materials engineer who kept saying “manuf_r_acturing” - like stuff being broken as it was being made. Another good feature was that today was chocolate snack day - they had chocolate chip cookies and brownies and chocolate mousse in dark chocolate cups, and candy bars, and even YooHoo! So after I got my chocolate fix, I left. I’d already been there 8 hours, so I figured that was enough. I guess I’m unprofessional - I didn’t get much out of the professional conference. Oh well… whaddya gonna do?? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/2 "2003-05-14T22:51:28Z")
“manufracturing”? Band sniglet. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/3 "2003-05-15T09:25:41Z")
its even worse when your boss doesn’t show up and **you** have to give the seminar. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/4 "2003-05-15T12:53:53Z")
I once had a manager come and tell me I needed to go to a conference. He didn’t care which conference, I just had to go to a conference, preferrable something related to what I did at work. I think the reasoning was that he got the funding for a conference, I was next in line to be sent somewhere, and it looked good on paper for his team to be going to conferences. So I did some Web searching, and found a conference in a city that was about a 2 day drive from me, at a kick ass resort hotel. I could drive to it in my brand new kickass convertable. I could sit by the pool when not conferencing. Whoohoo! It was great. The hotel kicked ass. I went to the conference during the day, and lounged around at night. I partied. Mr. Athena flew down 2 days before the conference was over and hung out by the pool. We drove back together. I learned some stuff there, too. So everyone was happy! ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/5 "2003-05-15T12:54:04Z")
I can usually find something at engineering conferences to hold my interest enough to keep me awake, but I know what you mean. You’re not unprofessional, you just have a highly developed sense of self-preservation. I’d offer you my sympathy, but I was once forced to sit through the ultimate Seminar From Hell. You don’t know deathly dull until you’ve listened to an economist for six hours. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/6 "2003-05-15T14:04:41Z")
See, that’s why you have to have a job so obscure, that nobody knows what you do. That way you can schedule your own conferances, and go places you like. Much like Athena, the one big conferance I go to a year (in Orlando in December), is more like a mini-vacation. The wife flies down with me, and we spend an extra couple of days before the conferance starts enjoying ourselves. That way we really only have to pay for a few extra days lodging on our own. I have another one in Orlando coming up in July, and we plan on doing the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBeer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/977dab/32.png) [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/7 "2003-05-15T14:51:41Z")
> [@](#): > > You don’t know deathly dull until you’ve listened to an economist for six hours. Uhhh, two full days of thermal management techniques in densely-packed electronic enclosures . . . in Detroit . . . in friggin’ February? ---
**Author:** ![Daftbugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Daftbugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daftbugger)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/8 "2003-05-15T16:20:43Z")
My last conference was in Sydney in December (I live in wet England) Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![Exgineer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Exgineer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exgineer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-joy-of-professional-conferences/175288/9 "2003-05-15T18:15:38Z")
Geeze, **UncleBeer**. Two _days_ of “turn on a freakin’ fan?” You got me. That’s pretty bad.