I like to be Early to Meetings

For almost twenty years, I ran a consulting practice. I designed and built systems for businesses. I developed a content management system for a major media company. I designed a filming permit system for the city of Los Angeles. I created a costing system for an integrated chip manufacturer. I’ve installed, maintained and upgraded systems for clients in banking, entertainment, manufacturing, hospitality, fitness, and others that I can’t recall.

I’ve attended a lot of meetings. I’ve been to sales meetings, strategy meetings, planning meetings, kick-off meetings, status meetings, emergency meetings, and let’s-figure-out-what-went-wrong-so-it-doesn’t-happen-again meetings.

I traveled extensively during my time as a consultant. I’ve spent years living in hotels. I had uber-platinum-mega-diamond status at Hilton, Hyatt, and Holiday Inn. I would usually head out Sunday night and drive home Thursday or Friday. Sometimes an emergency would come up as I was driving home and I’d turn around and not make it back home for another week.

I learned to pack efficiently. I could live for two weeks with a carry on and my laptop case. Two pieces of luggage was all I needed.

Then, one day, I saw an ad for something I believed would make my life more efficient. I saw a suitcase that had been custom designed just for me.

It was a sleek, sexy, carry on with a laptop case in back and a compartment for clothes on the other. If this worked as well as I hoped, I could travel with one bag instead of two. I already had a wheeled laptop case so taking it with me every morning wouldn’t be any different than what I was presently doing. I might have to pare down a few laptop accessories, but I was sure it would be worthwhile. I would be a hyper-efficient, one bag consultant, traveling the world and fighting crime! (Ok, I’d tour California, Arizona, and Nevada, and take in a superhero movie every now and then.)

I added the bag to my shopping cart, giddily typed in my credit card number, and began waiting anxiously for my new accessory to arrive. Thanks to Amazon Prime and the people in the brown trucks who deliver the goods, my plans for world domination were nearly complete.

A few days later, my road-warrior carry on arrived. It was a shiny, new, and silver. It was swaddled in plastic and filled with packets of small beads that, for some reason, I was cautioned not to eat. (Honestly, this never occurred to me until they warned me not to do it, but now I was curious how the beads tasted.)

I tore through the plastic like an impatient lover ripping the clothes off my partner. I tossed aside the small moisture absorbing beads (even though I was now curious what they might taste like). The new suitcase smell beckoned to me like a sirens song and I was ready to hit the road again.

I eagerly packed my bag for the coming week’s trip, restless to test my new tactical gear in combat.

All went as planned until Friday. That is when I discovered the roadblock on my way to luggage Valhalla.

I woke early and packed my bag in preparation to check out. I tucked my laptop and its charger on one side of the case and sequestered my dirty laundry on the other. My planner didn’t fit on the computer side, so I placed it on top of my laundry. I grabbed my room-brewed cup of coffee and off I went. I swaggered as I pulled my one suitcase in one hand and carried my coffee in the other.

I arrived early to my client’s office and went to the row of cubicles where they kept the consultants corralled.

I pulled out my laptop, and started working on my status report. It was Friday. Friday was status report day, after which I’d hit the road for the long drive home. I put the finishing touches on my update, emailed it and printed copies for everyone in the meeting.

Since I was hitting the road after this meeting, I packed my laptop in my suitcase and headed to the conference room a few minutes early.

Two sides of the corner room were floor to ceiling windows. The morning sun flashed on the polished mahogany table. The cleaning staff had lovingly arranged the chairs in perfect symmetry around the oval altar where ideas and careers had been born and crucified. A state-of-the-art Polycom conference phone rested in the center of the table like a giant, black starfish. Satellite microphones stretched to either end, tethered to the mothership by fine black wires.

Earlier in life, I wanted to be a radio DJ (this is a relative flashback. Bear with me for a second). I went to broadcasting school. I was pretty good at it. I also liked information technology, and computers paid much better, so that’s the path I chose. But, thing that always stuck with me from broadcasting school was that being late is unacceptable. If I was late getting on the air, everyone knew. There is a saying in broadcasting: “It’s better to be an hour early than a minute late.”

This phrase stuck with me, and I am always prompt, usually quite early, to meetings. This time, being first in the room saved me from an embarrassing mishap.

I pulled my bag over to my seat and settled in. I didn’t need my laptop; I had a hard copy. I did want to take a few notes and jot down any important dates on my calendar, so I reached into my bag to pull out my planner.

My calendar was a Franklin Planner in a luxurious, black leather binder, with a zipper closure to trap any loose papers.

As I pulled the binder out, I noticed it had caught on something. I tugged a bit harder suddenly a pair of my underwear jumped out of my bag, attached to the zipper of the binder.

One side of the waistband caught the zipper of my binder. Something in the bag trapped the opposite side. I jiggled the binder to dislodge my underwear from my planner. This didn’t quite work as I had hoped. It loosened the side that was stuck in the suitcase, and launched my Calvin Kleins in a long arch directly onto the conference table.

I watched wide-eyed as a pair of my underwear shot a foot into the air, flew gracefully like a soft, navy-blue, cotton mortar, landing squarely on top of the speakerphone in the middle of the table.

All this took place in slow-motion as I watched. “Damn good shot.”, I thought to myself. “I couldn’t make that again if I tried.” I stared at my laundry for a second, then glanced around to make sure I was still alone.

I retrieved my under pants and stuffed them back in the suitcase.

I was safe. No one else was around. No one would know why I was red-faced. A few minutes later, the rest of the attendees filed into the room. No one was aware that a brief few minutes ago, I had accidentally lobbed my underwear onto the speakerphone.

I went back to using two bags after that incident.