Business Week Woes

Ok, the assignment was to attending a meeting that is out of our normal experience. I'm not sure why I chose to go to a Business Week seminar hosted by the Cameron School of Business, but that's where I found myself early Wednesday morning.

The morning started out promising. I was up and dressed on time, this had been a major concern considering I had to get up at 7 a.m., which is a gamble on my part. I showed up to met my friend, since I am not a business major and have had no reason to locate the school of business much less navigate the hallways, she agreed to play tour-guide. She had to attend the meeting regardless and I'm sure was convinced I would make the meeting memorable. I had inquired about what to wear prior to showing up for the meeting and was assured that dressing up was not necessary – yeah, I won't make that mistake again.

As we sat in the hallway waiting for the doors of room 212 to be unlocked I realized my knowledge that dress clothes were not required was misguided at best and dead wrong at worst. My friend had worn dark jeans, paired with a black jacket that blended well with the individuals who wore dress-casual clothing. Her clothes could even hold their own against the bombardment of suits and vicious high heels that passed in the hall. I, on the other hand, had no such luck. I was wearing jeans (which have seen better days), a pink hoodie (with "Life is Good" written across the front), and my trusty flip-flops (which have also seen better days). While a few individuals did make an appearance in jeans and t-shirts, none could compare to my frayed pink hoodie and orange toenails.

Finally the doors were opened and we were allowed to sit inside. By this time I was tired of making the "men and women in black" speak to me. If you're going to stare at me, as if I have two heads, the least you can do is speak.

We made our way to seats in the back of the room (note - trying to be inconspicuous works better when you're not wearing pink) and we proceeded to listen to a lecture for 50 minutes. I can't tell you what the lecture was about because I didn't understand any of the concepts presented. I suppose you needed to have attended the previous meetings to get the full idea. All I understood was something about risk taking strategies, there are four groups, and (apparently) advising services are not synonymous with consulting services.

To say "I was out of my element," is an understatement. I took several pages worth of notes at this meeting, but still can't make any sense of them. This adventure just confirms my opinion that if I had chosen to major in business I would have flunked out of college. At least I got a free breakfast out of the deal and gleaned some satisfaction from the knowledge my appearance perplexed several individuals - at least for a moment. After all, what type of business major would attend a presentation in flip-flops and a pink hoodie?