Of Conferences and Coffee

“It’s so boring ! When will he stop? “I whispered to Parag as I wrapped my duppata closer to myself and shivered , “ And why do they have to keep the AC so low ? Are they trying to recreate Antarctica? “

“No, silly it’s a new experiment they are trying at mass freezing ! They freeze us and then use our DNA to replicate us and use us as soldiers in the Cambodian civil war “whispered back Parag, doodling with his pen as always.

For those of you who are still trying to figure out the background in spite of the title and the thread of conversations, Parag is my colleague and we were unfortunately caught in the middle of a highly boring software testing conference paper presentation where the speaker unfortunately thought he was Kem Carner’s sibling.

With Presales as a job profile, the onus of making our company presence felt at various testing conferences falls on me. And with Parag as the branding manager, he is also unhappily roped in building the brand image externally and it is our respective jobs that brought us to this place where, in between interesting industry and testing insights we have pseudo Kem Carner’s spout testing fundas in Siberian climate.

Conferences provide an excellent respite to our normal desk jobs and are generally filled with interesting things like freebies and non interesting things like mediocre versions of James Bach and Kem Craner. But all these are only secondary to the main attraction yeah you guessed it ...The Food ... It’s an excellent way of trying out various cuisines at different places without loosening you purse strings. Of course, you need to be the 'unabashed about free grub' type to enjoy the experience. So you can go back and make a note that while the Leela Palace serves excellent Malabar fish curry, its Italian side is relatively weak and the veg stuff at Le Meridian is pretty decent. Small nuances, which help you, know what to order where, especially if the obligation of footing the bill falls upon you.

But while the food is great distraction, there is nothing like a steaming hot cup of coffee after a chilling section (I say chilling primarily in the milieu perspective, of course there have been some very excellent sessions that give you intellectual goose bumps). The knowledge of the fact that there is coffee or tea out beyond the confines of the Antarctic zone , especially when the agenda in your hand says coffee break in bold as the next item , is highly distracting and has the effect of making you squirming in your seat wishing the speaker were less garrulous .

That’s the precise reason, I end my presentations if they happen to be scheduled before a coffee break with “I know that the only T on your mind does not stand for Testing but is something with milk and sugar it, so ladies and gentlemen, I herby end my presentation. Thank You and enjoy you break.”

Makes sense..Right ?!

Copyright (c) 2007 Neha Shinde