Renting a van with two of your closest co-workers. Taking that 8-5 anxiety and compressing it — jamming it inside an 80-mile-per-hour overloaded grocery-go-getter.

The distinct aroma of greasy McDonald’s wrappers, the surround smell of styrofoam enriched coffee, and bladders on the turbulent brink.

Putter-purring engine, strip club billboards shouting, ‘FREE SHOWERS FOR TRUCKERS’, and silence.

We make scheduled stops. We make unscheduled stops. Parking in the hotel garage, like gas, food, and mental stability, will be reimbursed at a later date. Sally keeps her receipts in a special ziplock deeply hidden within the folds of her enormous handbag/purse. Frank jams his into a zippered compartment in his slacks. He also eats Cheetos for lunch and tucks the aforementioned slacks into his bizcas loafers.

Things you can count on: Frank’s sloppy lethargy, Sally’s 2003 autographed Purpose Driven Life Trapper Keeper, and my tendency to mix deep…into the crowd and drinks at the mini-bar. Yes, we’re all on auto-pilot: defense-mode. The schedule leaves nothing to chance or creativity. In fact, if a conference planner sees a creative being stabbed to death with an ink pen, they run for a paper towel and stain remover.

But, that is neither here nor there. Where are we? In a “session.” It looks like the University of Jimstragglee-Bowmanton has flown in a professor to talk about their research grant. Mainly, he is scratching his head, dictating monotone, and fiddling with his laser pointer. Eye candy, unbuttoned graduate students are passing out PowerPoint slide outlines. Yes, we listen to the slides being read, watch them on the projector, and read them on our heavily bound print-outs. These things last 30 or 45 minutes a piece and I don’t wear a watch. Shades of high school. I can’t bear to watch.

Did I mention this is a “Conference on Higher Learning”? In Higher Learning we’re obsessed with technology. Dear reader, I sense perspiration. Never fear. We aren’t doing anything to change your beloved status quo with this technology. No, we’re merely purchasing it at an alarming rate to compensate for the speed of innovation and the simultaneous stagnation of bureaucracy. It’s simple really. Buy an attractively packaged piece of software. Wait about a year and buy more expensive software to bypass the need to understand the last round. And the cycle is in motion. Hire the young, burn them, buy new software.

Ah, glad you’re up to speed. Come along, it’s time to take a look at swag. I’m lucky and I’ll be manning our booth today. Feel free to pick up a copy of our team’s weighty PowerPoint print-outs. And here’s a free pen in a plastic bag. Did you see it has our logo on it? High five! Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to stop at the other 40 tables. You’ll notice it’s a bit like a science fair in here. Pssst. I heard they have free mousepads over at table 26. First come, first serve!

Around six, we’ll be be dining in the hotel’s high-priced restaurant where Ponderosa meets Olive Garden. Meet me around seven down at the bar. We’ll talk about nothing but work. Nothing strenuous — just killing off the corrupted brain cells, the ones to weak too carry on in this line of work. The good news is you’ll drop like a stone when you hit that hotel bed. No dreams, tossing, or turning, just the sound of the 5am alarm. You, yawning, and getting ready to do it again.