February 21, 2008

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

Ahhh, finally home again. We drove, the five of us from the office, from the LA area to Vegas on Sunday for our semi-annual power retreat, and are finally back five days later, spent.

It was one heck of an intense trip. For the first time ever, our office was running the agenda and giving the presentations, and I tell you what, that was nerve-wracking. Lots of pros and cons.

Having to go at all was a con because as you know, I’ve been sick for three weeks now. The two weeks prior were NOT spent in bed recuperating, they were spent in the office preparing my presentation, managing the office’s workflow to get as many projects up to speed right up ’til we left and preparing the work assignments for those staying behind so we didn’t lose a week of productivity. That insanity was even MORE stressful than the usual work weeks. Definitely did not help the cough, sleep, or energy levels.

The schedule was incredibly packed. We were to meet between 7:30 to 8:30 if we wanted to eat, and be ready to begin the meeting at 8:30 sharp. Meetings ran until after noon, we had 20-30 minutes to walk to our rooms and drop our stuff, and turn right back around to meet downstairs for a working lunch from 1-3. Sometimes until 3:30. Or 4. The kicker was that we stayed in the Venetian (more about that later), which meant that it usually took at least 15 minutes just to get to your room! That place is massive.

Regardless of when lunch ended, or when we got back to our rooms, we met again at 6:30 for cocktails before dinner. And then it was a semi-social, semi-working dinner from 7:30 until 10:30 or 11:30. We frequently didn’t get back to our rooms until after midnight. My bosses are crazy, because I think they usually spent half the time available before dinner, or more, walking around the casino or shops talking business.

The meetings were draining as well. One person would present and 11 other people would randomly interrupt as questions and ideas occurred to them. We needed half the group to be taking notes throughout to make sure we actually remembered what was said at the end of the day.

On the upside, our standard rooms at the Venetian were opulent. I practically lived in my bathroom. The floor space in there was bigger than my room at home, before taking into account the bathtub, glassed shower, and separate toilet room. Oh, and the vanity, in case the wall length mirror over the double sinks was insufficient. *swoon* I loved that bathroom. Loved it. The one thing that made the insane days and nights worth it was the fact that I managed to take a hot hot hot bath every single afternoon before dinner. It could be a ten or fifteen minute bath, I didn’t care. Getting to soak my poor abused feet was absolute heaven, and made it possible to get up and go for another 6 six hours again.

Oh, I also had a bed. A lovely king-sized bed with four pillows. More heavenly! If my cough settled for the night, I was set up for a grand night’s sleep.

Our meals were excellent as well. We were treated to lunches at the Mesa Grill, Olives, and Mario Batali’s Enoteca and dinners at Bradley Ogden, and Le Cirque. I have never (and probably will never again) eaten so well or so lavishly in my entire life. *ahem* I’ve also never drunk so much in such a short period of time. It’s very likely that I had more to drink during this meeting than I had during my entire college career. Does that say something sad about my social life in college or something disturbing about my job? 😉

And of course, we can’t not talk about the gambling and shopping!

Coworker 1 had never gambled before in her entire life, so we snagged a few ones from the boss and colleagues, and set her up with a few penny slot machines. Yeah, we’re high rollers.

Another colleague handed me a twenty to share with the gals, so we used $6 the next day and while they lost it all, I managed to win $9.60 on my second dollar. I’m no fool, I cashed that out right quick 🙂 So I came home up $24 in cash.

As for shopping …..

You already know about my American Apparel splurge. The gals went to Express and Guess, and picked up some more work clothes on sale. I abstained from that trip because I just couldn’t see spending any more money. The bosses bought us bathrobes as our souvenirs.

And while walking with the bosses, we discovered the women’s clothing store, Theory. That’s a story for another day, though.