Ok... now that the other post is off my chest...

My eclectic group of co workers were great. With the exception of two. I however did not leave them out. I opened 10 spots on this trip to my entire staff and these 10 were interested. Others have already gone or could not attend this time. Even though two may not be with us after this financial year I took them anyways. I can not make that call. The CEO has to. I was happy with our site meetings in the afternoon. We had them Mon-Thurs. and were very productive. We were done by 5:00 on Monday, 3:00ish on Tuesday-Thursday and 12:00 on Friday. My husband and I made the most of the evenings.

Monday- Had Pizza with my husband, went swimming and shared a dessert

Tuesday- We went out with my co-workers and families for dinner. We ate a place called Rocking Baja Lobster. Why, because it can accommodate 20 at a moments notice and kids. We went shopping in Old Town San Diego (Tourist Trap) . We window shopped. While I was in meetings, my husband went to Tijuana. His mission, to find a bookstore he had heard about and visit the local cathedral. After our visit to Puebla we have fallen in love with church architecture.

Wednesday - We went to the San Diego Natural History Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. Amazing. The exhibit was very well put together. According to a San Diego Union Tribune Article,

There are three exhibitions scheduled in the United States before San Diego's show – Charlotte, N.C.; Seattle; and Milwaukee.

We ate at In and Out after.

Thursday - My husband and I went to a great place called the Little Hawaii. It's actually Japanese food, why the name... ? It was sooooo good. We walked the Gas Lamp District and then came back to the hotel. I sat in the spa reading the paper and he sat reading Don Quixote by Cervantes.

Friday- Last session, most people left early to catch flights back to home (Las Vegas). We wrapped up and then they wanted to show us one more clip... one I have used in meetings before... I decided this was my cue to leave, it was 11:00. My husband and I checked out and went to Ricky's for Breakfast.

I'm home....

I was able to take my husband this time with me. We took off for San Diego Monday morning. The drive was nice and compared to the Grand Canyon, fast. We arrived at our hotel. We always are on the 6th or 7th floor. This time we were on the 2nd floor. At first I was a little bummed, however it forced me to climb the stairs rather then wait for an elevator just to go up one level. After we were settled in our room I took a shuttle over to the hotel that was the main base of the conference. There were about 4,000 people in attendance. The conference spanned over 5 hotels (convention halls) and thank goodness mine was at the main stop for the shuttle. I was joined my people from my department team and others from the company. The CEO even came on Thursday for the "Lunch" and a 4 hour seminar. One thing I did learn from this is that no matter how much education, school or life experience, people are dumb sometimes. My "strand" as they call it dealt with diversification of staff and customers as well as promoting a positive work culture, expanding leadership with the focus on our Company. Our Company and it's many off shoots. Well on Wednesday I felt that we had only scratched the surface with only one 8 hours left of training in this strand. Were was the meat of it, were was the battle plan? Yes they gave us skills on how to pull ideas from everyone in the building, but what about our Focus?

Then it happened.


The speaker said.....


Okay.... now that your back form your break here is story...


Two of last years participants from Texas decided to test a Business in Tijuana (20 min. south of where we were). Their business failed in the states and they wanted to test it down south. It was a bungee jump place. One guy stayed on top while the other harnessed up and took the jump. He went down and came up so fast that the top guy could not catch him. Jump guy had cuts on his face. This happened again till finally guy on top caught him. He asked him what happened was the bungee to long (mind you everyone was waiting to see what went wrong) then the speaker said that they thought he was a pinata.


Room fell silent. Some of the Vegas participants snickered, Californian participants just stared, Washington and Oregon looked around and the 6 Latinos in the room... just shook their heads.



In a bar ... OK, but the Strand was about culture and diversification. She laughed, her co-speaker laughed and the strand of 50 ... just sat. As they moved the room into the next topic, I went out for a time out. When Friday came around they had us fill out eval forms for the strand and the Conference. Conference, high marks. Strand, I explained my dissatisfaction in the the amount we learned and wrote a note, in detail, on how the joke did not fit in with the topic.


My team learned a lot from their different strands. DIVA is well on it's way of being a power house, besides the "joke" just wish I gained more knowledge from mine.