Corporate Convention Disaster, Take 2

Naturally, I did not have the foresight to book a taxi the night before, so they were all busy. I was handed a map, and I set off on foot to the convention center. A 30-minute brisk walk in heels at 7:30am is not my type of exercise, and I was in a sour mood upon arrival. I became even sourer when I finally found Catarina. She was sitting at a large table in the front of a giant auditorium, where the day’s presentations and ceremonies were to be given.
“Oh. You’re here,” she said. “Um. Let’s see if we can’t find you a chair…”
I was placed awkwardly at a table full of “Ruby Directors”, all Italians, on the floor of the auditorium. All around me were bleacher seats filling up with people; I was told that there were to be about 2,000 people in attendance. The Americans filtered in sleepily, gave me a wave, and the ceremony began. What pomp! What circumstance! Fog machines roared. Bad, inappropriate pop music of the Katy Perry variety blared, confetti dropped and lights strobed. Thankfully, professional translators, people who were actually trained to do these sorts of things, had been hired, piping their perfectly timed English into the heads of the Americans via headsets. I just sat at my table and ate cookies and listened to the drivel coming from the people on stage for 4 hours, until the merciful lunch break. I doodled, I wrote, I observed the crowd. Unbelievably boring, and this was to go on until midnight!
Lunch was awesome, though. The Americans were herded into a tiny room with cloth-covered tables and a catered meal. Catarina snipped at me that I was to wait until everyone was seated before taking my place at a table, so as not to interfere with the hugely important business deals that were sure to take place during this hour of “VIP” buddy-buddiness. Had my plate in hand, and just as I was about to sit at a lone chair against the back wall, Stephen Hammons, CEO, called across the room.
“Eleanor, would you like to join us?”
I smiled modestly and tried not to stick my tongue out at Catarina, who had been poised to take this seat herself, her spackled beam cracking across her face. I caught a moment of utter disappointment and daggers in her eyes, but she regained herself and squeeled, “oh, yes! The girl can sit here! Good, good.”
Total B.
Ceremonies continued for the rest of the evening. I was forced to sit and listen, and do no translating, even for tiny conversations, what so ever, as there was no time to talk. About 9pm, just as I was convinced that I was in the clear, I was waved over to Catarina’s table. She informed me that the translators needed to be on their way, and so I would be given the great honor of translating for the last 2 hours of the meeting. I was the only hope.
My stomach dropped. This was not a group of ten Americans who needed help understanding the weekend’s itinerary. There were close to 200 people, I had heard earlier, who were using the translating headsets- people from Spain, Germany, France, Russia, and the Netherlands, who did not speak Italian.
I was presented with two immediate options: I could tell Catarina no, absolutely not. I am so sorry, dear Catarina, but this is just way out of my league. Or, I could just buck up and give it a try. I thought about what FL would have advised me to do, I knew exactly what he would say: To just do my best. If I didn’t understand, or if I got lost or confused, if there was something I couldn’t translate, then so be it. I was not a professional translator, and therefore I should not beat myself up about not being able to perform like one. I should just do my best, and when it was over, it would be over.
So I did it. Psyched myself up before hand by running over my theme song, Miley Cyrus’ ‘Party in the USA’, flapping my hands and wagging my hips to the music in my head:
My tummie’s turnin’ and I’m feelin’ kinda homesick
Too much pressure and I’m nervous…
So I put my hands up, they’re playin’ my song
The butterflies fly away
(Noddin’ my head like yea, movin’ my hips like yea)
So I put my hands up, they’re playin’ my song
I KNOW I’M GONNA BE OK
Yea, it’s a party in the [ITA]

The ceremony commenced. I was situated back behind the giant stage, so that I could peer around the corner under cover of a potted Cyprus tree. The boxes of headsets had been emptied, meaning that there were hundreds of people in the auditorium poised to hear me explain to them, enthusiastically and fluently, the pompous, unbelievably self-important closing speeches of all the important LiquiLife Italians.

As Catarina, who was to give her speech first, began, I had the horrible realization that hearing these people speak while sitting in the front row, directly in front of the speakers, and hearing them speak while back behind the stage- the sound muffled by curtains, typical back-stage chaos, and impromptu potted plants- were two entirely different ballgames. If I couldn’t see their lips move, and observe their so often explanatory hand gestures, it was incredibly difficult to comprehend without giving it my complete attention. Setting my complete attention to listening and comprehending, obviously, made translating and speaking pretty much impossible. It became clear that this was going to be a disaster.

I did what I could, I can promise you that. When I understood well enough to repeat a bit with the proper gusto I did; but then, if the rest of the speech ran on and I lost the train of thought, I would just make stuff up. I imagined what each of the people were talking about- creepy bald man with his barely post-pubescent daughter on display, briar-patch-haired crazy woman still inexplicably clutching her Gucci bag, Catarina and her complete asshole of a husband (who had not once looked me in the eye all weekend). All of these people, I could tell well enough, were up on stage talking about themselves! Crying and wailing about their success in the company, their dreams being achieved, and the vacations they take with the money they earn as Ruby (and Double Ruby!) members of LiquiLife. Catarina even had a 10minute slide show with nothing but pictures of her! She said her son made it for her, and pulled the poor, pimple-faced 14-year old boy on stage to embrace her, but I was not fooled. Those pictures were carefully photo-shopped, especially the ones of her in a bikini.

So I made up the ridiculous, new-money, capitalist nonsense that was pouring out of their mouths, and I am sure I could not have been that far off base. When my mind went blank, either from honest confusion or from shock at the utter embarrassments that they were subjecting their international audience to, I clicked the microphone on mute, or rubbed it on my shirt, creating the illusion of static interference. I could see through the branches of my Cyprus tree that the Americans were either fooled or did not care. Some, I am sure, had their headsets switched off, anyway. It was almost midnight! What nonsense to have to listen to. Others tapped their ears and made confused faces.

“Is yours working? I’m not hearing anything”, I could see them mouth.

My pal Scott had a conspiratorial grin on his face, and I knew he was on to me.

When the whole ordeal was over- when the fireworks had erupted over the stage, and the huge nets of balloons and confetti were opened and store-bought “party!” came raining down in sparkly wisps- I let out a huge sigh of relief. Catarina came up to me, suddenly thrilled to see me.

“So easy, right! Did you have fun?”

Gave her two thumbs up, and followed the crowd into the reception hall, where I was pounded jovially on the back by the Americans, who were quick to not hurt my feelings or shatter my hard work with the embarrassing reality that the microphones had been malfunctioning.

“Great job,” they howled, and shook my hand. I could detect a note of sarcasm when congratulated by Scott, but only slight- I think he genuinely meant it, regardless of whether he was talking about my flawless translating, or the fact that I so smoothly got out of an absurd situation which I was incapable of performing, and my amazing capabilities at creating monologues and electronic feedback in a pinch. I wondered how many people in how many jobs get by on just that?

There was cake, and champagne, but I was almost dead. Caught a ride back to my hotel (at this point clear on the fact that my transportation was up to me) and called FL, recounting my whole evening. He was so proud of me, told me I was a genius and “full of brave” and that he never had any doubt that I could pull it off, even if it was 80% BS.

The Americans left the next day around 11; we were on hugging terms by the good-bye point. I had arrived at the convention center suitcase in hand, so that I could head directly to the bus stop when the time came. I had a wedding to get to in Friuli, and a boy with a brand new haircut and a freshly pressed suit jacket waiting to pick me up from the train station.

When my bus showed, and I was boarded and had my head phones on for the 3 hour journey back to Friuli (2 busses, 2 trains), I felt like the past 48 hours had been a dream. They had flown by, hardly even happened; I was none the worse for wear and 500 euro richer and had made the important realization that even scary corporate CEO’s are just regular people, really. What I did take away for sure from all of it was that I was right where I was supposed to be. I didn’t belong at a fancy corporate dinner or on stage claiming my brand new golf clubs gifted to me for making some company lots of money. I didn’t belong in some bizarre, high tension job filled with words like “marketing” and “excess” and metaphors of roots and capitalism. I didn’t care how many Gucci purses they would give me, I never wanted to be on the floor of some auditorium with a briar patch on my head, barking orders at interns or trying to talk people into buying gross Omega-3 gel packets with the stench of salmon poorly masked by the flavor of “orange creamsicle”. The weekend was fine, but when Catarina, inevitably, asks me to give the company some thought, I know I’ll tell her no.

Where I was supposed to be then, on that ride home from all that weirdness, was right there: on a dirty bus, heading toward a smelly train, that would take me back to my beloved Friuli, where I was awaited by a gorgeous blue-eyed boy who wears cowboy boots to weddings, to eat another 7-course meal (this time all red meat!) and drink a little wine and dance with some of the kindest, oddest “crotch of the Adriatic” people that exist. I changed into my dress in the train station bathroom, as is par for the course, and set my exhausted-ness aside for a couple of hours in order to just have fun.

Unfortunately, I had to cut out before the cake was cut: there was more work ahead for the night. But that, naturally, is a whole ‘nother story…