The following Monday after my return from Delhi, and my first trip to our company kick off meeting for a new financial year.
To save money the company has a block booking on a flight at absurdly low prices, and the flight leaves from Gatwick. A 6.30 departure and a long hour and a half to get there instead of my regular 30 mins to Heathrow.

Through the formalities surprisingly quickly and into the lounge, to discover half of the occupants were colleagues- including the UK board- we certainly would lose a lot of people if the plane crashed.

Boarded more or less on time, listening to colleagues moaning that even as BA Gold card holders they couldn’t get an aisle seat.

Saw my UK colleague Vicky, who had kindly collected some items from the office. We attracted a stare or two as she gave me items of clothing.

Settled down to reading, when I was interrupted by a middle aged man, who asked if I could allow “a young gentleman” into the seat beside me. A quick glance at this small child suggested that “young gentleman” was arguably the most inaccurate description one could possibly give, and this proved to be true. These two folks proved to be part of an extended family, with the original man, some aunts and uncles, two grandparents and three ladies who were wearing either the “hijab” or the “niqab” coverings. Grandma had a full burkha.

It rapidly became apparent that the “young gentleman” was a tiny thug, as he kicked everything in sight, and proceeded to repeatedly thump his uncle in the seat next to him whilst continuously yelling. It turned out he was not alone, as the other children, all girls, were equally unruly. You’ll remember that on the previous trip to India that some of the competitors were obvious contenders for the World Obnoxious Child Championships. It was evident that we were privileged to fly with the true champions on this flight.

These kids were positively feral and their various relatives made no attempt to control or admonish. When I complained to “dad” about being kicked repeatedly he negotiated for me to swap seats with another “uncle” in the row in front. This helped a little though Junior was still kicking and punching the seats, and he was just as noisy from one row forward. The cabin service staff were also extremely unhappy, as the children pressed buttons randomly on the remotes, resulting in hundreds of false alarms with the call bell. Seven hours of complete hell.

There was one funny moment. At one point 5 little girls were crammed into a row of three (with also one seat occupied by a mum). A stewardess came by and remonstrated with the family. The mother asked why the kids couldn’t sit like this. The stewardess explained that in the event of cabin decompression only three masks would drop leaving three without oxygen.

“And why would that be a problem?” muttered someone about three rows in front.

Through all this the head of the family beamed expansively at what he obviously viewed as high spirits in the kids. Most of the passengers would have cheerfully lynched them.

After what seemed like an eternity we landed in Orlando. Using my unerring ability to join the line which turned out to be the slowest moving, I waited 75 minutes to get through immigration.
Collected my bag, and then had to surrender it again as Orlando has a similar layout to Seattle, and you have to catch a train to the main terminal and ship your bag separately. There was one major difference- In Seattle your bag arrives at the main Terminal two minutes after you do- in Orlando it was another 45 minutes wait. I was in Delhi the week before and Delhi airport is way more efficient than Orlando.

Finally into a taxi and off to the “Doubletree Castle Hotel”, which turned out to be a monstrous building from the outside. Maybe it is Disney influence, but the architect clearly assumed that castles are pink and have hundreds of turrets. This one looked like it had been built by an extra mad Bavarian king who was obviously fond of pink. Not sure how many real castles the architect had seen before designing this building.

Uneventful dinner and to bed, awaking next day with a stomach upset, but felt better in the afternoon and got down to register and look at some of the exhibitors.

Back to the conference centre in the evening for the Welcome reception.

Immediately met some of the LATAM HR crowd. A piece of advice. Warning-LATAM folks are really dangerous guys to party with, if you care about being dignified.

I was chatting away to Humberto ( I told you before he is dangerous- watch out when he says “just one more tequila”).

The team were signing up mercilessly for the karaoke. A lady from LATAM who will remain nameless grabbed me by the arm. “I need you to sing backing vocals on the karaoke- we are up next”.

Walking up the steps to the stage I asked “so what are we singing?”.

“Man, I feel like a woman” came the reply (Shania Twain). Just my song.

The next five minutes were not the musical highlight of my life. I hope no one filmed it.

Next day was the first general session, and we were bused at 6.45 am to the basketball auditorium in downtown Orlando. We were given a packed breakfast and lunch on the way in. I have to say the person who decided the menu had the strangest concept of breakfast I have yet come across.

We filtered into the auditorium to find a full blown rock band blasting out.
I don’t do rock at 7am.
The group were very good and tried very hard to get people to respond but clearly at this time with many hangovers very few people wanted to clap and dance.

Eventually the formal programme began, a mix of interesting demos and great presentations (mainly). Our chairman’s final appearance was very emotional. The crowd gave him a long standing ovation before he began, and for a long while refused to stop and let him speak. When he did speak I was struck again by his passion.

His talk was soon followed by a very long awards presentation.
I really felt for the band. They had struck up (not very originally) Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” and would drop the sound in between to let our COO announce each winner. The band had the thankless task of playing quiet variations on the 16 bars of the chorus for a full 45 minutes. Apart from being physically tiring I really felt for the rhythm section. That has to be mind- numbingly tedious- a talented musicians’ hell.

The big impression of the day (which of course overran), was our CEO’s speech. On another musical note, he surprised me at least by not starting with his trademark “Eye of the Tiger”, choosing instead an old disco tune “Turn the Beat around” (Gloria Estefan if I remember right). He had written his own lyrics to this (he’s better at running the company than as a songwriter I think).

This time the speech was very different- less ebullient- more reflective, and I was struck by his and other leaders’ speeches, that we have a leadership that really seems to know what it is doing and I loved the strategy moving forward, really well thought out. I was also struck once again by his real passion for the company. We all work hard and have passion,, but he cares so much it hurts. Really inspiring in a understated gutsy way.

A nice evening with drinks at a reception laid on by our international HR boss, who because she had a dinner to attend, had the unfortunate task of saying “welcome to my party” and then leaving it.

The week in Florida was very hot, and every evening there was a thunderstorm. As we came out of the hotel the rain was just stopping and we had a balmy walk after the storm. Dinner at a TGI Fridays where the waiter (a “resting” actor) fancied himself as a comedian, something he regretted as the UK HR team were way faster and funnier than he.
The following day I did some shopping in the afternoon. The afternoons were hot and humid with temperatures around 30C (86F) I bought several books in a store, advertising the imminent launch of the latest Harry Potter at midnight on Friday.
An interesting building was “Wonderworks”, a tourist attraction where the outside looked like an upside-down temple (not very clear whether Greek or Roman), which is built upside down (you have to see it).
Lunch at a “Mexican” Cantina, (it was either there or “Hooters” , where you pay to be served by underdressed ladies).
A walk back in the baking heat. In the heat of the afternoon half a mile in the humidity can be hard work, before the late afternoon thunderstorm.
Stopped at a Reebok factory store and bought the first baseball cap I have ever had that actually fits my head. (I have an unusually large head, but you knew that).

Next day the second general session was in the auditorium, with the same rock band blasting out middle of the road rock (though at a more reasonable time of day), and we again had some great presentations. One thing that came through very clearly was how much our company really is involved in changing the world, some of the products were amazing.

Again the day overran considerably, and our COO’s close finished an hour or so late. As we came out of the building and stood in the car park awaiting buses, the heavens opened for the evening storm, and within seconds everyone was soaked. As we packed gently steaming onto the buses, we had an extended trip home- the rain having contributed to several accidents on the freeway. We turned off at a different exit and someone asked what was going on. A wag replied “They’ve found some more slides for his speech- we have to go back”.

A change into dry clothing and then a bus to the Universal studios theme park, where we were handed out waterproof ponchos to keep off the rain, as it was still pouring. We had a fairly miserable hour or so being force-fed junk food in the rain, before making our way to the studios themselves where Sheryl Crow had been hired to play a concert. I felt pretty sorry for Sheryl (yes I know she was paid well). The rain eventually stopped, but thanks to the fact the waterproofs didn’t “breathe”, most of us were soaked with sweat in the humidity.

I had a brief meeting with a colleague from Singapore, my first ever business meeting at a rock concert.

Sheryl made a brave attempt at playing, but it must have been discouraging, many of the audience were not great fans, and several drifted off to the fairgrounds to do some more of the rides instead, or to patronize the beer stations, and by the end you could tell she was pretty irritated with her fickle (and much reduced) audience. She only played one encore (a very spirited cover version of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock n’ Roll”) and it was very good too (heresy to say this, but they were better than Zeppelin), but I think she had had enough.

The trip back on the redeye next day was grim.
The cab driver tried to rip me off.

Orlando airport tried to be even less efficient than on the way out- and succeeded- particularly when they randomly shut down security lines ignoring the hundreds of people who had queued patiently for half an hour, and telling them to go to the back of another line. The real coup de grace was when these people got to the front of the new line, and they re-opened the closed lines again. “Have a nice day”. I love Orlando.

Fortunately though, we were not joined by our favourite extended family, and after some fitful sleep disgorged into a cloudy Gatwick at 6am on Monday. Overall a great experience. I did get an aisle seat.