Thoughts on the office retreat.

Madison.

I've just spent the last few days in long meetings with the various offices of my company, in the form of a company retreat. What initially seemed like several days of mind-numbing discussions (building energy codes! whee!) turned out to be a useful and not-too-boring experience. Aside from the fact that it squashed a weekend, it wasn't bad. On the definite upside, we had dinner at L'Etoile last night and brunch at the Orpheum this morning.

Things I learned through all this:

• The Overture Center is pretty cool. Having, at best, a marginal interest in the theater/opera/symphony/etc.-type arts¹, I haven't made the effort to go. It really is a series of rather striking spaces. To judge from the comments of the theater folks, my uninformed impressions aren't all that far off the mark.
  
  Side note: The Overture has a series they call "Duck Soup Cinema", in which they show classic silent films, prefaced with some vaudeville acts. This April, it's a bunch of Charlie Chaplin shorts, but they've had all sorts. This I'd find worth investigating.
  
  
• Bowling is more fun when you make it as interesting to watch as to play. Since I don't have a consistent knack for getting the ball to go straight down the lane to knock over the pins, I decided to get the lightest ball possible and make it spin (and consequently, curve) as much as I could. It took a while before I got the technique down, but I was eventually able to get a few strikes in. In order to make it work, I needed to rest the ball on my arm (since I couldn't fit more than the tips of two fingers in the holes) and approach the lane at a diagonal. I'd usually end up on one knee, as well. But it worked, despite the "Cro-Magnon" dance it took to get the ball going.
  
  Also: a beer or two helps. You can't actually take this stuff too seriously.
  
  
• Act like you know what you're doing and/or talking about, and people will trust you. I'm far from an expert on any aspect of lighting design, but a sheen of confidence makes it so no one'd notice². I don't play this card often. Maybe that's why it seems to work so well.
  
  In much the same way, you can walk in just about anywhere if you look like you know where you're going. Duane, one the of company's partners, confirmed this. Want to see the back of house of nearly any theater? Just walk in with a clipboard and act like you know where you're going, like you've got something important to do. The moment you seem puzzled or lost, though, it's game over.
  
  
• It seems that some food service folks still haven't grasped the notion that "vegetarian option" doesn't mean just salad. Or a tray of raw vegetables. If I were vegetarian, I'd be infuriated by this.

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¹This, of course, makes me the odd man out at a firm specializing in lighting design and theater planning. On the other hand, I'm the only one who can speak intelligently on coffee and coffee-tasting.

²Assuming there aren't any experts present, that is. And you've still got to be believable.