Every now and then I like to do an old fashioned blog post. No movie reviews, no restaurant write ups, no star ratings or photo essays. Just a spare moment to write about what I’m up to.
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks in Brisbane. I attended my first ever conference for the new company I started working with this year. It’s actually more of a boot camp than a conference. About 200 of us from around Australia and New Zealand got together to prep for upcoming sales season. What does this entail? Exercise every morning, breakfast, eight hours of sales training – in the form of work shops, role playing exercises and presentations from industry experts – and then a massive company-wide dinner at a fine dining restaurant. It’s pretty full on for a single day. It’s absolutely exhausting when you do it for five in a row.
I’m extremely happy with the new company I work for. The work itself can be pretty intensive but the company culture is playful, nurturing and irreverent. Just the way I like it. The entire event was a Vegas themed affair and one of the evening team building exercises for each city involved putting on a ‘Vegas Show’. Our office opted to go for a Rocky Horror Picture Show presentation with yours truly in the lead role as Dr Frank N Furter.
I can tell you that out of twenty odd performances, we didn’t place in the Top Five. I guess my song and dance routines need a little work. Still, it was a lot of fun to do and I can check ‘dress like an intergalactic space transvestite in a stage production’ off my bucket list.
When I got back to Brisbane I came home to an empty apartment. Jen is off to Europe for the next four weeks with her sister Sarah. It’ll be our longest time apart in the five years we’ve been married. Being the caring and considerate kind of person that she is, Jen left me a survival kit to get me through the month. It had some lovely printed photos of the two of us, cooking instructions and some daily notes.
She’s so loving and thoughtful 🙂
It’s taking all my will power not to open up the other twenty days worth of notes and packages.
I spent the afternoon at Perry Park where the Brisbane Roar Open Day was held before the start of the upcoming season. I spoke with some fans, players and even the company CEO Shaun Dobson about our chances for the year ahead. It was a terrific afternoon. I met a Roar fanatic from Glasgow who is embarking on a project to write about the club’s unofficial history, interviewing fans and ex-players to discuss memorable matches, away trip adventures and that sort of things. It sounds like a really cool project.
In the evening I watched the Brisbane Roar W-League team win comfortably against the Newcastle Jets. Spring is upon us in Brisbane and the weather is perfect for watching footy in the park.
When I got home, I was just in time for Rivefire, our city’s annual fireworks festival. I followed the cooking instructions that Jen left me for her pesto gnocci and salmon dish. So far, so good!
Now it’s time to relax, unwind and try to rest up before throwing myself into our work’s busiest time of year.