Your Frustration Is Brought To You By....

Last week, I attended a conference about laboratory robotics.  It's the largest and most popular conference for laboratory robotics vendors, manufacturers, and end-users.  I was very fortunate to have been invited to give a presentation and wouldn't have missed my chance to screw up a perfectly good program.  In the end, my talk was very successful.

While at the conference center, I noticed that everything was sponsored.  The conference had platinum, gold, silver, and Tupperware level sponsors.  The keynote speech was sponsored, as was the plenary speech and the cleaning staff team meeting.  The lunches, happy hours, and bathroom breaks were sponsored.  The napkins, cups, and an unfortunate spill by a caterer were all sponsored.  There were banners, signs, and enthusiastic event planners announcing these sponsorships.  

When I arrived on the first day, I was given a bag that was provided by one vendor and stuffed like a pillowcase on Halloween with random junk from other vendors.  I received pens, paper pads, and hand gel from various companies.  The hand gel was a nice gesture, probably offered by the microbial testing folks.  

When I arrived at the hotel at the start of the conference, I wasn't in my room for more than 10 minutes when room service stopped by.  I was hoping for an Edible Arrangement from hotel management in exchange for my room behind an elevator, but instead was given a piece of labware that holds biological samples.  From a platinum sponsor, of course.  Just in case?  The vendors and hotel management must have gotten together and made a decision.  These people are such geeks that they will want to experiment with plastic sample labware in their hotel rooms.  Let's give them each one to avoid any late night attempts to break into the conference hall to satisfy a craving.

A quick glance at my hotel keycard revealed that 

they had also been sponsored by a company.  I don't usually look at the cards that closely, but my card repeatedly failed to open my door.  I made a total of four trips to the front desk to reset my card before I realized that I must have been demagnetizing it with my magnetic money clip.  On my last trip back to my room, I noticed the company's sales pitch on the top of the card: "No More Frustration".  

Had I noticed it during my first few unsuccessful attempts to enter my room, I probably would have chucked it out the window into the platinum-sponsored pool area.  Instead, I thought that it was a rather timely discovery.

I forgot about the card until I got home.  After a week away, I was pretty busy catching up on laundry.  I found the card this morning in the washer.  Ironically, the company advertisement was for an instrument with a coincidental name: Washer.  Apparently, I did exactly what the sponsors wanted me to do and I brought the conference home with me.