Thursday September 23nd, 2004 Trade Show Life

Thursday September 23, 2004.

It’s 11:45 and I’m back at the company’s booth for the last day of this conference. There is still candy—well over half of what we brought—though the folks in the adjoining booths have occasionally dropped by to nibble. This is not a good sign since people will eat your proffered sweets, suggesting that no one takes the time to notice the available candy or that they do not want to engage with you that they ignore you. I've gotten so bored that I'm now taking entirely too much interest in the people walking about my booth.

I’m watching a middle aged woman walk down the aisle at the right side of our booth, half expecting her to go to the lady’s restroom on the other side of the aisle from our booth. She’s in her early to mid 40s gauging by her body shape—spreading in the hips with a slightly drooping posterior. I want to say she wore glasses but it’s a detail I cannot conjure clearly in my mind. I take notice of her because of what she is doing: talking apparently to herself but upon closer inspection, I suspect she is talking on a hands free cell phone. The sight of her walking and talking seemingly to no one stirred a thought for a story.

What would happen if the narrator followed this person as she walked down a busy crowded urban boulevard—down fifth avenue in midtown. The narrator is recounting her side of this one-sided conversation as he describes the surroundings both he and the cell phone lady are walking through—it would work in a busy shopping mall, though, Rockefeller Center in Manhattan or Union Square in San Francisco might be a better setting since the shopping mall is more intimate where people tend to be more aware of those around them. The homogeneity of the crowd—affluent consumers—makes anyone who does not fit this category stand out. In a busy downtown metropolitan area, the crowds are entirely heterogeneous and the wealthy are represented in equal number as the destitute street person.

Now the premise of the story is the narrator follows this woman around downtown for several blocks recording her part of this conversation. It seems no different than the conversation you're overhearing from the woman pacing close by your booth. "Mr. W... regarding the quote I e-mailed you early this week, did you receive it?" Pause as she waits for a reply for the other end. "Is that your only concern with what we're proposing?" Another pause, her eyes intent on the words coming into her ears. "Mr. W... I'll have to take your counterproposal back to my manager." A look of exasperation washes over her face, though none of this anguish is being conveyed in her voice as she listens for more from her earpiece. "Can I call you back in say an hour after I've run your proposal by my boss?" She pauses again, a more hopeful eager expression on her face now. "Will you still be at this number or shall I call you somewhere else?" Pause, I wish she would get off the phone and check with her boss. I want to see her make this sale. "That's great. I'll call you in an hour, Good Bye." The right hand brings the phone to chest level to locate the appropriate selection in the speed dial menu. She punches the "send" button and starts to walk off as she waits for the line to pick up. Pity, I wanted to see this transaction complete.

However, in the fictional account the narrator following the woman discovers she is talking to herself, holding a lucid conversation with some imaginary soul inside her own head. Now, the question this should pose, without actually asking it, is "how different is the lady’s conversation with her imaginary partner and that of a woman conversing on her phone. Both are hearing a voice one aided by an electronic device the other by her imagination. You could argue that we know that the woman on the street is not really conversing with a real person at the end of a wireless telephone connection. Nevertheless the narrator on the street, until he becomes wiser, believes the woman he is trailing is listening to someone and she is responding. One is the act of a sane person using an acceptable medium to talk to a disemboweled voice while the other is neurotic hearing an auto generated voice conversing with her. Or perhaps she is a sane person who has no signal and can't stand not to be talking on the phone.

God I wish this conference would be over, three hours to go.