Life On the Road

4-30am

Very early alarm. Very. Suddenly standing in the shower. For a long time. Fast reboot to Awake Mode. Urgent e-mails first. Ghostly coffee machines, trouser presses stand idle. Who uses those things? Mind numbing, arcane - poorly written entreaties to conserve toiletries interrupt these precious moments with sufficient toxicity to ensure their destiny – they go in the trash. The hotel room is starting to throttle my mind. Gotta leave.

6-00am

Arriving, coffee in hand (with luck) to the empty shell that in a few days will entertain the big cheeses. A combined emotion of anticipation and creative determination to beat the scene before me. The walls are a mixture of challenges. Barriers to a fast start.

Despite requiring 'flat' walls there is a language barrier. Yes they will be flat. So why the fascination with ornamentation. Walls that were guaranteed to be clear of any protrusion – now a profusion of clocks, switches, whiteboards, wires, dado rails, oil paintings, hooks, wooden fish, mooses heads, windows, doors, spanish arches, medieval chests full of lead, helpful cabinets full of hand wipes – pizza trays, felt pens and thousands of paper clips, curtain rails, architectural follies, overhead screens and the like.

Shortly after 6-00am

The room is always a further obstacle course. Always unhelpful and ugly chairs - oddly assorted tables with the attendant rats nest of cables, phone leads, data cables, routers, modems, biro's, broken floor traps, dead pigeons and unwary carpet tiles, now soaked with the stain of previous ceremonies. Yes the death meetings or conferences of yore.

Sooo...

Firstly the big decisions. Can I cut round the ditritus before me? Will Roger find enough flat surfaces to cling to? Can I find sufficient space to draw even a thought bubble?

Or?

Build an entire wall. An inner skin of 8ft x 4ft lightweight panels joined together with the worlds most ingenious material - gaffa tape. Gaffa tape is compulsory kit for all high level strategic thinking. Build a wall. Yes a wall.

8-00 am.

The room now has the appearance of 'flat' walls suitable to create something elegant, meaningful and worthy. I can relax. There will be decision quality today.

Posted via email from Just Thinking!