For the benefit of the management of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, a multiple-choice quiz. There are only two answers for each question, so this should be easy.
1. When an attendee at one of your conferences checks a bag at the “conference baggage check”, the baggage check should:
a. have no signage whatsoever, allowing the attendee to presume that you have the same closing time as most other conference centers, such as “sunset”, “10 PM”, or “never”
b. have a sign saying, “we close at precisely 6 PM, so please be here before then lest you be starred in a Kafkaesque passion play that we like to call ‘Samsonite and Delilah.'”
2. When that attendee arrives at the locked entrance to the convention center at 6:05 and is waving his arms to get the attention of the security guard, the guard should:
a) shake her head “no” from a distance of 50 feet, mouthing “we’re closed”
b) presume that the attendee has inferred as much from the locked door, and has some alternative reason for re-enacting Act III of Godspell on Broad Street
3. When the guard is finally enticed near the locked door, the conversation should be held:
a) through the glass, with lip-reading and pantomime
b) in any other fashion
4. When the attendee is finally allowed inside, the guard should:
a) allow the attendee to walk 1.5 city blocks inside the building to the empty and unmanned baggage claim
b) infer that perhaps there might be an issue requiring her continued assistance
5. When the attendee finds that guard and asks about his bag, a good reply is:
a) “You’ll just have to come back at 6:30 tomorrow.”
b) Choice a), followed by some additional action only after the attendee explains the concepts of toothpaste and a change of undies
6. The number of walkie-talkie messages and phone calls the guard should make for assistance should be:
a) 5
b) some integral number less than 5
7. When the second guard arrives, he should explain the situation with the words:
a) “They left”
b) Pretty much any other words in the English language
8. When asked “Who left?”, a good reply is:
a) “The people with the bags”
b) Pretty much any other words in the English language
9. The number of calls this guard should then make for assistance is:
a) 3
b) some lower number
10. When that guard walks away and leaves the attendee waiting for a return phone call, the amount of time he should be left waiting by himself with no apparent assistance is:
a) 25 minutes
b) some other amount of time
11. When that guard returns and repeats the same phone call, that conversation should:
a) give no indication that anything has changed in 30 minutes
b) provide some reassurance that the staff was not waiting for the attendee to give up and walk away without his undies
12. At this point, you would estimate that the attendee’s confidence that his luggage will safely be stored overnight if it cannot be found is:
a) excellent, given the efficiency and professionalism he has so far witnessed
b) some measurement lacking of that distinction
13. When the guard walks the attendee out the door, down the block, through the doors to the police office, past the police office, past the conference center security office behind the sliding glass windows that protect conference security from other conference center staff, around another hallway, and into an area marked “Food and Beverage Department”, that area should:
a) smell like rotting garbage left on a loading dock
b) probably not smell like rotting garbage left on a loading dock
14. When the attendee has been directed to yet another person behind sliding glass windows protecting her from conference center staff, and is directed to wait for another 30 minutes, thus providing the attendee, whom is a member of the press, sufficient time to sit down and write a scathing 1,200 word essay about your incompetence, this can be considered:
a) an excellent way to promote goodwill for the city of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state management
b) potentially less than ideal
15. Has it occurred to you yet that the attendee would not mind waiting over an hour for his luggage, given his accidental tardiness, were it not for the fact that so far, no fewer than eight people have no clue where his luggage is?
a) no, this had not occurred to me
b) that is incredibly fucking obvious
16. How long after writing question 14 do you think that the attendee might be thinking, “Fuck my undies, I’d like to go home now”?
a) how long has it been since you wrote question 14?
b) about 30 minutes
17. The leftover pork fried rice left out in the room where the attendee is waiting should have how many gnats hovering around it?
a) gnats, plural?
b) oh, more than plural
18. . . .
a) uh, so how much longer has it been?
b) long enough that I’m considering coming back tomorrow with my wang flapping in the wind
19. After a total of 45 minutes, when the magic word “underwear” is said to the current person handling the baggage hunt, and this results in three phone calls in 90 seconds that appears to locate the bag, this can be considered:
a) good customer service
b) a return to Earth-Prime having spent 90 minutes in some alternate reality where one wonders what the fuck everyone was doing, or alternately, why my magic underwear appears to radiate a frequency coincident with GPS triangulation
20. When this person then walks the attendee back to the work area where he was until 6 PM, and indicates that the lockup room is next door, where the attendee would have seen his goddamned cherry-red wheelie luggage get rolled into the storage room had he waited another three minutes, and indicating that he must have passed the cherry-red wheelie luggage in the opposite direction while being forced to walk outdoors to the locked door in question 2, the appropriate response is:
a) ah, in the infinitely varied world in which we live, so many things occur so often that sometimes mere serendipity can rise to the level of irony, pointing out the gentle jesting of the universe at the expense of we poor mortals with our limited senses
b) you have got to be shitting me
21. When the attendee is left waiting in the same damned chair while everyone goes looking for the key, and while he is waiting, a mouse runs out from the chair oppos—
a) you have got to be shitting me
b) funny, that’s what I said
22. When the conference center staff returns and talks about the locked door being a “recore”, this is industry jargon for:
a) the Second Coming of Lord Jesus Himself riding a rampaging triceratops and swinging Jehovah’s scrotum overhead like a million-pound shithammer may get inside that door before 6:30 AM tomorrow, but you sure won’t
b) yes, that’s the impression I got as well
Postscript: the only criticism I have of the conference center staff is that they might have been a bit quicker on the draw, and have provided me a bit more information about what the hell was going on until I finally walked away without my undies. My overall impression is that I spent the entire evening dealing with polite, courteous people who have been crushed by a bureaucracy that would make Stalin weep in frustration.