ABC Corp. is a sixty-four-million-dollar corporation in the Midwest US founded as the American Box and Container Company in the early twentieth century. We started life as a box company providing shipping crates, cardboard boxes, and pallets to whoever needed them. Over time we expanded our services to include other services including transportation and warehouse services. Our business flourished and with the advent of computerized systems we developed an inventory system that managed our products from design, through manufacturing, warehousing, and delivery. We married the inventory system with our home-grown sales, order, and invoicing system.
Our founder retired in 1990 and his granddaughter expanded our reach into the modern world when she realized our integrated system would be useful to other industries. She had it updated, changed the name of the company, and created a division to market and sell the software. It was successful and the revenue of the renamed ABC Corporation quadrupled under her leadership. The fact that ABCC was a woman run company was instrumental in signing numerous large government contracts, primarily within the military and its suppliers.
With the availability of artificial intelligence, our system was able to anticipate inventory needs before they were noticeable by other means and accurately predict the corporate revenue with amazing accuracy. Leadership of ABCC changed again in 2018 when our founder's great-granddaughter relieved her mother.
Our software division is the largest division within ABCC. One of the departments reporting to the Senior Vice President of Computerized Systems is the Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing (AVPCM). There are other AVP's for Research and Development (AVPRD), Contracts (AVPSales), and Client Support (AVPCS).
The AVPCM is a married, thirty-eight-year-old, graduate of Harvard and The Wharton School, named Chad. I'm Chad. I came on board six years ago as the first Director of Communications and Marketing when the company was reorganized. That I graduated with the CEO played a small part in my hiring. I'm one of a few male employees in a company that is 87% women.
The corporation participates in a number of trade shows throughout the year. My organization is involved in most of them but the only one that counts for the Computerized Systems Division is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) every year in Las Vegas. The public involvement in the CES is only four days in early January but the on-location involvement by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) who organizes and runs the show is closer to eighteen days. It is an immense undertaking involving approximately 4500 exhibitors and nearly 140 thousand attendees.
Our involvement spans ten days of the schedule. Alex, our Director of Exhibits, is the first to arrive on Saturday, four days before the exhibition is scheduled to open. Her job is to work with the CTA to locate our position on the show floor and verify the availability of power and water to the site. She communicates with our shipper and directs the delivery of our equipment to our designated location on the floor.
Monica, the Manager of Public Displays arrives early Sunday with her staff of seven women to set up the booth and test the equipment. They're well prepared having set up, tested and dismantled the booth and equipment in one of our local warehouses. Between their arrival on Sunday and the first day of the exhibits they set up and verify every aspect of our booth. Four days later, when the exhibits close at four pm, they break down the booth and prepare everything for shipment back to the warehouse. In between they hang around the booth as eye candy to attract as many attendees as possible to visit our display.
I usually arrive late on Sunday prepared to meet with the media the following day. If everything comes together we'll be ready for media review on Monday and public presentations on Tuesday. For four days, the conference consists of presentations, demonstrations and displays.
Before Alex leaves for Las Vegas, we break down the conference presentations and split up the ones we want to attend. We don't duplicate presentations. We want to maximize the information we gather and exchange notes afterward. The goal is to add functionality to our software.
I arrived after dark Sunday night. I checked in and was given a plastic key card to room 2312. When I got to the room, I walked through the large living room area with a sofa, two chairs, several tables and a 77" television, left my rolling bag on the floor and headed for the bathroom to pee. Finished, I turned around and noticed the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom was floor to ceiling glass. Anyone in the bedroom could watch whoever was in the bathroom bathe, shower, brush their teeth or use the toilet. "Interesting," I thought wondering who might find the arrangement interesting and concluding with "I am in Las Vegas after all."
On the way out of the bathroom I noticed a small, zippered pouch and a toothbrush in a glass on the counter next to the sink. I moved my suitcase into the bedroom. The bedroom had two queen beds, a chair next to the floor to the ceiling window overlooking the mountains in the distance, a large, low-profile dresser, and another large television on the wall over it.
I don't usually unpack for short hotel stays but, since I was going to be here for five nights I thought it would be more convenient if I moved my clothing to the dresser. I put my suitcase on the bed, opened it and grabbed a pile of my t-shirts and boxer briefs. I opened the top dresser drawer to put them inside. The drawer already had someone's underwear in it. Not just ordinary underwear. Women's underwear. Several bras and intriguing bikini briefs. I'm not the brightest bulb in Las Vegas but even I could conclude that I had been assigned to a room with a previous, and current, female occupant.
I put my underwear back in my case, zippered it closed, put it back on the floor, and started for the door to head back to reception to correct the problem. That's when the door to the room opened. Alex looked at me. "Hey, Chad. Welcome to Las Vegas."
"Hi Alex. Thanks. This must be your room. I was given the wrong key by reception. I was just heading back downstairs to rectify the situation," I related.
"No. No," commented Alex. "You're in the right room. The hotel doubled us all up to save space and free up more rooms for them to sell. With 140 thousand attendees and at least another 30 thousand support staff, there's a shortage of rooms."
"I can get that," I agreed. "But pairing different sexes in the same room is a mistake. I'll get another room."
"Not likely," Alex said. "I doubt there's a free room between here and Henderson. I can see how they could make the mistake. I think they may have thought I was a man with my name. I think we'll have to deal with it."
"How's that going to work?" I wanted to know.
"Look. We're adults. With a few common courtesies I think it will work. There are two beds so that's not a problem and there's plenty of room in the dresser. With the sitting room up front, I'm sure we can manage to dress with some privacy."
"That's fine except for one other item," I agreed. "In case you haven't noticed the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom is transparent."
"True and that's not a problem as long as one of us is in the sitting room when necessary," suggested Alex. "Accidents do happen," she added. "Like I said, we're adults. I'm sure you've seen a naked woman before and I certainly have seen naked men. If we do catch a glimpse of each other, enjoy the view and don't mention it. If we don't point it out, then for the one seen it didn't happen."
I smiled. "What?" commented Alex. "Imagining accidently seeing me?" she asked.
I laughed. "Good guess," I admitted.
"Don't worry," she smiled. "I'm already wondering whether to just be casual or pose for you."
"Damn," I muttered.
"Leave your stuff and let's go to dinner," Alex suggested.
