It was a must attend event for anyone who was lucky enough to have been selected by Exyberkraft's board of directors. Carolyn was justifiably proud to have been named as one of only a handful of company executives chosen to attend the International Conference. This year, the conference was going to be held in Madrid, Spain.
Carolyn had been with Exyberkraft for only seven years and to be selected to attend such a prestigious event, as their representative, was a dream come true. She'd never been to Europe, much less Spain and for her this would be a career triumph with just a touch of European vacation thrown in. All of the movers and shakers from Exyberkraft and several other high tech companies would be attending and she'd have the opportunity to make the sort of valuable connections that open doors for young executives.
Finally, Carolyn was getting the recognition that she'd been seeking for so long.
She'd been with Exyberkraft for a relatively short period of time, but her future looked more promising now than at any other time in her life. God knows she deserved the acknowledgement. She'd burned barrels of midnight oil in her single minded obsession to finish at the top of her computer engineering class. She'd endured the long hours and heavy demands of several lower level positions. She'd denied herself a social life and avoided dating and all of the distractions that went with serious relationships. Now, the sacrifices she'd made to gain the experience and skills necessary to make it to the top were beginning to pay off. At age thirty her time had arrived.
She was confident that she had all of the tools necessary for success, with the exception of a network of contacts and connections throughout the high tech industry. Now she'd have the opportunity to develop that network at the upcoming conference. Technology insiders referred to the conference simply as AICCHSE, an acronym for the "Annual International Convention of Computer Hardware and Software Engineers."
Three weeks later Carolyn found herself sitting at one of the conference seminars in the main meeting room of her Madrid hotel. The speaker was an elderly diminutive man who was discussing marketing strategy in the age of technology. He was nervous and poorly prepared and his technical knowledge simply wasn't current enough to hold Carolyn's attention. For the past half hour, her mind had been wandering. She'd been at the conference for six days and during that time had made several dozen great contacts. She'd learned far more than she'd hoped to learn and had met a myriad of important, well informed technological visionaries. Now, the conference was nearing an end and for the past day or so, the quality of the speakers and the sense of adventure that she'd enjoyed when she first arrived, was declining quickly.
Many of the greatest computer minds in the world had been scheduled to speak at the convention, but they'd all made their presentations in the first three or four days. Carolyn had found their messages fascinating and informative, but now the program was winding down and the remaining speakers tended to drone on like repetitive automatons. She was bored. Thank goodness there was only one more day remaining. She was beginning to miss her job and the people she worked with everyday.
Less than an hour later, she was walking down the busy street that ran past her hotel. It was dinner time and she was hungry and tired after a long day of listening to the seemingly endless line-up of uninspiring speakers.
As she strode purposefully along the sidewalk, she heard a perky voice behind her, "Wait up Carolyn! What's the rush?"
She was momentarily surprised to hear her name on the street of a foreign country and quickly turned to look over her shoulder. There, several feet behind her, was the smiling face of Anne Marie rushing to catch up to her. Anne Marie was one of the women in Carolyn's group and she seemed very happy in spite of the boring line up of speakers at today's leg of the conference.
"So are you going to the close out party tomorrow afternoon Carolyn?" Ann Marie asked cheerily.
"Close out party?" replied Carolyn with a curious look on her face. "What close out party?"
"Buy me dinner and I'll tell you about it!" laughed Ann Marie.
Carolyn was feeling a little lonely and the prospect of having some fun company at dinner cheered her immensely. "It's a deal!" she replied, "You've been so sweet I owe you a dinner anyway."
Ann Marie was only a year or two older than Carolyn and was a middle management engineer with one of Exyberkraft's affiliated companies in the Southern U.S.. The two women had met on the first day of the convention and immediately struck up a casual friendship.
They chatted happily as they marched along through the afternoon bustle of Madrid. A few minutes later, they turned into a little café that Carolyn had eaten at once before. They were quickly guided to a small table towards the back of the main dining area.
Once they were seated, Carolyn smiled happily at her friend. "So what party are you talking about?" she asked eagerly.
Anne Marie leaned forward, and with just a touch of mystery in her tone whispered, "I found out this morning that Optotronics is throwing a big wrap up party at a mansion they rented outside of the city! One of their directors is in my group and I scored a pair of tickets. The company is looking for new hardware and software engineers. They've been falling behind the pack for the past few years and their new CEO is kicking butt! He's demanding that the company executives begin creating more social contacts between themselves and the leading edge players in the hardware and software engineering field."
Then with a knowing smile, she added, "I'm betting some interesting players are going to be there!"
An amused smile crossed Anne Marie's face as Anne Marie added, "Each ticket allows you to take an escort."
She leaned even closer and giggled wickedly,"I'm going to be picking mine tonight!"
