Late Thursday afternoon, my nominal boss (supervisor?) asked me to go to a kickoff meeting in her place. I didn't want to go because I was having meeting burn-out, but went anyways because she is my nominal boss and is a bit busier than me, which is saying a lot because I've been slammed like a cheap bottle of tequilla over the past few weeks. No biggie, though, it's just another creative kick off meeting, the kind of meeting with a few people in my department and a few marketing types. But as I get off the elevator, I notice that that pretty much all my department heads were there, as well as several VP types. The next thing I notice is that we're headed towards a big, huge, conference room, much bigger than the one's I've seen. And it's full too. With not only my department heads, but the heads of all the major marketing departments, not to mention all the agency reps for the various ad agencies we employ. How big were the people at this meeting? While I'll probably never meet the somewhat legendary owner of the company, most of the people around me were people who not only have met him, but probably hang out at his somewhat legendary of a house. And when they refer to him by his first name, they're not being ironic, they really know him. As soon as I walked in, I got that "what the hell am I doing here?" feeling. It was like the meeting in "Fellowship of the Rings" where the Elves, Dwarves, and Men send all their big honchos to discuss what to do with the ring with me as Pippin.

Now the best thing to do with meetings like this is to sit in a corner where nobody can notice you. The only problem is that this conference room is packed and that there really aren't any chairs to sit on, or at least chairs by the table. A chair does open up, right at the center of the table and so I sit down. What can I say? I'm tired and sitting at the table helps you rest a bit. I also managed to make my new Manager lose out on the game of conference musical chairs and so she's now sitting behind me, away from the table. I quickly think about switching seats with her so she'll be up front and I'll be in the back, in part out of guilt for what I think is snagging her chair, but then realize that's too obvious of a kiss-ass move, so I don't.

The meeting starts and I think to myself that even though I have no idea why I'm there, I'll make it out of it okay because somebody across the table from me, one of my marketing managers, is going to run the meeting. Nobody will even notice me. This plan, however, had one small flaw in it- it turns out that the guy I was sitting next to is really the guy in charge and after a few minutes into the meeting, takes over. I now found myself in a position in which everyone is pretty much staring right at me for the entire meeting.

Now I'm tired and I'm exhausted. It's been a long week and a long day and I'm heading into a three-cup of coffee caffiene crash. I am also dressed as if I knew it was going to be a long day and wearing my comfy clothes- jeans, sweatshirt, sneakers, and a day's worth of stubble. I do not look like marketing type. I do not look even that professional. If I would have known I was going to be in this type of meeting, I would have made myself decent, but I didn't know. And here I am in a room full of people way above me, people who I'm sort of underneath, people who I haven't really met yet, looking really haggard.

Even worse, it quickly becomes apparent that I really didn't need to be there. The meeting was a serious strategy meeting, not the kind of meeting I needed to be at. Which means that my wondering of what I was doing there wasn't just me being neurotic, but reality, a great type meeting to be at towards the end of the day, around 5'ish, when I've had a long day. Now I have to worry about not looking bored to tears, something with which I thought I did a pretty good job of accomplishing.

That is thought.

After the meeting the coworkers who went to the meeting with me told me how sorry they felt for me in having to be there because I looked so pathetically bored the whole time.