Charlotte--wrap-up

When we left off, I had just arrived in Charlotte and already it had been an interesting trip. Now, days later at home, I'm not able to remember all of the ridiculous things that happened so I'll just name a few.

Focus group members are normally paid $60 for 4.5 hours. One focus group member in Charlotte got paid $60 for about 20 minutes. That's right, I paid him to leave. Why? drunk and disorderly. Moral of the story--go to work drunk, they'll pay you AND let you go home.

A participant came up to me on Saturday and said "I'd like to file a complaint". Being used to this I said "sure, what's wrong?" and he explained that he felt that it was wrong that we are serving Evian water at the program. I looked at him, puzzled, and asked him to elaborate. He explained that we are the AMERICAN Association for Justice and that serving french water is unpatriotic. My mouth dropped open as I tried to come up with an answer, ANY answer, other than, "are you fucking serious?" I regained my composure and explained that when we order soft drinks and water we do not get a choice re: brand. He felt that wasn't good enough and that I should negotiate American water into our contract. I wanted to ask him if he would be happier if we provided Dasani water, fueling money straight into the pockets of the Coke Co. big wigs but I decided to leave it alone and promised to mention that contract clause to our meetings manager.

The faculty, directed to buy me lunch on Saturday, brought me back an enormous turkey leg. I wouldn't know where to find a turkey leg if my life depended on it (outside of the Renaissance festival) but they are apparently quite common in Charlotte. You'd think the town would smell more like turkey and less like pancakes.

Side note: In addition to the program I staffed in Charlotte, we had two other programs running this weekend in Las Vegas. Upon returning to the office I'm told that a faculty member for one of those programs showed up 30 minutes late and drunk. Apparently, focus group members and lawyers have something in common.

Next Trip: Denver, September 24-28. More then.