Travel Log - Star date 20080809 - Minneapolis Part II

Plane, train or automobile: I spent the weekend prior to this workshop in South Dakota visiting my family, so there is a flight involved (just not on SkyHigh Airlines). My rental car was a very appliance like Kia Spectra - 4 wheels, 4 doors, a seat and a steering wheel.

Mission: Mangement Training. Boy, did I make an assumption that came back to bite me! When we had originally booked this class, it was going to be a combination of two divisions with half of each division going one month and the other half of each division going the following month (this class). I assumed that both divisions were sending all their managers. The division managers wanted to make a change and have each division attend as a group - no problem for me as I had already booked both trips. Last month in Minneapolis, I had one full division and was looking forward to working with the second group. The first day of class arrived and I was all set up and ready to go. I was chatting with a couple of management Team Members when the DM asked if I wanted to get started. Lo and behold, it was 9 a.m.!

Me: "Where is everyone?" I was looking at the two (2) people sitting in the room.

Him: "This is it."

Me: "There's only two."

Him: "Yep."

Me: "You remember how this works, right? I need at least 3 people to form one skill practice group..."

Him: "I'll sit in."

Me: "Are you sure you want to do this? We could save some meeting room expense, lodging expense and rental car expense and let these two get back to their stores."

Him: "They made the commitment. Let's do it"

So my previous low of 7 participants has been eclipsed by this class - hereafter known as "The One with Two People" (extra bonus points if you can tell me what popular TV show named each episode "The One...." (Travel Wife should let both of my other readers have a chance to answer first)).

I learned a lot adapting the course to two participants, and ended up having a successful session.

I also had the opportunity to have dinner with the attendees and a spouse, after which we went to Starbucks (the spouse who joined us works at Starbucks, so we got a really good discount!). The locals like to head down to Lake Front Park, so we spent some time down there walking around and people watching. Overall, a very pleasant evening!

Number of human interactions: 4

State(s) visited: MN, WI. Wisconsin always brings a smile to my face. It is the 48th state that I have visited. I used to spend my summers on my dad's moving van traveling all over the United States moving people. I had been in 47 states, with Wisconsin being the only state in the Lower 48 that I had missed. It took until 2005 for me to get to Wisconsin. I was with some coworkers and as our car neared the border, I stuck my arms and legs straight out in front of me (I was not driving) and started yelling "Finally! Finally!". I had to explain my outburst before they sent off for a drug test.

City visited: Hudson, WI.

Interesting fact about this city: A nice little town on the St. Croix river.

Halpert says: Ha, it only took me 8 months to get to Wisconsin!