My Hillary Moment

My only brush with any of the candidates for president came indirectly. This was, maybe, two years ago when I was teaching an event in upstate New York.

The way these courses work is that all the equipment is shipped to the hotel where I'll be teaching. I fly to the site separately, and then I set up the machines, projectors, course material, etc.. We book a hotel conference room the day before the event, so that the shippers can unload the heavy crates and I have the time to do the set up which can take 4-6 hours.

When I arrived at the hotel on Monday morning, I found that the shippers had come in on time and already delivered the computers. Only problem -- the shipping crates were not in the room. They were in the hotel's receiving area. It was going to be difficult to move them into the room (I'm alone, remember, and you need two people to lift a crate). Furious, I called the shipping company and was told that the hotel had requested that the boxes not be delivered to the conference room.

"Why?," I asked the hotel manager, "we gave you specific instructions when we booked the conference room."

"Well," said the hotel manager hesitantly, "the senator's staff is using the conference room, and they can not be disturbed."

"But ... we have the room."

"Yes, but they are not leaving"

"Could you tell them that the next group needs the room?"

The hotel manager managed to get an audience with one of Mrs. Clinton's staffers. Didn't help. They continued to occupy the room until around 7pm. They should have been out at 10am.

The hotel manager was sheepish about it all -- he didn't dare to throw them out, he told me, but the hotel staff would try to make up for it. And they did. They cleaned up the room, and helped me move the heavy crates into it.

It was midnight by the time I finished the set up. This incident is my primary gut feeling about Mrs. Clinton.

No comments:

Post a Comment