Summers at work are the most hectic and challenging times due to the number of events that are scheduled back to back. These events are also some of the most complex requiring the greatest number of technicians to support.
During the summer I try to attend a few shows to see how things are going and support our technicians and event managers who are the real pros at this work. The group I work for at CompuCom supports most Microsoft related tradeshows, product launches, conferences and internal training events. This amounts to nearly 500 events each year.
It’s a lot of fun to get out of the office and see the amazing work our people do. It’s not uncommon for them to put in over 100 hours a week getting the technical areas of the show setup and ready for the attendees to enjoy. Many of them are coming directly off other events which keep them away from family and friends weeks at a time. I’m always amazed at how efficient and good natured they remain in the face of many late nights, demanding clients and the occasional computer that refuses to cooperate.
This week I’m helping (might be too strong a word) at a show here in Seattle called Tech Ready where we have over 30 technicians onsite to support several thousand attendees. I took this picture last night at around midnight which shows a room stacked full of 150 computers that are used to copy content over to attendee provided hard drives. One of our technicians wrote a cool little application that takes care of the process with very little input needed by the technician.
When I show up onsite, they assign me to an area when I can do the least amount of damage. So last night I worked the 4 pm to Midnight shift where my only company was a couple of very bored security guards and lots of blinking hard drive lights.
Hey, what does this red button do? 🙂
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