sales conference

i've spent the past couple of days at our company's sales conference/training at the santa clara marriott. some highlights & lowlights.

highlights:
-free food. lots of it, we were practically eating non-stop. breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners, all buffet-style, and all delicious. lobster, seafood, prime ribs, desserts, and open bars for all dinners. the works.
-hanging out with all the people. the conference had maybe 200 people because it contained almost our entire sales team plus a good portion of marketing. i obviously don't know everyone, but over the years, i've worked or am currently working with a good amount of our sales team worldwide, so it's nice to put faces to the names of the people i haven't met, and to chat and catch up with the people i have.
-free stuff. here's where you get involved. who plays PC games? i have the following brand new games (have multiple copies of some) up for grabs:
-Lord of the Rings II: The battle for middle earth
-Swat 4: special weapons and tactics
-Red orchestra
-Lego Star Wars: the video game
-Chronicles of Narnia
-City of Villians
there were others (age of empire III, ice age 2, etc), but unfortunately people grabbed them before i could get to them. these are full versions, but as a warning, a lot of them require pretty good graphics cards to play them. let me know if you want any of them. the only catch is that you must own an nvidia card. :) and i will not negotiate on that. i'm not giving away free games i got from my employer only to be played on a competitor's card.
-got to see cool demos. a guest speaker from microsoft came and showed us a preview of microsoft vista, and we saw demos of other neat things, such as 3D medical imaging, 3D car navigation, etc.

the biggest highlight:
-our ceo closed off the entire conference, and the last thing he ended with was... if we hit a certain revenue target (which i will leave unamed) for a quarter sometime this fiscal year, our next sales conference? hawaii. it will be a lot of miserable nights and lots of blood, sweat, and tears during quarter end to hit this number, but i think an all-expense paid trip to hawaii may be worth it. yeah, that announcement definitely got lots of cheers.

the lowlights:
-internet connection sucked, and a lot of us kept getting kicked off our vpn. so frustrating when trying to get work done. some of my coworkers just went back to the office for most of the first day.
-a lot of the sessions were BORING. most of my coworkers went to sessions with other people in my group, but i got stuck at one LONG session by myself with a bunch of people i didn't know very well the first day. sure, i work with them and work in their segment, but i don't know many of them since i took it over not that long ago. i declined to have dinner with them at parcel 104 because i wanted to eat and hang out with the sales people i know & love, even though parcel 104 is a nice restaurant. the second day, i ditched that breakout session to attend more interesting ones.
- hanging out with all the people. while i do love it, especially since i don't get to see most of them very often, it's so tiring schmoozing and making small talk for three days straight.
-free food. i know, free food a lowlight?? but there was so much free food, that i felt like i was going to explode. yes, i'm like a true asian at heart, trying to make the most of anything free. haha.
-having to get up so early and stay so late every day. i'm exhausted. i fell asleep at 8pm last night. i didn't intend to, but i couldn't even keep my eyes open.

in all, it was still fun, mostly because i got to talk to all the sales people who are not based here. open bar + sales people = craziness. i was shocked when i found out one of the sales guys i've worked with for years: 1) doesn't drink, 2) goes to sleep early, and 3) drives like a grandma. ahahaha. he's like this young guy in his early to mid 30's, and these older sales guys are telling me how they won't let him drive anywhere anymore because he's so slow. awesome.

oh, hey. happy april's fools day. and happy 4 yr anniversary to me at nvidia.