It's Valentines' Day?

I forgot today was St. Valentines' day. I went to the office because we arranged to meet there before heading to the conference/meeting that scheduled to start at 10am.

When I walked into the office, I started to wonder why there was a smell of flowers everywhere. Since it was still before 8:00, the only people that were already there were people from the technical department. I walked to my desk and found bouquet of flowers, chocolate boxes, and cards. I took out of the cards and started reading it, only then did I remember it was Valentines' day.

As more people arrive, there were more flowers and more chocolates... To be perfectly honest, I'm not a fan of sweet things, so chocolates are a big no-no. Well, maybe if they were dark chocolates (the bitter ones) I'd eat them.

When everyone who was attending the conference arrived, we took 2 vans and drove there. There we saw more familiar faces. It seems like everyone who were involve in the finance sector were present. Of course people knew who were coming because there was a registration list, and only those who are registered can access the list. And of course, there were some guys who bought flowers and chocolates for the ladies. I did receive some, but I call them "bribe". Some of them had motives written all over their faces while giving them. But it would have been rude to decline them.

The conference started as scheduled. We had an hour break for lunch from 11:30am to 12:30pm. My party and I went out for lunch at a blind restaurant. It was a unique experience. All there servers were blind. The entire restaurant was pitched black. I'm one of the lucky ones that finished lunch without dropping any food on my clothes. A few of my colleagues weren't so lucky.

Note to self: Wear something red during Valentines' day. Apparently you get discounts in restaurants. Although we went to a blind restaurant, the person at the front desk whom showed us to our seats was checking for the colour red in our clothing...

We returned to the venue at 12:20pm. Exactly 10 minutes before the conference was set to resume. The speaker was "forced" to wait along with the others who were back on time because majority of people were missing and returned at approximately 1:15pm. During that time, we mingled amongst ourselves and of course get more tips and tricks (financial-wise) from the speaker; things that he wasn't going to touch upon during this conference. He called it a reward for being on time.

Therefore the conference ended late. Instead of 4pm, it ended at 5:20pm. Although the speaker ended on time (if people arrived on time), there was a lot of discussion, question and answers, from people who were late. I'm one of those people who hates being late and not have things run according to plan. But what I dislike most is someone being late and not offering a word of apology for people who waited for them. They walked in, sat down while talking amongst themselves disrupting our discussion, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for us to wait for them...

My boss told me to remember their faces, and note down; not to have any business contact with them again if they are late for the first meeting. In business, time is money.

Lucky for me, I was able to hitch a ride home with my Dad. When I got home, I removed my shoes, walked to my room and fell asleep on my bed. If it wasn't for my Mum asking me if I was going to eat dinner, I would have probably forgotten to write a blog today.