Friday, July 22, 2016

As threatened/promised



MOST of these things did not happen at this year's conference. I have seen a few of them (food running out, "dominance mounting" of grad students, flashdrive won't read, skipping of breaks, theft from display tables) happen at different conferences down through the years. Some of the more ridiculous ones (drunk speaker, vomiting grad student) are plausible but I have never seen them.


Let’s play…..

CONFERENCE PROBLEM BINGO!!!!!!!!!!



Food runs out at banquet or mixer

Big famous guy doesn’t show up to give plenary talk


Power outage

Pages in proceedings inserted upside-down


Projector bulb burns out during plenary


Someone with an incomprehensible accent giving a talk


Someone’s abstract left out of proceedings


Conference room is 20 degrees too hot


Not enough chairs in room


“We ran over time with the last few talks so let’s just skip the break”

Semi-famous bitter person asks “dominance mount” question of grad student

Theft from university-press vendor’s table
FREE




SPACE


Speaker is drunk or high

Overzealous “parking control” tickets people with conference tags on their cars


Heated argument breaks out during “question” session of a talk


Band at evening mixer too loud; no one can talk


Remote control breaks


Conference room is 20 degrees too cold


Computer won’t read presenter’s flashdrive


Moderator fails to moderate and session becomes extremely out-of-synch with others


Really tall people in front row of audience; no one else can see slides


No refreshments provided at break/refreshments greatly delayed


Grad student giving first conference talk ever faints or throws up


Poster room has lighting too dim for anyone to read the posters

1 comment:

Kim in Oregon said...

Wow, I am so lucky I go to friendly conferences. The only things I could check off in my 20 years of conference=ing is the cold conference room and the malfunctioning computers!