Man that was - interesting...
So we've been helping out a friend at an international trade fair for the past 4 days. I expected to do some background work at the exhibition stand any idiot could do but then again I had been asked for help because Bernd 'has extensive theoretical knowledge of just about everything'. At least that's apparently what people believe of me. Which may sound flattering but is actually really bothersome because everyone thinks you perfectly know and can do stuff anyway so you receive no help or explanation whatsoever. And so it was, my friend was gone talking to other people for a substantial amount of time leaving the stand just to me. Thankfully tupper intervened and got the guy to explain in detail what we were expected to do before he left because we weren't selling lemonade but promoting defense products to international customers.
It was pretty much as insane as it sounds and I was sweating bullets at the beginning. Alice wasn't too fond of it either because of the serious spaghetti potential and mostly focused on reminding and correcting me. Luckily there wasn't too much interest in our stuff, still just being there all day was really exhausting. Went to sleep immediately when I got home each day. No idea how people manage to live with an ordinary full-time job. Even tupper had to acknowledge that such extensive manual labor actually sucks as you have no time for anything else. We did adapt quickly though and got to meet some really interesting people. Tupper talked to some Arabs about international politics for a long time and no one noticed we were complete outsiders, let alone she's a tupper. On the contrary, I think we made a good impression. Guess my friend was right after all, should consider a career as a con artist. Yet tupper isn't the ideal salesgirl with her brutal honesty openly telling people to buy other stuff which is better and cheaper than ours. Apparently we still did make a good job and even got decent money for it. Was really fun in the end, still glad it's over. I'm beat. My actual research job really is a holiday compared to this. No hard labor, no interaction with customers or strangers, quiet intellectual environment, interesting novel work. Need to appreciate it more.
So it all definitely was a success, it was intense and stressful especially at the beginning but we managed to interact and support each other even when under pressure. Did reverse the roles for some people Alice found 'worthy' of talking to and I stayed in the background. Had to keep her from going full 14/88 a few times but apart from that she did great on her own. Not sure if it qualifies as switching as it was more of a gradual process than a hard split. I did make some interesting observations on that matter, more about it next time I'm dead tired.