DC is wet. Torrential rains Sunday night caused considerable flooding and delayed quite a few latecomers to the SHRM show. One person I know trying to come to DC waited 6 hours to get in the air then was diverted from Washington to Baltimore and comandered a cab, getting in to his hotel at 2:30am.

 

After the Colin Powell's opening talk Sunday afternoon and several hours of methodically working through the vendor show (it cannot be done w/o a scorecard), we headed back to the hotel during a lull in the rain around 6:30 to get ready for one of SHRM's many cocktail parties.

 

Just as we were trying to cross the street in front of our hotel, a pair of squadcars, lights and sirens blaring, stopped in front of us. Cops popped out and directed us all to hold our position on the sidewalks. Several folks were pointedly told not to step into the street. Minutes passed and, looking up an down the street I could not see anyone coming. I heard one irate pedestrian ask why the delay and the answer- equally strained was essentially "because I said so". Obviously some morotcade was in the offing but it seemed to me this didn't meet customer service standards in a democracy- and triggered some unpleasant 70's memories.  

 

So, when the rain suddenly returned in full force I took off across the street for the shelter of the hotel eave heedless of the fact that I was noticed by some very determined law enforcement officials who may not be partial to guys dressed in black wearing panama hats and dragging a roll bag behind them. They gave chase and, too some, they appeared very concerned. Now I've slowed down a step or two in the last several decades and, arriving at the hotel entrance, looked over my shoulder, realized the error of my ways and immediately stopped short before being tackled by someone much larger and younger than I whose hands were way to close to his holster for my taste...or health. I can get real appologetic in those situations. They took my ID and said wait. I waited.

 

Long story short, a motorcade with someone important enough to have lots of big dark sedans, hummers and navigators and people riding shotgun for real went by at high rate of speed. Across the street, David Russo turned to my partner Mark Mehler and commented, "you almost became a sole proprieter". A few minutes later, after some obvious identity checking, I got my ID back and permission to move on.

 

Monday's 7am concurrent sessions inclusing mine weren't quite washed out but they were sparsely attended as roads and subways were trouble until 10 am or so. During the course of the day I attended two recruiting related programs beside the one I presented on Developing Talent Pipelines. My afternoon session was full and the room was designed for 500. More on that another time. I was also able to meet up with and enjoy getting to know Russ Moon who had traveled through quite a few obstacles to get to the show and research the exhibitor's space

 

It was interesting to see who had booths (too many to count here but the category was included at least 250 of the 800 exhibitors) and who did not (Jobster). Lots of speculation on how much Monster spent on its various sponsorships, wrapped busses and hummer limosines, booths, parties, inivitation booklets, etc. etc. It was definitely a ton. and that is not to say that others like The Ladders, Yahoo, Careerbuilder, Employment Guide, Indeed and a others were invisible. All mentioned threw parties.

 

With the rain once again looming Monday night we didn't get too far past the Yahoo party in our hotel and enjoyed considerable discussion with Libby (Yahoo), Dan (Hotjobs), Dave (HR.com) and many more including the Cheezman.