Abbie goes to a conference (unfinished)

"Abigail?" said a stern voice.

It was Friday. Abbie looked up from her desk. The voice came from one of her superiors, Ethan. She tolerated Ethan, but never really felt like she had any connection with him it all. She did her work, he often approved it, even praised her for it, but she never felt like she was anything more than a cog in the system. Public relations was a weird business anyway -- though there was an irony to the fact that Ethan had such lousy rapport with his team.

"There's a conference coming up next week. Monday and Tuesday. We'd like you to attend. No presentation -- just there to network and learn about some new tech."

Abbie nodded. What am I doing on Monday? Or Tuesday? Am I even available to go to this, or do I agree and --

"Well? Are you in?"

"Yes," Abbie said quickly. "Yes, I'm in. I'll go."

"Excellent. I'll have Sandra get the itinerary set."

By the end of the day, she had all the information. Flight out early Monday morning, attend the expo all day, schmooze at night, hotel. More of the conference on Tuesday, more schmoozing, get another night in the hotel, and then back to business on Wednesday.

Abbie looked up the event online. It looked fine, she thought, having never been to anything like this before, and therefore having no sense of standard. What kind of people would be there? Would she know anyone? She got a little nervous just thinking about meeting a whole slew of new people without any formal structure or purpose herself.

"Just go and talk to people," she muttered to herself. "That's what Ethan said. Just 'network.'" She took a breath and nodded to herself. "I guess that's what I'll do."

Abbie didn't put much thought into this over the weekend. Sunday night, she packed a small suitcase. She planned for two sensible business outfits for the conference, two nice dresses in case there were dinners or drinks in the evenings, and a swimsuit (with the hope of a hotel pool).

Next step was just waking up early enough on Monday morning to get to the airport in time for the flight. "5:30am is early!" Abbie said to herself as she got into bed Sunday night. She set her alarm, and slowly fell asleep.