Chopped Liver

At some meeting for a conference tonight. I was chatting with one of the other organizers/volunteers whom I hadn't met before. It was a pleasant enough conversation. At one point he asked what I planned to to do when I was done my post-doc. I mentioned Mr Bob and his job. Instant lack of interest. Not 1 minute later and kinda mid conversation, he looks over at a head organizer and asks "So we're done here, right? Can I go now?" Then he left to the other half of the room.

Sigh. Business people.

So now I'm feeling a little battered. I talked in a desultory fashion to a few more people and then we did a tour of the facilities and then I headed back to the lab.

This whole conference was supposed to be cool and I was very willing to put a lot of effort into it, but I ended doing nothing, as our team leader ditched me and the other guy in his group and organised everything himself with the other upper level organisers. It was a little disapointing, especially after our first meeting where he insisted the two of us should do the actual inviting of speakers to get to know them.

The conference will likely be a huge success (It was sold out a week in advance and tonnes of media will show up), but I don't feel that I have been any part of it at all. I showed up to the meetings and contributed almost nothing (They were status report meetings, so there wasn't much opportunity.

Blech, I had been looking forward to being involved in this , so it's a bit extra disapointing.