Orlando Meeting

AA

Well, two weekends ago I was in lovely Orlando, Florida for work. The weather was not as warm as I'd hope, but low 60s is practically a heat wave coming from Chicago! MashaAllah, the presentation went well and the clients seemed pleased overall.

It's always enjoyable to attend these meetings for me because I finally get to meet my clients in person. Typically, we handle everything (because all my clients are basically on the West Coast) via teleconferences and so investigator meetings are my only chance to actually meet them in person, unless they fly me out for a kick-off meeting.

Anyway, what's always interesting is putting a face to the voice. It's only natural that after speaking to someone you've never seen in person you begin to get pictures of who they were. Like one client I speak to has an amazingly sexy voice. I mean, she is hot. And for some reason, I always thought that she HAD to be pretty. I was joking around with one of my project assistants and she - to this day - teases me about it. She'll be like, "Oh Imran, I talked to so-and-so today? Are you jealous?" or "Really? You talked to so-and-so today? Awww. No wonder you're so happy." Later we found out that this client was pregnant and on her way for maternity leave, so then my assistant insisted that I have a thing for pregnant women. Rumors of that at work still live on...

Anyway, one day I was talking to another client at the same company where the hot-voiced, pregnant client worked at and she was telling me that, "So-and-so's baby is going to be sooo beautiful, Imran. Have you ever seen so-and-so in person?" I thought I was dreaming. "Umm, no I have not had the opportunity as yet," I responded ever so professionally (trying my best to conceal any sort of anticipation of what she might tell me). "Well, so-and-so is REALLY beautiful. She's Persian and has dark hair. She...blah, blah, blah." She could have said "She is also a psychotic man killer," but at that moment I felt indemnified of all past, present, and even future teasing from my project assistant.

I felt great knowing that my instincts served me well...

So, for a handful of the clients that I was going to meet in Orlando, I had formed the following images:

[1] Client 1 (female): She sounded older. In her mid-40s. Her marriage status was a bit questionable to me because she had mentioned at one point that she was planning to watch the Super Bowl with a bunch of her girl friends. So then I thought to myself, Okay, she's in her 40s. Single. And probably overweight.

[2] Client 2 (female): Also sounded older. I thought she HAD to be African-American. Not fat, but not skinny, but most unquestionably Black.

[3] Client 3 (female - yes, most my clients are in fact women! Woo hoo!): Older. But, like, REALLY old. So old that I thought she had to be too old to get her job, but probably only has it because she seemed really nice and filled some quota. She generally talked slowly and didn't seem to get instructions I'd give her.

[4] Client 4 (male): Young guy. Likely to be average looking; maybe even kinda decent. But, based on personality and voice pitches at times, he was most definitely gay.

And the results...

[1] Client 1: She was surprisingly young! Somewhere in her early 30s. And she seemed really fit, actually. Wildly curly hair. The only thing I had right was that she was Middle Eastern. In fact, just a few years ago she had come over from Egypt - though it was hard to assess if she was Muslim.

[2] Client 2: Okay, not bad, Imran, I thought to myself when I met her. She was older (let's say 40s - 50s), so I had that part down. Unfortunately for me, however, Client number 2 was most unquestionably white as snow. I almost tried to force myself to think, Maybe she has some sort of skin pigmentation disfigurement? But the more I talked to her, the more I wanted to kick myself for thinking she was Black!

[3] Client 3: Okay, she was older, but not more than 40-something. And, this sounds bad, if you saw her from a distance, you would have thought she was totally hot. I was impressed and very shocked. Unlike Luke Skywalker, my feelings had failed here, too. And her slowness of talk wasn't as bad in-person as I thought...

[4] Client 4: I was soooo expecting a clean shaven kinda guy, but instead I got someone with a full beard and a semi-balding head. Probably in his 30s, I'd say. He was the type of guy that, when meeting in person, has to speak to you as though being more than three inches away from you was the equivalent of being in another area of the hotel resort. I wasn't too surprised by that, though. I am happy (I guess) to say that my "gaydar" for this guy may have been right, though it was most certainly difficult to tell because at times he did remind me of a rabbi professor I had at DePaul.

So, what does this say about me? What does it say about creating images of people before meeting them? That stereotypes are wrong, politically incorrect, mean, and very judgmental? Well, screw you, too! At least my haunches were right about client "So-and-so"!! Who cares if I was dead wrong about these four clients? Maybe it differs from client-to-client? Or maybe I really need to get married so I don't find myself having all this time to think and write about stuff like this.

You should know that the rest of my time in Orlando was fine. Hardcore chillaxin in my room and some fun the next day with Shamu and the sharks at Sea World. Yes, by myself...

Have I ever mentioned that I need to get married?

Cheers