First, I should state that I don't think I've been to Houston in 15 years, not since the Bar Mitzvah of a cousin who I don't really speak to anymore for various reasons. I have few memories of the city (except those involving Bas Mitzvahs and insane weddings), but those memories are enough to make me heavily dislike the entire state (despite that I spend a lot of time at work dealing with issues in Texas and won't be getting rid of those projects any time soon).
I forgot how flat it is here. How everything next to the highway seems to look like a rundown strip mall. How it was clearly affected by multiple hurricanes. How spread out it all is. I had just forgot. I now remember. And that hasn't really improved my opinion of the city. The little that I'm seeing of it (I'm spending a lot of time in meetings and giving a presentation, not exploring the city) isn't leaving the best impression and the only real upside was that I had been having nightmares for the last week about the people I was going to meet with down here and those were fairly unfounded.
There is one man in particular who I was scheduled to meet with here that has really been peeving me for weeks. He is a rather brash individual, the kind you almost never meet in the Cornfield but who I stereotypically believe exist almost exclusively in the South (this feeling is completely not based on fact) and has been recently been calling me at work and complaining a lot. I won't go so far as to call him a Redneck but he's up-front in a way that is not seen in the Cornfield and tends to say exactly what is on his mind with less of a filter than anyone. EVER. Anyway, he showed up for my presentation and we had planned to meet with his Coalition members after to look at data quality. I was pretty convinced that at some point he would start a fight, there would be yelling (people from the Cornfield don't like yelling except at football games), and I would have to lose my calm work demeanor and get in this guy's face. A colleague (also at the meeting) informed me that he would have no problem playing the bad cop and punching the guy out if he got in my face. I'm happy to work with such awesome people.
Anyway, after all of this build-up, all the stress, the bad dreams, what does this guy do? Shows up for my presentation, sits in the front row and damn near falls asleep during my various parts of my presentation. Look, the presentation wasn't exciting; it was about homeless data quality and even I'll admit it's dry stuff and I can only tell so many funny stories before it goes down hill. But was it snooze worthy? NO. THEN, after all his BS, he shows up at the meeting for his community and basically says nothing. Does nothing. Offers nothing. I was so disappointed. Part of me was looking for a fight, after all the emotional energy I've spent on this guy, part of me wanted to scream at him a bit. But nothing. He offered one sarcastic comment at one point then told me later he was happy I came and it was very informative. Whatever. *sigh* I guess this is the part of the job where you swoop in, fix a problem, and pray you don't get a phone call later reminding you that everyone can be an adult when you are in the room with them, but a child once you go home.
I'm going back to DC tomorrow and will be happy to have this trip over. Besides the general frustration I've felt for Houston, this was my first major trip where I was almost on my own, presenting in front of a lot of people (without notes! or practice! so excited I can do this off the cuff!) and being really displayed as an expert. It's a lot of pressure in some ways, I'll be excited to get back to my office, where I can quietly sit and feel uninformed.
