Clubindustry

The first session I attended Thursday at the NIRSA show in Austin was about landing your dream job, and the leader was Mitch Gartenberg of the University of Georgia. Mitch told us he landed his dream job early in life–as a beer man at Milwaukee‘s County Stadium. Now, he says, he‘s in his real dream job as the certified recreation sports specialist (CRSS) at Georgia. In a couple of weeks, Mitch will realize his other dream–running in the Boston Marathon.

(Editor’s Note: Mitch turned in a time of 5 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds at the Boston Marathon on April 21. Way to go, Mitch!)

During the dream job session, we were all told to close our eyes and hold hands with the person next to us. (Don‘t you just love interactive sessions?) Mitch went around and put an object in our other hand, asked us to determine what it was, then pass it to the person next to us. I happened to get a little chocolate egg; others got some sort of individualized snack food.

The point is, we have to think about dream jobs as three-dimensional. We have to see them, touch them, even smell them. Sometimes, our dream jobs aren‘t what we hoped they would be or seem to be.

We did another exercise in which we were given a slip of paper that had a job title higher than our current ones. After learning that I was a managing editor, Mitch gave me a vice president title. (Ha! Take that, Pam!)

The young lady with whom I held hands (please don‘t tell my wife) and I talked about what it would take to land the job title we received. Danielle, a student at James Madison University, had just interviewed and was offered a graduate student assistantship at the University of Tennessee, so she already was well on her way.

Mitch gave us some pointers as to how to handle accepting our dream jobs, and they all involved taking the high road. He suggested we clean our offices and burn CDs of all our pertinent information to give to our soon-to-be ex-employers. He also said to not dwell on the negatives of leaving and accept the chaos that comes with beginning our dream jobs. -Stuart

Hi, y’all, from Austin! No matter what your background is, no matter what race or ethnicity you are, no matter if you’re straight-laced or kinda grunge-y, you have to say “y’all” if you live in Austin.

I’m at the NIRSA show this week on a short visit. It’s been pretty rainy and overcast here the last couple of days, but you can’t tell that when you’re indoors for most of the day.

Overall, it’s been a good trip and a good show. I hope to tell you more about the sessions I attended in the next few days. The subject matter of my sessions involved dream jobs, how to interview for that dream job, the latest fitness trends (Expresso bikes, Nordic walking and the Wii were the highlights), and the always exciting topic of standards of care and legal issues. That was actually a pretty good session, conducted by brothers William and David Herbert, and it touched on the subject of AEDs, which I plan to report more about in the near future.

The show floor seemed a little bigger than last year in Minneapolis. Matt, our top sales guy in Chicago, is here in Austin, too, and we watched the Zumba demonstration Thursday afternoon. There was one dude out of the whole group of women brave enough to shake his tail feather. Call it “One-Dude Zumba.”

After Thursday’s show floor offering, Matt and I went to Buffalo Billiards on Austin’s historic Sixth Street. The reason it’s historic is because there is an unbelievable amount of alcohol available in a number of bars on this street. That and a few tattoo parlors, too.

NIRSA held an event at Buffalo Billiards on Wednesday night, so when Matt and I got there Thursday, it was pretty quiet. While we ate (and took turns coughing–the last remnants from our colds last week), we watched Matt’s alma mater, Ohio State, play in the NIT on one screen while we watched reports on Matt’s hometown team, the Cincinnati Bengals, on another screen. Later, we watched part of a soccer match involving Matt’s current hometown team, the Chicago Fire. It was definitely a Matt-love fest.

(I have exciting news about Matt, but I’ll wait to tell the gang when I get back in the office on Monday.)

I took in Gary Dunn and his country band at “NIRSA City Limits” before calling it a night. Austin was pretty nice on a breezy spring evening. The rains came today. I hope my flight’s not delayed. –Stuart