One week left to MW07. Where’s my caffeine?

You look up from your work to see that it’s two o’clock in the morning and you still haven’t gotten around to eating dinner. You know the old adage that says you shouldn’t eat before going to bed, but you won’t be getting any sleep any time soon. You’ve got a mountain of work to do, and you’re just hoping you can get it done before sunrise. You decide to head out to an all-night diner with the intention of taking a break, but end up taking your laptop with you. This is the life of a journalist the week before Macworld Expo.

The initial novelty of the perfectly symmetrical one-to-one employee-to-customer ratio at the diner wears off once you realize that you’re the only customer and there’s only one person working. The guy who seats you then takes your order and then brings your food. Later he comes by with a vacuum cleaner in one hand and your drink refill in another. You smile at the fact that it’s been days since you could multitask like that. Not coincidentally, it’s been days since you’ve slept.

Meanwhile, back at home, you’re trying to use Rage Against The Machine as a substitute for caffeine because you’re quite honestly afraid of putting another ounce of the substance into your bloodstream for at least a few more hours. You muse at the fact that it seems like it was just yesterday that you made a New Years resolution to cut back on the stuff. Oh wait, it was yesterday.

It’s the day after new years and you’re still working on the same project you were working on back at Thanksgiving: how to cover hundreds of products from six dozen companies in four days. Just for kicks, you’re expected to do all of this while partying late into every one of those nights, despite the fact that consider yourself way too old for partying and haven’t been to a party since, well, the last trade show you covered.

You send out several emails in a row and then wonder why no one immediately responds. Then it you remember that it’s 4:30 in the morning. A few minutes ago by and a some of them actually do respond, and you wonder how many days it’s been since they’ve slept. You start to wonder if a formula can be derived that connects each sender’s level of sleep deprivation with their number of typos. You give up and suck down some more caffeine.

The morning sports show comes on the television (the host is quoting Wikipedia, when’s the last time he slept?) and you realize that after watching NFL football all season, you’re going to end up watching the first round of the playoffs from an airport. Suddenly you’re glad your team didn’t make the playoffs because you’d be missing the game anyway. Your flight leaves in four days and you keep thinking that if you just had one more week to prepare, you could be sound asleep right now. Then you realize that you started preparations a full month earlier this year than you did last year and it’s still coming down to the wire.

Then you remember that exhibitors who didn’t even know who you were last year are now begging you to come see them first. Companies you’ve never heard of are suddenly your new best friend. You’re inviting people to the party you’re sponsoring, and you’re even arranging something involving a birthday cake. Which is odd because you don’t even like cake. Maybe this year’s preparation is just a little bit more comprehensive than last year after all.

You think about the fact that your counterparts at the mainstream publications don’t have to do any of this. They fly in the night before the keynote and fly out an hour after it’s over. They all file the exact same vanilla report about the keynote and move on to the next city. You scoff at the fact that they end up missing out on all the good stuff. Especially the parties. No cake for them. You smirk over the fact that the coverage you’ll provide of this Expo will be a hundred times more comprehensive than that of any mainstream publication. Then you remember that right now, all of them are sleeping and you’re not.

From what they’re telling you, the guy from the Grateful Dead will be on one side of the exhibit hall, and the guy from the Rolling Stones will be on the other. You recall that Incubus is also involved in your plans for the week, but at the moment you can’t remember why or how. You close the blinds because the incoming sunlight reminds you of just how long it’s been since you’ve slept. You think about the fact that the other ninety-nine percent of the world goes home at five o’clock each day and doesn’t even think about their job until the next day. But you wouldn’t trade this for anything. You’ve got the greatest job in the world, and this is absolutely the best time of the year to be doing what you do.