The chronic malcontent goes undercover

Yesterday I left the Love Shack at 4:00 p.m., intending to catch a bus to downtown Portland. Of course, as usual, I failed to check the bus schedule, so I missed a bus and had to wait. The weather was gray, but mild, mid-60s. I sat on a wide green bus bench, watching cars go by, admiring my odd little village-like neighborhood, a crossroads throwback to an earlier time. (The neighborhood, I mean, not me.) My umbrella was stowed in my knapsack, for the rain that was on the way. And I carried my old but reliable digital camera, because, in this era of social media, what's the use of going on an adventure if you don't document the experience so you can share it with others? I mean, just experiencing something doesn't count anymore. Experience hasn't truly happened until you've shared it. You probably already knew that. All you social media experts, with your greedy little Facebooks.

I rode the bus downtown, holding my camera to the window, clicking the shutter every few seconds, documenting. Not surprisingly, a great many of them turned out to be blurry. Because that is what happens when you take pictures from a moving bus. Oh well. I experienced a bus ride, and I've got the pictures to prove it.

Just past the Willamette River, the bus slowed for its first stop at Third Avenue. I got off and started walking north along Third toward Burnside, cutting over to Second, and then to First, and then to Naito Parkway. I felt pretty good, striding confidently along in my tight-but-not-quite-so-tight Levis 501 blue jeans, my beat up black suede Merrell clogs, and my well-worn olive green denim shirt (sans collar, cut off last summer when I decided to adopt a Nehru collar look). My destination? The Mercy Corps Northwest building on Naito Parkway (formerly Waterfront Drive), just south of the Burnside Bridge. I was scheduled to attend a small business workshop, one of a series presented by MercyCorpsNW for a nominal fee of $25.

I was early (compulsively early, remember?), so I walked around the blocks just to the south and west, looking at the architecture and the people. The world-famous Saturday Market takes place every weekend in this location. The Skidmore Fountain graces an open brick plaza, which was dotted here and there with shopping carts and sleeping bags. I started to feel hungry. Among the old-fashioned glass-paned doors was a modern swinging door leading to a charmingly dark coffee house called Floyd's, open until 7:00 pm. I rarely eat out, especially not on the spur of the moment, but I knew if I didn't eat something, I'd be starving by the end of the workshop. I ordered a small coffee and something cheap called a breakfast burrito, which came wrapped in red and white gingham paper. When I peeled the paper back from the contents, the paper stuck to the warm and gummy flour tortilla. That didn't stop me from enjoying my snack, even though sometimes I was pretty sure I was eating paper along with the food.

To celebrate my intrepidness, I connected my so-called smart phone to the cafe's wi-fi and proceeded to check my email for the first time ever on my phone. Yes, I know that look on your face. I don't need your pity. Honestly, if you read this blog, you know that I don't currently have a data plan, and besides, I prefer to be left alone. I just wanted to see if I could figure out how to do it. I figured it out. There was nothing interesting in my email that I hadn't seen before I left home, so I shut it off. Objective accomplished. The phone went back to being what it usually is: a very expensive and inconvenient time-keeping device.

I arrived ten minutes early to the workshop. The training room was carved of concrete, with a high-techy ceiling of pipes and struts way overhead and a big projector screen high up on the west wall. Big windows faced east toward the River and north toward the Burnside Bridge, letting in the last of the grimy daylight. The center of the room was occupied by several large white formica tables, all shoved together in an island, around which were placed about 30 chairs. A young woman wearing the shortest and tightest stretchy black mini-skirt I've seen since the 1970s asked me my name and checked me off a list. Was this our trainer? People were already there, staking out all the best seats. I chose one closer to the front than I would have liked and sat down. An uncomfortable silence ensued, during which I imagined myself saying something like, “Isn't it strange to be sitting here without saying anything? Does anyone want to talk? Let's say something.” Everyone (except me) was busy checking their phones, probably reading emails.

“Welcome, everyone,” said the mini-skirted girl at 6:00 p.m., “to the introduction to demographic and industry research tools seminar. I'm Alice. Please introduce yourselves and tell us what your business is.”

Luckily for me, she started to her left, so I had time to ponder how I would introduce myself. Should I say I'm a marketing researcher? Would she feel like I was competing? Would she feel threatened? Would I find out I know nothing and make a total fool of myself?

The second woman in the lineup said, “I used to be a professional market researcher.” She sounded confident and a little patronizing. “Now I'm a wedding planner.” As we went around the table, I drew a picture in my journal, one of my typical goofy characters, wearing a t-shirt saying Who am I Today? Off to the side I wrote, Who cares? 

Many of the attendees had established businesses. A few were in the startup phase. When my turn came, I took a breath and made my decision. I said, “I'm Carol, and I'm in the process of reinventing myself after a job layoff. Today I think I'm a dissertation coach, but that could change tomorrow.”

From that moment, I was undercover, posing as a dissertation coach to scope out MercyCorpsNW's market research tools class. My goal was to see if I could pick up some tips on how to do a class of my own, but better. Alice stood at the lectern and launched her PowerPoint, saying, “I really want this to be an interactive workshop.” She then proceeded to talk nonstop, taking questions only when the slide on the screen proffered Questions? She spent a long time talking about types of research. I could feel my eyes glazing over. I was so thankful I'd had that coffee. Then we learned about Oregon Prospector, SizeUp, and ReferenceUSA, all in the context of a case study she had designed herself to illustrate the use of these reference tools. I continued to draw in my journal, trying to stay alert to the small things that would make my market research class better than hers.

I wanted to look around to see if anyone else was nodding off. I leaned down occasionally to wake up my phone to check the time. At 8:00 p.m., the ostensible ending time, Alice was still going strong. Finally at 8:30 her voice dragged to a halt. “It's getting late, people,” she said, looking somewhat dazed. I packed up my stuff and hightailed it out into the rain, intent on catching a bus home. The bus stop was blocks away. I walked fast, waving my umbrella as a defensive weapon rather than a rain deterrent, just in case any of skateboarding, weed-smoking homeless kids tried to accost me. Of course, everyone ignored me. I'm invisible.

The bus took forever to arrive, standing room only. As I moved back with the crowd, a teenager with long braided blonde hair seated near the back door looked at me and said something I had never had anyone say to me on a bus before: “Would you like to sit?” She stood up, wrapped her arm around a pole, and read her Kindle. I sat, feeling old and confused. To my left was a perky young woman holding a paper-wrapped bouquet of pink-edged white roses. As the bus cleared out, the woman with the roses held out the bouquet to the teenager. “I work at a flower shop,” she said. “Would you like to have these roses?”

Now the seat to my right was open, so the teenager sat down and carried on a conversation with the flower shop lady, back and forth, as I sat bemusedly between them. They talked about flowers and the flower shop. Suddenly the flower shop woman looked at me and asked, “What is your favorite flower?”

Taken aback, I told the truth. “Yellow roses.” She beamed at me. People were getting off the bus at Cesar Chavez Boulevard (formerly known as 39th). She joined the line at the back door, waving back at the teenager. And at me, I suppose. The teenager got off soon thereafter. By now the bus was less than half full. I had another 20 blocks to go before I could slink into the Love Shack and try to make sense of my adventure. What did I learn? People who ride the bus at night are fascinating and wonderful. And I don't like market research as much as I like marketing research, if you know what I mean.