The Heavy

Normally at the JCI annual World Congress I handle the on-site registration of delegates which can be very stressful the first day or two for various reasons. Sometimes the registration system goes down due to the internet being overloaded (or lousy internet providers, depending on the venue & country), other times the volunteers helping get in the way and don't know what they're doing, but most times it's because the members registering are impatient complainers. This year I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Congress Organizing Committee (COC) in Turkey had hired Dekon Congress & Tourism, a professional organization that is owned by Cenzig, a JCI member in Istanbul. I didn't have to handle pre-registration which starts months before Congress on our JCI website, nor would I handle the large groups who send in wire transfers with a list of names that they constantly change. I was happy to learn that I also wouldn't have to deal with the cancellations and refunds of members who could not obtain visas.

Since registration has always been my primary responsibility at Congress, I wasn't sure exactly what I'd be doing this year. We had our Finance & Audit Committee meetings before the start of Congress so I got that stress out of the way and began asking everyone if they needed any help. At our nightly meeting one night, Leandro told me that I would be needed at registration the next day and thereafter to help handle problems. Without going into detail, basically there were several problems resulting from the accommodations due to the all-inclusive concept. I wasn't real happy about this turn of events since I didn't even know their system and Leandro said I didn't need to know their system as I was supposed to just sit off to the side and when Dekon sent their "problems" over to me I was to be the tough one. I gave myself the official title of "The Heavy". When I told Edson later on that I was going to be "The Heavy", he said, "it's your dream come true, Jean!" You see, I've got a reputation around here of being kind of mean. I know it's hard to believe, but true.

So I went down to registration the next morning with my official JCI nametag on my lapel (to give me more authority) and met Ebru, who had diamond studs above her eyebrow, below her eyebrow and IN her front tooth. She's from Istanbul and works for Dekon, traveling throughout Europe & the Middle East. She was very friendly and told me that her and her team had been working so hard on JCI the past month that she had less than 5 hours of sleep each night. I could tell by the way she could barely keep her eyes open.

It didn't take long until I got my first victim who was throwing a fit over 50 Euros which is about $75. She accepted my answer of "no" pretty easily and walked away. Boy, did I feel powerful! I spent the rest of the day bored to death as nobody else was sent my way. I was sitting next to Aysegul (pronounced like icecycle) who had the unfortunate luck to handle the Nigerian group who changed all their roommates & transferred registrations from one person to the other due to inability to get visas. The Nigerians are always a pain in the a-- and I chuckled and gloated to myself that I didn't have to deal with them.

The next day was pretty boring sitting there because there was nobody sent my way. I sat and watched as Ebru dealt with one problem after another but she didn't send anybody over to me. I felt kind of guilty because the people giving her a hard time were JCI members but after a while, I decided that I wasn't going to sit there and wait for her to send someone to crab at me. After all, she wasn't a volunteer, she was working for a professional company and she was getting paid. Besides that, the problems were because of their system which I didn't have anything to do with. I made the decision to go back up to the office and told Ebru to call me if she needed my help.

Actually, what Ebru and her team didn't know is that I'm really a chicken at heart and hate confrontation.