I’ve been to Las Vegas more times than I care to remember. After a while, the neon lights, casinos, and endless convention halls start to blend together. One year, however, I got to experience Vegas through the eyes of someone seeing it all for the first time.
We had taken a small group of managers from various hotels. It was decided that we would bring the manager from one of our independent properties because she had never seen how these conventions were held.
This particular individual was so excited. She had never really done much traveling, and she was looking forward to the education sessions usually offered during the convention. The trip started with her boarding the plane with us. As a first-time flyer, she was nervous about it. I understood. I remembered my first time flying and the fair amount of anxiety that came with it.
I sat next to her, and just as we taxied toward the runway, she suddenly developed a death grip on my hand. Her grip didn’t loosen for the entirety of the flight. By the time we landed, my hand ached. It was white and slowly darkening as the circulation returned.
The really unfortunate part was that there happened to be a fairly famous band on the flight with us. Most of the passengers eventually realized who they were and spent part of the trip trying not to stare. Our first-time flyer was so focused on surviving the experience that she never noticed them at all.
Once we landed and someone pointed it out, she was more disappointed about missing the band than she was relieved to have survived the flight.
After that, the running joke for the rest of the week was that she should just walk up to random people in Las Vegas and ask if they were famous. Given the number of celebrities, performers, and convention speakers wandering around town, her odds probably weren’t that bad.
I was happy to let a coworker sit next to her on the next flight.
We got off the second plane and headed for the luggage area. From there, we climbed into a shuttle van for the ride to our hotel. My team and I enjoyed watching her move her phone all over the place like someone desperately searching for cell service. She wasn’t looking for service; she was recording video. I can only imagine the finished product looked something like The Blair Witch Project. We couldn’t help but laugh when she excitedly pointed out a cactus and insisted on getting a picture of herself hugging it.
This trend continued throughout the week. I admit I felt a little bad about the teasing we gave her. As we walked the Strip one evening, her camera was constantly moving, trying to take in everything. I don’t think she actually looked at anything directly because her eyes were always glued to her phone screen.
This was the first year I ended up on famous Fremont Street. If you’ve never been there, it’s a city street closed to traffic and packed with street performers doing just about anything they can think of to earn money.
It was fun to watch her eyes go wide as we moved from performer to performer. Every so often one of us would point at a complete stranger and ask if she thought they were famous.
I particularly enjoyed watching her stand in front of a small group of leather-clad men, one of whom asked her to choke him.
Another member of our team, while trying to escape a cloud of weed smoke, nearly ran headlong into two women dancing in a circle wearing nothing but pasties.
During the day, we attended classes, trying to glean any knowledge we didn’t already have. One session covered human trafficking, and the warning signs hotel employees should watch for. As the trainer went through the list, my mind couldn’t help noticing how many of those signs could also describe managers in almost every company I’ve ever worked for.
I was standing next to a bench near the front desk of the casino hotel where we were staying, joking with my team that we must have been trafficked there by the boss. Our first-time convention attendee walked up and joined the conversation. I joked that she was just horning in.
She laughed and replied very loudly, “Well, that’s because I’m horny.”
It felt like the kind of moment in a movie when the needle suddenly gets knocked across a record and everything stops.
Now, the music and noise around us continued, but she suddenly realized what she had just said.
To make matters even better, two different men immediately stopped and wandered over, apparently deciding it was worth taking their shot.
Vegas itself hadn’t changed. The casinos were the same. The convention center was the same. The difference was getting to watch someone experience it all for the first time. For one week, Vegas felt new again, and it turned into one of the most enjoyable work trips I can remember.