Bacon Wraps

Today I went up to Edinburgh for an Institute of Actuaries seminar on Wraps. It was being held at the head office of Standard Life which I had never visited before, though I did know where it was. I got there in good time for the 9:30 start and upon arrival at the reception I was directed to a little waiting room to await the organisers to take us to the seminar room.

I didn't recognise anyone else who was also waiting, but this didn't surprise me as I hadn't expected to. So I waited for a short while. Then a man came along and indicated that we should follow him to the room. We went through "security" and along a corridor into the rooms where the seminar was to be held.

Rather excellently, they had bacon rolls for us to go with the normal coffee. I grabbed one and sat down. Said hello to a few people whilst eating, but still didn't know anyone. There seemed to be less actuaries than I'd expected, but since the day was open to non-actuaries too, I didn't let this worry me.

As I was finishing my roll, I noticed that a couple of the people standing at the front appeared to be looking at me strangely and I think I heard one of them ask the other if I was with them. She came over and said hello and then after a quick exchange quickly determined that I had not arrived at the Wraps Seminar as I had thought. I had in fact managed to crash some kind of sales consultant development day (or something). Whoops. She advised me to try the room next door. I left slightly sheepishly.

But hey, I'd had a free bacon roll!

I tried this one, but it was empty apart from one organiser type person. I introduced myself and to save more embarrassment checked whether this was the Wraps Seminar. It wasn't. I despaired and headed back to reception.

This time they didn't send me to a waiting room, they advised me to go straight to the seventh floor (in a "special lift"). I couldn't find this lift but did then bump into some actuarial types who took me upstairs to where I was supposed to have been all along (which in my defense was not where it said on the joining instructions). I was happy to finally be in the right place.

Moral: It's really easy to sneak into Standard Life and steal bacon.