Detroit : Sales Summit 2013

Well it's been a long day.
Great, but long.

It started at 5am when I was up and getting ready for the rest of the day. By 6:45am, I was in the foyer of my boss' b-e-a-uuuutiful home, joined shortly thereafter by Elisa and Nikki. The five of us piled into "Mom & Dad's" car [that was their title all weekend], and embarked on our 4-hour trek north to Detroit, MI.

And because I'm an Ohio native.. and because I've been to Findlay, Toledo, Perrysburg and further... I can say this:

The downtown bowels of Detroit are a DUMP. Literally. It is so much so, that in an eerily-fascinating way, it's enticing.. but at from behind a camera lens. Otherwise, it's not much to celebrate at this point if you consider what those vacant, destroyed-but-standing buildings once were or held. *sigh.

yep. room with a view... it's definitely.... somethin' ..

We landed at the Westin, in the heart of downtown; there were business-professional clad people milling around all over the sidewalk, assuring us we were in fact at the right place.

Fast forward to Elisa and I checking into our room, changing out of yoga clothes [aka, road trip attire] and making our way down to the opening presentation for the weekend. We reunited with owners and members of the other four local Express offices, along with a slew of other offices from around Ohio, Michigan and Canada.

Super profesh, I say. Super.

yyyyep (:

From there, we started in on our first round of training tracks, designed to cater to our job functions, but of course with a twist of fun [as is the Express way, for which I am ever grateful]:

kortney's a magician ;)

The formal part of the day came to a close and it was time for some fun, the way our local offices are known to do it: We [our 5 local offices] reserved a huge table at a local Greek restaurant, ate calamari and baklava, and drank uzo until we couldn't stuff one more thing into our stomachs, and had a really good chance to get to know some of the newer gals. We all agreed this should be a much more frequent thing, this whole social outing part of it all.

parthenon, greektown | detroit mi

flaming cheese. yes. queso con fueeego!

After dinner, the lot of us found ourselves directly across the street at the Greektown Casino, where we finished off the night out with some Blackjack, slots and more than enough people-watching [let's be honest]. From there, we made our way back to the hotel where Anna, Nikki, Kate, Elisa, Kortney and I spent the next two hours laughing ourselves into tears along with some random co-guests in what we learned was an out-of-town wedding party.

kate. elisa. kortney. cori. nikki. anna
greektown casino | detroit, mi

Oh, and we ate more food.
Not only will we be off the wagon this weekend.. I'm not really even sure we brought the wagon.

*and chyeah, this is backdated. Actual bedtime happened around 1...ish... AM.
Summit, Day 2 is tomorrow.

Signin' Off from the Motor City herself...

xo | cmd