Sniffing Name Tags

The title comes from my description of a certain behavior I often witnessed at conferences.

Two conference attendees are approaching each other in a hotel hallway or on the exhibit floor.

One of the attendees (the distance determined by their eyesight) looks at the other’s face.

If they do not immediately recognize the person, they transfer their gaze to the other attendee’s name badge (which becomes more readable as they get closer).

If the name is unfamiliar or they do not know the person, they will suddenly shift their gaze off to the side, like a jousting lance bouncing off an opponent’s shield, in order to avoid any further embarrassing visual contact.

Of course, I always found this behavior a bit embarrassing for them anyway. In most cases, this happened to me at a theatre conference. We’re all theatre people. Even if we don’t know the other person personally we share our profession and could at least nod hello.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

People often act oddly at conferences, especially around well-known people. One of my favorite stories for this happened when I just walked up to one of the most famous of theatre scholars, Marvin Carlson, and engaged him in conversation.

It didn’t happen on a whim. Marvin Carlson was a longtime friend of my mentor and friend Yvonne Shafer who, I’m convinced—in her capacity as the second reader of my master’s thesis—was in fact the only reader of said thesis. In any case, a few years had gone by and I hadn’t heard from her.

So I walked up to Marvin Carlson and said something like, “Marvin, I haven’t heard from Yvonne Shafer for a few years. How is she doing?” And he began to tell me the latest news he had of her.

I thanked him for the info and, as he walked away, I glanced around and saw people staring at me in awe. Who was I who had just spoken in such a friendly and on-equal-footing with one of the greats? I smiled to myself and went on to my next conference destination.