“The Clair and Gladys Strommen Executive Speaker Series brings local business leaders to Augsburg’s Minneapolis campus to share their insights and expertise.” It’s something they organize quarterly and I normally wouldn’t be very interested. Yesterday night, though, their guest speaker was Sally Smith, president and CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings. That in itself didn’t make it an amazing opportunity, but by preregistering for the event, I got to enjoy “sample wings from the restaurant chain” for dinner afterward. It had the potential to be a crappy presentation, but hey, man… wings.
Unfortunately, I missed most of the presentation, so it may or may not have been crappy. Like I mentioned a couple days ago, I met with my Economics group so we could talk about our paper, bounce around some ideas of what to add/include in each section and figure out what to put in our PowerPoint slideshow. We started talking at 4:30; Smith began her presentation at 5:00.
When we were done, the clock read 5:50 and she was scheduled to finish at 6:00… oops. But hey, man… wings. One of my fellow group members and I headed over there to hear what was left. As soon as we walked into the room, I sat down in closest available chair in the back row, then started being amused at the person in front of me who kept having to move her head around to see the podium because of the two fidgety teenagers with big hair sitting directly in front of her.
And then I stopped being amused. Smith was talking about the more popular sports they show on TVs in their restaurants: football and college basketball (baseball and the NBA aren’t as big of a draw until the playoffs). Then she mentioned commercials like the one where the maintenance guy was activating sprinklers to send a football game into overtime. Buffalo Wild Wings commercials… the horrific memories came flooding back.
Don’t worry, I didn’t rush the podium screaming in a fit of primal rage. It was tempting, but I had to make a choice: a massive swath of destruction vs. a trip down a buffet line of food. The deciding factor that led to my enjoyment of dinner? Hey, man… wings.
