This time last year, I was (very) seri­ously con­sid­er­ing not return­ing to dragon*con as a staffer. 2007 was a drain­ing, hell­ish year for the 'con and eas­ily the one where I enjoyed myself the least. There were large, intense prob­lems from minute one and the hits just kept com­ing. Every­one seemed to be strung out — men­tally and emo­tion­ally drained by the end, and I just wanted to go home. For being the one event I look for­ward to every year, that's pretty bad. I always told myself that if it ever got that bad, I would get out from under work­ing the con­ven­tion and just show up as a paid attendee.

I'm glad I chose to give it another try.

2008 was redemp­tion for me per­son­ally, and by all accounts it seems, for tech staff as a whole. We had our issues as we always do, but unlike 2007, we weren't con­stantly bar­raged with demor­al­iz­ing and hor­ri­ble events that hit one after the other like a destruc­tive wave.

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