I flew into Sydney for the 3 day event to some balmy weather and a lovely hotel at Darling Harbour.  My room overlooked the harbour and the city - it was pretty damn fine.  The afenda for the next 2 days was pretty cruisy.  This was about celebrating a very good year in 2008.  Apart from the good food, our main activity for the first day was a treasure hunt through Sydney.  Sure, my team came last, but we had fun, plus the sights were good.

Best of all, I was told that because of meeting sales targets, I would get a 10.4% annual pay bonus next month.  That is a tidy sum and maybe a 360 is finally coming my way.  That evening we had a hypnotist as entertainment.  I have to say, I hate hypnotists as much as I hate magicians, but there are worse things to have to do.  The band we had playing was fronted by an extremely attractive lady who sported a camel toe that was more hypnotic than the hypnotist.

Alcohol was fully available and most people hit it pretty hard, as is inclined to happen when it is free (I don't drink alcohol).  After the evening, the MD opened a bar tab  for those who wanted to kick on and most did.  I gave up at 2am and went back to bed.  This is where a good trip turns bad.

At 3am, my room mate staggers in.  I try to have a conversation with him, but I give up quickly when I realise that he can't string a line of words together.  So off to sleep he goes.  At 4am I was woke by noises in the room.  I called out to him several times, asking him what he was doing.  I only got babble as a reply, so I switched the lights on.  I was confronted with an image that will haunt me for years to come.

There was my work colleague, completely naked, urinating on the television and the surrounding area.  I kind of yelled at him to get him to stop, but by this time several litres of his bladder contents were already dispersed.  I got him to wander off and he went to the bathroom, still naked, and a few minutes later he staggered back to bed and was asleep.  In fact, he was asleep the whole time this happened and he has a history of sleepwalking.

To my horror, not only was the television his vision of a toilet, but so was all of my clothes (except a pair of jeans and t-shirt) that I had placed for packing in the morning.  4am and I am in the bathroom washing the urine out of my clothes.  This is not how I saw my day going.  In the end I was pretty lucky because he just missed my laptop, DS, PSP and digital camera.

So, after washing out the urine I wandered to the reception desk and informed of a little problem.  As the smell of urine and the proximity to my bed was way too gross for me, when they offered me another room, I took it.  When I got home I did put my clothes throught the washing machine twice just to satisfy myself that they were clean.

Sadly, as a consequence, the colleague lost his job over it.  We had tried to keep the matter secret by telling the hotel that he would pay for the damage, but the manager complained directly to our head office.  After that it was all over.  I am really angry about it as losing his job was completely over the top.  No-one was hurt and he was happy to fix it.  Plus, the company is complicit in my view by allowing unfettered access to alcohol.  I feel reallly bad for and wish I had have tried a little harder to cover it up.  Reaity is though that I probably would have failed anyway.