On location: Deerfield, IL

If anyone ever tells you you are going to "Chicago" on business, and then lets you know they have booked you a plane ticket to "Chicago" and a hotel in "Chicago" please be aware it probably actually means "somewhere that is 40-70 minutes outside anything even resembling the Chicago metro area." And please also be aware that if you can't rent a car because you're not 25 then you will be stuck hiking past blocks and blocks and blocks of large corporate offices on a rural highway in an attempt to find sustenance in the eventual form of TGI Fridays, and the outfit you gleefully threw on because it's not 50 degrees and raining like it is in Seattle, which includes denim cutoffs and suede boots, will look less Urban Outfitters and more Teen Prostitute, and people driving by will react accordingly. Then when you are sitting at the TGI Fridays bar, you will be reduced to pleading with the waitstaff to rename the charges on the check because you're trying to get reimbursed by your company and don't want them to know you just downed 4 "Ultimate Electric Lemonades made with Skyy" at 4:10 PM on a Monday.
Also if they tell you before you arrive that it's ok that you don't know HTML and only know how to use the computer to check your email, facebook, look at celebrity gossip, and write endless self absorbed blog posts, it is a lie, because within one day they will be demanding that you write code and appear confused and perturbed that you don't know that something like this:

{((if_ ** color_sp BIG[--below])

/
/
//
then RETURN =/= _fontBR>>> over $$$__integer } BLARGH]

means "this costs $4".



And then you will have a flashback of 11th grade precalculus, the class that gave you your only C in high school and effectively ruined your college applications, self esteem, and your life, and remember how every time you raised your hand to ask Ms Korkowski a question you would feel a gigantic lump rising in your throat and would have to coordinate your question into short, clipped bursts of words to avoid breaking down and crying over the unfairness of math, and you find yourself doing the same thing in this class and the end result is everything you say sounds hugely bitchy and like you're not even trying... and you are KIND of trying. So the instructor and everyone else in your class hates you and you hate them right back, especially that fucking cunt with the Katherine Harris makeup who shushed you while you were struggling to open a bag of pretzels yesterday, and you cling to the one slightly nice, helpful guy in your class who on second look kind of looks a tiny bit like a fatter version of a guy you hooked up with once. And when you interrupt the instructor to say, in a panicked voice "I don't know what you mean by tabs, I DON'T know... what are tabs?" another little guy turns around and says, "so Maria, I take it you've never used this software before?" and everyone laughs and you attempt to take solace in the fact that your life is way better than his but then realize that's probably not true because really the only thing separating you from him is 20 years and the fact that he is married and therefore has been loved at some point in his life by someone who's not his mom. Then you will fake having to take part in a conference call so you can leave the conference room and go lie in the fetal position in your Marriott room and watch CNN and wish you were Michelle Obama because she would totally not be afraid to ask what tabs are, if she didn't already know, which she would.