It's got to be here-somewhere!

I was frantic. I had turned my purse, suitcase, and hotel room upside down, and my driver's license was nowhere to be found. I was in San Diego for CVC West, and I thought I might be staying long after the conference was over if I didn't have a photo ID to board the plane with.

Kristi Reimer

I shared my plight with a fellow Advanstar employee, and she offered up a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost items: "Tony, Tony, look around. Something's lost that must be found." Well, St. Tony must have been busy, because no license turned up.

When I told Peggy Shandy Lane, guru of all things CVC, about my predicament, I could almost see the gears whirring and clicking in her brain as she helped me come up with a plan. This was Friday—a weekday, thank goodness—so I called fellow Veterinary Economics editor Amanda Wolfe Bertholf and had her break into my apartment to retrieve my passport from the dark recesses of my closet. She brought it back to the office and gave it to Doug Catt, group sales director, who had not yet left for San Diego but would be arriving the next day. He put it in his luggage and handed it to me at the convention center in San Diego, a full two days before I had to get on the plane. Whew!

However, near the end of that same trip, I also misplaced my keys and my prescription sunglasses. As I searched I became nearly deranged with frustration. If not for the helpful staff at the Embassy Suites, who reunited me with both items, I might have gone totally off my rocker and never gotten back on. An ongoing, frenzied search is no fun.

Maybe you feel like you're frantically looking for something. An associate, perhaps? That's no fun either. A search that goes on and on with nothing to show for it wears you down after a while. The best strategy I can recommend is to take a deep breath, sit down, and make a plan. If retracing the same path isn't leading you to an associate, maybe it's time for a new path. Read Mark Opperman's article, "Where's Dr. Wanda?: How to find an associate," in the related links to freshen up your approach.

By the way, two months after CVC, my license showed up. Turns out I'd had it all along—I just hadn't looked in the right place. In that same spirit, I hope your associate is just around the corner, waiting to be found.