An important meeting

I work for a small contracting firm, so I spend the vast majority of my time in customers' offices. I received email from the main office this afternoon, addressed to the CEO, the general manager, a director, a project manager, and me. It said that tomorrow's meeting had been moved from 11am to 10am. It surprised me because I had not heard of the original 11am meeting.

Naturally, I asked the sender where and why this meeting would occur. She explained that it would take place at the main office, and that an important potential customer was coming in to evaluate our facilities.

Then she explained my role in this meeting: they want to convince the customer that our firm has the resources to take work off-site for them, and they need someone to occupy a cubicle for the duration, so that it looks like we have more people working in the home office. They invited me not because they wanted my input but because they needed a warm body.

I'll go, because I'm that sort of person, because the warm body still needs to know the software, and because I plan to bill them my usual hourly rate for the service. They did, after all, specifically ask me to show up and look busy. Still, the whole incident is reminiscent of the Dilbert strip where Alice asks the intern to accompany her to an "important" meeting across the bridge. Cool! We get to use the carpool lane.