A career spent exhibiting at trade shows requires two things: the ability to perform flawlessly even when you're tired, hungry, and road worn, and the ability to shield your thoughts from union laborers, who can sense the union violations lurking in your heart even before you can. I, unfortunately, have mastered neither.

Take, for example, the time when I was preparing to exhibit in Seattle at a health-care technology show at the Washington State Convention Center. Other staffers for the company I was working for at the time were scheduled to come once the show started, but I was responsible for getting the exhibit installed before the doors opened, so I flew in on a flight from Atlanta on the last day of setup. I arrived in the evening with just enough time to get the 10-by-10-foot exhibit put together. But this wasn't a simple pop-up display, and I was going to need every minute I had left to get the project finished.

The exhibit consisted primarily of a tabletop display standing more than 7 feet tall and 6 feet wide that had aluminum posts anchored into big, stable feet, some graphics panels, and a heavy wooden canopy with embedded lighting that arched over the top. The company wanted to make a strong statement even from a small booth space, so this was a custom design with a lot of style and structure to it. It was relatively easy to assemble, but its weight and size made lifting it onto the table a two-person job. Since I was by myself, I assembled it on the table, having to stand on my tiptoes and reach as far as I could to hoist the 40-pound canopy onto the top and bolt it onto the supports on each end. I'm an exhibitor, not a weight lifter, so getting that canopy in place was a test of strength and endurance that left my arms quivering from exertion.

While standing back to admire my handiwork, I spied six light bulbs still sitting in the display crate and cursed myself a little. I'd forgotten to screw them into the sockets embedded in the canopy, and those sockets were now well out of reach thanks to the canopy's arched design.

I was tired. I was hungry. I wasn't going to disassemble that thing and take the canopy down to screw in the dang light bulbs. Because the company wasn't using union labor and the display could be installed without needing a ladder, I didn't have a step stool of any kind to hop on, not even a sturdy box to give me a boost up.

I eyeballed the crate that the exhibit had been shipped in, but I knew my weight would cause me to come crashing down through the top of it.

I scanned the exhibits around me looking for a stool to borrow or a really tall person or anything, but it seemed everyone had left for the night. There had to be another solution. I just needed something – anything – to stand on for a few seconds. It sounded like a relatively innocent solution, but I wasn't counting on union special forces being in the room, prowling for the dark hearts of rule violators.

Unaware of the foes that laid in wait around me, I set off through the nearly deserted show hall looking for a way to get myself off the ground just a few more inches. I wasn't concerned with the unions at that point. I was just thinking about dinner and a comfy bed with a soft pillow.

Literally across the entire hall I spied my salvation: a lonely chair pushed back against a wall. I looked left and right to make sure no one was going to come running up and claim that chair just then, but there was nothing and no one around it. In fact, I'd probably seen all of two people on my trip across the show floor – I was sure the rest of the exhibitors were all leaning on their elbows over delicious meals somewhere by then, and I needed to be, too.

I picked up the chair, a stacking, fabric-covered sort, and toted it back across the venue to my light-bulb-less exhibit. But I had no sooner set it next to the table when I heard a voice cut through the silence, startling me so badly that I nearly jumped out of my skin. "You're not planning to stand on that chair, are you?" someone drawled from the edge of my exhibit. Now I don't know if he was a ninja or a shape shifter or what, but this union guy had been nowhere near me a few seconds earlier. Yet as if he had materialized from vapor, he was standing there, his eyes daring me to make a move, and I couldn't help but imagine a throwing star in the center of my forehead if I put a foot up on that chair.

It seemed unlikely to me that standing on a chair for 45 seconds represented a union violation serious enough to bring him rappelling from the ceiling, or wherever he'd come from, but I knew better than to mess with him. "Uh, no sir," I responded meekly. I stared at him, hoping he'd leave. He stared back at me, clearly reading my mind. Not a chance, his eyes said. Defeated, I sullenly walked the chair back across the facility and put it against the wall where I'd found it sitting like bait for a desperate exhibitor. The union guy stood in the center of the aisle watching me until I returned to my exhibit empty handed, and then he disappeared in a mist. Just kidding, there was no mist, but just as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone, no doubt off to save the show hall from other exhibitor evils.

Out of options and unable to grow 8 inches taller just then, I called it a night and left the exhibit without its light bulbs in place. The next morning, I rounded up a colleague who helped me lift the display off the table, screw in the light bulbs, and heft it back up. It was a simple fix but an important lesson – don't forget the light bulbs, and never underestimate the stealth of union workers who can read minds and detect union violations from anywhere on the show floor.

— Randy Schiff, managing director, CimpliFix, Atlanta