The point about Davos is that it makes everyone feel wildly insecure. The genius of World Economic Founder Klaus Schwab is that he has been able to persuade hundreds of accomplished businessmen to pay thousands of dollars to attend an event which is largely based on mass humiliation and paranoia.
Wives feel sympathetic to their husbands and share their pain. But we have our own problems to cope with. After all, we are the on the bottom rung of the Davos ladder. The most revealing sign of our lowly status is that we are forced to wear the ultimate badge of shame β the white name tag.
Usually these name tags include some kind of affiliation, such as the company or organization you work for. This means there is nothing on it that could help a stranger strike up a conversation. Many wives refuse to be Davos wives and the white name tag is the reason they most often cite for their decision to stay home.
Anything so that someone who actually wanted to talk me would know how to strike up a conversation. People lose their heads in this hothouse atmosphere and behave in ways that they probably would never even consider in another setting. The husband and I had just arrived from a night flight and a limo ride to our spartan but centrally-located hotel room. We dropped off our bags and staggered over to the Congress Centre to pick up our name tags. Winding through the little corridor on the way to the registration we ran into an old colleague of my husband.
Another time I was sitting at a lunch next to a tycoon who happens to be a close friend. Without a word of apology, a woman rushed over and took him away so he could sit up front with the VIP giving a lunch talk, leaving me stranded.
