Horrid

Horrid: innately offensive or repulsive, inspiring horror, disgust or loathing. Yep that would describe today - quite well, actually. Now, it is highly possible that if you are not a meeting planner, or have not organized a rather large event you may not recognize just how horrid today was, so think about something you put lots of time into (LOTS of time), and then think about it all falling to pieces around your feet...and there is nothing you can do about it but pick up the pieces and try to keep it going. That was my day in short...like I said - horrid.

Really the set up for today started about 2 weeks ago. I have been working on the meeting we held today for, oh, about 8 months. That's not all that long in meeting planning land because it's not like you work on it every hour of every day, but it's decently long for a half day event. The reason it took so long was because there was a group of people planning it. Meeting planning is really done best with 3 or 4 people who know what they are doing - you get a mix of ideas but you can cull them down to something realistic, one person is the ring leader and with everyone knowing what they are doing you can all see what your role is and be comfortable with it. Unfortunately in the world of federal and state funding you are forced to do things like 'collaborative event hosting'. What this means is everyone gets a say (even people who don't understand what they are saying won't work), and you end up doing it all in the end, with too little time because everyone is supposed to help but no one does (but they don't tell you they aren't going to help until after what they were supposed to do needed to be done). It's actually the same reason I hated group projects when I was in school.

At about 2 weeks out you need to start assuring that everything in place is still in place. Who is coming is obviously a very important aspect of a meeting, but generally this is just a courtesy contact to let people know when you are meeting and where, not an actual confirming they are going to be there, because you assume that if they changed their mind about being there they would have let you know, oh I don't know sometime in the intervening 8 MONTHS OF PLANNING! First people who were supposed to be helping support the actual running of the meeting started saying they couldn't attend, which threw a whole new people plan into existence (and a few desperate e-mails). Then some of our topic experts couldn't attend - unfortunately that really can't be replaced...especially when you find out less than 24 hours in advance. We were down to bare bones staffing of the thing but I had it worked out so that we could swing it. Little did I know that at 10:24 last night I would get a voicemail on my work phone from one of the people that was supposed to be there today saying that he forgot about the meeting and couldn't come. Ok - it will be fine, you have less people, but you have as many as you absolutely need, so regroup and keep moving.

I also find out on my voicemail that when we were told we had 3 rooms plus the auditorium, that actually meant we had 2 rooms plus the auditorium. But it's ok - we'll figure out a way to have 2 of the groups discuss in the auditorium, not ideal but doable. Just finish stuff up and get on the road.

I go outside to pull the van around that we are carpooling in and load it up...and it won't start. Right. So, I go back inside find the only 2 cars that are not being used, sign them out, pull them around and load them up. Oh, and of course it's hot and muggy today. So after taking sweat breaks and helping the last of the prep work, we get everything loaded up and ready to go.

Next up: get to the meeting. Some of the people we were carpooling with were late (of course), so not only did we get a late start, but once we got on our way I noticed the car I was driving was at 1/4 tank because I guess the last person to use it couldn't figure out the next person might need gas in the tank, so we had to stop for gas. Because of the late start not only did we not stop to get something to eat but we showed up at the same time speakers did (generally I try to get there a bit before them). But, all is well, we can get through this. In all reality today is a rough meeting day, but nothing I can't handle - I've had rough meeting starts before. Just keep going, it will all work out.

We unload the cars, start setting up the coffee and registration and go to put the presentations on the computer hooked into the screen...oh, the computer they said they would have available for us to use - do they have it? No. So, I pull out my computer, which was supposed to be used for something else, but that's ok, we can just unplug, move and replug when that needs to happen. Keep moving, keep praying, keep focused.

I've got people setting up coffee, people setting up flipcharts, people finding our rooms for later in the meeting and so I head to set up my computer and get someone working on downloading the presentations, and just before I run out the door back to the registration table someone asks for a laser pointer (which the location said they would provide...and of course didn't have), so we found one, and then for a remote (which the location said they would provide...and of course didn't have), so we found one. Then the batteries were dead, but we fixed that too. Ok, out to the registration table, where I found people starting to arrive. I started checking them in about 30 seconds after I find out that the rooms we reserved (2 months ago, and checked back in on 1 month ago, and checked back in on 2 weeks ago, and called about just for good measure the day before) were being used for classes so they needed to find us new rooms. Ok, it will be ok, just keep focused.

Coffee was set up, so I reassigned coffee person to registration and headed out to check on the computer set up, then find out what was happening with the rooms. They had found us new rooms but they wouldn't be available until at the exact moment we needed them. Well, it is what it is, roll with it. So we come up with a plan to deal with how to get rooms set up and people in them at the same time, then I go back and check on registration, go back and check on speakers, find out one of my speakers is caught in a huge traffic accident, grab a handful of goldfish, and find out that they were wrong we can't use those rooms, we need to use different rooms. So at this point the people who are supposed to lead discussion in these rooms have no idea where to lead their groups after our large group presentations, but it's ok - I tell them I'll figure it out and let them know. Keep moving, don't think about the disaster the day is becoming.

And, start the meeting, because it's time. The introductory speaker (which I didn't want to have, but was overruled during our 'collaborative decisions') talks for twice as long as they are supposed to and says half as much as they need to. But it's ok, once the talks start it always calms down...always, I tell myself. Talks start, last few people filter in, grab another handful of goldfish, change the presentation for next speaker, and hope the drama has ended. No sooner than I think we truly are on the road to recovery do I find out one of the rooms we have is not available after all, so we are going to need to use another one. So we move all the stuff to the other one. 10 minutes later (as in we just finished setting it up) we find out they were wrong, we can't use that one, they need to see if there is another one free. I stay calm again. Smile at the man I want to smash against the wall and walk back to the auditorium to check on progress, make sure all is running smooth and find out how far behind we are (which at this point is good since we are playing discussion room roulette). On the way, I convince myself I don't need to cry, it's really not appropriate, and will not fix anything. I can deal with this. I come back find out we have a new room which is being set up. Go back and finish up the large group discussion, help with the directions for what will be next, send people to their break, and then head out to get the rest of the set up done, make sure everyone has what they need and then get in to actually run one of the discussion. At this time I find out one of the rooms is again not available, so we have to move and they don't have another room for us to use.

At this point, I fight back tears, and scream 'I NEED A ROOM!' The man clearly sees I'm about to break and runs off saying how it's not his job (oh really, what IS your job? because he is the one that keeps telling us where we can go and then turning around and telling us we can't go there), we pull all the stuff back out of that room, people go off to find a new room, I go off to move computers since we needed to use them in more than one place and corral people to their rooms (hoping we all of them), find out where the new room is, get people to where they need to go, and start my discussion group. This by the way, is something that on a normal day is a decent amount of stress for me. I'm semi-trained in how to do this, which makes me feel like I need to be focused to do it - something I'm clearly not at the moment. I also feel extra pressure because the results of these discussion groups are my intern's thesis...i.e. I'm rather invested in having good results, and she deserves good results. And generally I don't run discussion groups at my own meetings, unless I have someone doing the random running around for me (which I don't have since I am short on people). But, because of the shortage of people who said they would run discussion groups but then decided last minute they wouldn't, I suck it up and get it started. People don't talk all that much, which is not great, but not horrible, what they do say is interesting. We finish up, and it as this point that I realize I forgot to mention to people to hand in their evaluations. Knowing that people always skip out early this is an issue, and again, something I realize I'll just need to deal with after the fact in some way. Quite frankly, I'm starting to not even care.

We finish up the meeting - which is painful because I HATE reporting out after discussion groups, but again that was a 'collaborative group decision' to have that in our agenda, I close us out, we pack up, and we head out. And just for fun we hit a major traffic jam on the way.

So. Do you see why today is innately offensive and repulsive, and inspires horror, disgust and loathing? I'm headed to bed - hopefully tomorrow will be better.