Diary of a Conference Coordinator: Shakeup
You know how sometimes you feel like someone is watching you? Or you feel certain you’ve forgotten something? Even if the result is bad, there is a sense of relief in finding out you WERE being watched or you DID forget something.
Well, I’ve had a kind of premonition…and I’m not psychic in any sense of the word…that something was going to happen at the last minute. The sensation grew stronger after I turned in the draft of the program to the printer. Putting something in ink on paper is guaranteed to cause a shakeup.
And like any good self-fulfilling prophecy, yesterday morning, it happened. One of my speakers had to cancel due to a family emergency.
I launched into damage control. I’m still working out the details, but I have options, thank goodness. I’m just waiting to receive replies to a couple of emails.
Plus I was still trying to get responses from a tiny handful of registrants to confirm their meal choices.
In the middle of all the emails flying through cyberspace, I managed to pack up everything from my office cabinet. The jungle of boxes in my living room has grown. But my office looks a little better.
Katie at the Marriott contacted my late in the afternoon about the meal count. I did a quick re-count. The numbers totaled up the way they were supposed to. Yay! Of course, five minutes after I sent her the tally, another registration popped into my inbox. No problem. Adding meals to the order is not an issue. SUBTRACTING, however, is another matter. And those people who didn’t let me know what they wanted are at the mercy of what I picked for them.
(Cue evil laughter)
By nine o’clock, still no replies to my calls for help to fill in the holes in the schedule and the holes in my brain drove me to call it a day.
To be continued…
Well, I’ve had a kind of premonition…and I’m not psychic in any sense of the word…that something was going to happen at the last minute. The sensation grew stronger after I turned in the draft of the program to the printer. Putting something in ink on paper is guaranteed to cause a shakeup.
And like any good self-fulfilling prophecy, yesterday morning, it happened. One of my speakers had to cancel due to a family emergency.
I launched into damage control. I’m still working out the details, but I have options, thank goodness. I’m just waiting to receive replies to a couple of emails.
Plus I was still trying to get responses from a tiny handful of registrants to confirm their meal choices.
In the middle of all the emails flying through cyberspace, I managed to pack up everything from my office cabinet. The jungle of boxes in my living room has grown. But my office looks a little better.
Katie at the Marriott contacted my late in the afternoon about the meal count. I did a quick re-count. The numbers totaled up the way they were supposed to. Yay! Of course, five minutes after I sent her the tally, another registration popped into my inbox. No problem. Adding meals to the order is not an issue. SUBTRACTING, however, is another matter. And those people who didn’t let me know what they wanted are at the mercy of what I picked for them.
(Cue evil laughter)
By nine o’clock, still no replies to my calls for help to fill in the holes in the schedule and the holes in my brain drove me to call it a day.
To be continued…
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