Whew! So the weekend craziness has come and gone and I definitely feel a bit more relaxed. As a friend of mine said to me today, "you're smiling!"A few days ago (in my last post in "Sleepless Nights"), I mentioned that my buddy/room mate is returning from his 3 week vacation in the Mid-West. I was excited to see him again so I cleaned up the apartment when I got back from the training conference (which I'll mention below), made my very first flower arrangement for him - white carnations with lavendar baby's breath, greenery and blue ribbons (what do ya think?), and I picked him up at LAX. (He knows that every time I say "buddy" in this blog I'm referring to him so it kinda stuck with us outside of the blog). It was good reconnecting with him again!
So the training conference . . . .
Well, i went in to work early on Friday - about 8 a.m. - since it was the last day before the event. As is typical, I stayed as long as it took to take care of everything that needed to be done. I left the office at 10:20 p.m. (As a side note, that older co-worker that I mentioned before - the one that makes me want to pull my hair out - left the office an hour early at 3 p.m. and was incredibly useless, lazy and unhelpful at the event the next day. She was there to help staff the event but I had to function as if she wasn't someone I could utilize. She literally refused to pick up a (light) box of binders while we were looking for something important. Sigh. Whatever. Enough about her.) I got home, did laundry because I couldn't fall asleep - not really anxiety, more like anticipation - and finally got to bed around 1:30 a.m. I came back in to the office at 6:30 a.m. to start the day and coordinate the logistics of the event.
In a nutshell, I think it went well. Over the years, I've learned that planning as much as possible before an event is important because it minimizes potential problems but once the event starts, you've gotta be flexible and adaptable because there will always be uncontrollable or unforeseen things that will come up. We were able to follow the schedule and I did my best to handle the curve balls.
I said before that it was my "coming out event" (or as my Michigan friend (Matt) says, my "debut event") because this was the first event that demonstrated to my co-workers, bosses (the office manager and the executive director), and the board of directors that I can handle the logistics of an important event. Before this, they didn't have a frame of reference for my potential, so as the new guy I kinda felt underestimated. Now, hopefully, they'll feel like they can give me similar events in the future to be responsible for. I'll admit that there's a sense of fulfillment when an event goes well. I enjoy working behind the scenes to make things happen. Fortunately, i'm happy to report that I got lots of positive feedback from the higher-ups who were pleased with the way everything went.
The event ended and I left for home (to clean the apartment for my buddy's return) by 4:30pm Saturday. I feel good that it's behind me and a weight has been lifted - of course, that is until the next event. After having so many sleepless nights, especially every night this past week, I enjoyed a nice long Sunday afternoon nap. I thank God that I've got Monday off!
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