Ever have one of those days?
Sort of a "perfect storm" of things going wrong?
To be fair, I have hardly had a spectacular week, but yesterday was ... priceless.
It began with waking up, groggily (been up at the theater too late the night before), becoming aware it was raining. Raining. Oooooh, crap. See, my school holds an outdoor fundraiser every year. Very popular. Fun for the kids. Never been rained out in the history of the school. And it was pouring.
Get to work and discover they in fact, have not cancelled; the kids are out in the rain (which let's face it, the kids are loving.) OK, great. All I know is I've gone to said fundraiser every year I've worked there; this is the first year I felt like I'd been there, done that, and I had too much work to barrel through to take a few hours away. And frankly, I was a little relieved that if I was going to miss one, I'm glad I'd picked this one! Thinking for a moment that the fates were on my side ...
... I quickly discovered otherwise. I won't bore you with the work-related things that went wrong. Suffice it to say that my co-worker and I were taking turns walking into each others' office and starting with: "Just shoot me." Unexpected screwups and unanticipated volume of new projects made my day all about running around, troubleshooting, and somehow, trying to get my normal Friday work done.
Now, while all of this chaos was unfolding around me, I was content in the knowledge that while we'd had to push the TWIST opening back from that night (Friday) to the next (Saturday), all was now well in the world. The designer pulled an all-nighter to get all the finishing work and painting done, and set up the projector, and we'd have a crazy but great tech that night.
Until I got this email. Forwarded from the PM who'd received it from the designer. Apparently, the message said, the projector simply didn't work as advertised. They'd tried everything, it said, but they couldn't make it work. Maybe we could with a better projector; maybe we just needed to scrap the idea. Sorry.
Blink. Blink.
What???
And oh, it gets better. As people started arriving at the theatre to help finish up, they found that not only was the projector gone, but he'd taken the screen too. (So even if we found another projector in 24 hours ...) And (better and better), he'd taken away every set piece he'd offered to loan us.
Now, we're supposed to open in a day and we have no backdrop, unfinished flats, and missing set pieces. Fan-freaking-tastic!
I'm now - in between the chaos at work - on the phone with Patty, with Dick, with Paul, all trying to find solutions ... besides the obvious, being: We will open next Thursday instead. (As the business manager, this hurts my very soul.)
My wonderful wonderful boss kept telling me to just go and take care of the theater; while I appreciated that, I kept pointing to the giant pile of work that had to be done today ...
In 20 years of theatre, I have never seen a professional just walk away the day before opening. Without explanation.
But we have a wonderful cast and crew, and company as a whole. People are coming out to help build today, and paint tomorrow. And the show is seriously going to rock.
So come on out and support us. Starting next Thursday. I promise you'll laugh. A lot. And you'll know what went on during the tech week from hell. And you'll nod, knowingly. And you'll be so impressed at how we bounced back! :)
All things being equal, though, I could definitely do WITHOUT a day like yesterday again any time soon.
To be fair, I have hardly had a spectacular week, but yesterday was ... priceless.
It began with waking up, groggily (been up at the theater too late the night before), becoming aware it was raining. Raining. Oooooh, crap. See, my school holds an outdoor fundraiser every year. Very popular. Fun for the kids. Never been rained out in the history of the school. And it was pouring.
Get to work and discover they in fact, have not cancelled; the kids are out in the rain (which let's face it, the kids are loving.) OK, great. All I know is I've gone to said fundraiser every year I've worked there; this is the first year I felt like I'd been there, done that, and I had too much work to barrel through to take a few hours away. And frankly, I was a little relieved that if I was going to miss one, I'm glad I'd picked this one! Thinking for a moment that the fates were on my side ...
... I quickly discovered otherwise. I won't bore you with the work-related things that went wrong. Suffice it to say that my co-worker and I were taking turns walking into each others' office and starting with: "Just shoot me." Unexpected screwups and unanticipated volume of new projects made my day all about running around, troubleshooting, and somehow, trying to get my normal Friday work done.
Now, while all of this chaos was unfolding around me, I was content in the knowledge that while we'd had to push the TWIST opening back from that night (Friday) to the next (Saturday), all was now well in the world. The designer pulled an all-nighter to get all the finishing work and painting done, and set up the projector, and we'd have a crazy but great tech that night.
Until I got this email. Forwarded from the PM who'd received it from the designer. Apparently, the message said, the projector simply didn't work as advertised. They'd tried everything, it said, but they couldn't make it work. Maybe we could with a better projector; maybe we just needed to scrap the idea. Sorry.
Blink. Blink.
What???
And oh, it gets better. As people started arriving at the theatre to help finish up, they found that not only was the projector gone, but he'd taken the screen too. (So even if we found another projector in 24 hours ...) And (better and better), he'd taken away every set piece he'd offered to loan us.
Now, we're supposed to open in a day and we have no backdrop, unfinished flats, and missing set pieces. Fan-freaking-tastic!
I'm now - in between the chaos at work - on the phone with Patty, with Dick, with Paul, all trying to find solutions ... besides the obvious, being: We will open next Thursday instead. (As the business manager, this hurts my very soul.)
My wonderful wonderful boss kept telling me to just go and take care of the theater; while I appreciated that, I kept pointing to the giant pile of work that had to be done today ...
In 20 years of theatre, I have never seen a professional just walk away the day before opening. Without explanation.
But we have a wonderful cast and crew, and company as a whole. People are coming out to help build today, and paint tomorrow. And the show is seriously going to rock.
So come on out and support us. Starting next Thursday. I promise you'll laugh. A lot. And you'll know what went on during the tech week from hell. And you'll nod, knowingly. And you'll be so impressed at how we bounced back! :)
All things being equal, though, I could definitely do WITHOUT a day like yesterday again any time soon.
posted by Tracy @ 1:41 PM
1 Comments:
At 9:45 AM,
Chairman_B. said…
Ah! It all becomes a little clearer. I wish I'd been there when they were. I actually saw the screen and the projector and thought, "Oh, this is going to be cool!"
Hrmph!
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