All in a years work
Well, here it is mentee, all the dirt you've been waiting for you! This one's for you! (Hopefully this'll make up for the meeting I missed.)
It all started one grey day in November. Speaking in french to her american roommate, a brown eyed girl sat down at her computer for another couple hours of writing papers, funding letters, funding packets and e-mails. She usually skimmed the national list e-mails...they were for the strong at heart, who had an insane obsessiveness to know everything that was happening in the nation...but this one struck her interest. Titled: New National Staff Position Open, it immediatly offered something new, something challenging, and even better, a way to avoid making a final decision.
She had been planning on going to Morocco for a bit, working with an NGO, maybe learning some French. But as she read on, this new position struck a cord: it was a position to end all positions, and an event to end all events: the AIESEC US 50th Anniversary Alumni Gala. The application was out within the week.
Unfortunately, the receiving party was not as gung-ho. While she partied with close friends and celebrated the impending end to her higher education years, the receiving party had a big decision to make: Go with a professional event planner or employ a new college grad who had only planned a few events before, none of which were close to the scale of that which they needed their 50th Anniversary to live up to. The question was: could this inexperienced girl really pull off a professional event, with hundreds of attendees, on such a tight timeline? Something or someone pushed them to answer that question in the favor of this brown eyed girl, and the organization took a risk, again.
Moving to NYC was exhilirating for the girl. She was extatic just to be a part of the city again, to be able to walk its corridors, breathe its dirty air, and swim through its complex soul. She was thankful, every day, for this experience. It was a love affair of the best kind: with a place.
But, soon enough, as all love affairs go, the honeymoon period ended. Work began to take more and more of her time...her love began to shift, from the city, to her work. And that's when things began to get messy.
She got involved, at one point, too involved. Like an overzealous girlfriend, she pushed too hard and almost lost that love. From this, she learned: she learned that there are more ways to change things than one, that with time and the will to understand and educate, all things are possible...even change.
And so, taking her learnings, she moved forward with even more passion and committment. It came time to create a team, the team that would help her lead the 50th Anniversary...the team that would make it possible. Many great people applied, some more qualified than others. Choosing them was not the hardest part. The hardest part was more internal: it was trusting herself in leading this team--in knowing that she could do it, even if she never had before. For this, she turned to a trusted Saint Patrick's Day fellow reveller. Advice was given (be consistant, celebrate wins, share challenges so they could more easily be solved, be strong, know your team, get people talking).
Trips were made to Chicago and San Francisco, where she made good impressions. Plans were finalized, re-vamped, and finalized once again. She learned the process of getting things approved (and how to get around it). She learned how to work with people. She learned how to sit still for a couple hours, and what good that can do. She learned event planner parlance, alumni parlance, office parlance, and loved when she didn't have to speak in one of them.
The day of reconning came, all in a blur of baggy eyelids, chandilers, coffee, stolen speakers, crabby hotel staff, amazing organizers, last minute agenda changes, beer spilled on freshly printed nametags, engravings, day-of-registrants, 4am trips to kinkos, : all in all, total chaos.
And then it passed.
And the girl moved home and planned a new adventure. And that saga awaits her as she awaits it: eagerly.
Sometimes she wishes she could have done some things differently, gotten started earlier, made more contacts, pushed harder, remember more...
But this experience will pass as all have for her. They will remain alive in the memories of those that attended, that worked with her, that guided her...but the will not remain vivid memories for her. For her, the experience will be remembered as a feeling, a feeling that it's just "all in a years work..." And with that, she knows that she did her best and has no regrets.
It all started one grey day in November. Speaking in french to her american roommate, a brown eyed girl sat down at her computer for another couple hours of writing papers, funding letters, funding packets and e-mails. She usually skimmed the national list e-mails...they were for the strong at heart, who had an insane obsessiveness to know everything that was happening in the nation...but this one struck her interest. Titled: New National Staff Position Open, it immediatly offered something new, something challenging, and even better, a way to avoid making a final decision.
She had been planning on going to Morocco for a bit, working with an NGO, maybe learning some French. But as she read on, this new position struck a cord: it was a position to end all positions, and an event to end all events: the AIESEC US 50th Anniversary Alumni Gala. The application was out within the week.
Unfortunately, the receiving party was not as gung-ho. While she partied with close friends and celebrated the impending end to her higher education years, the receiving party had a big decision to make: Go with a professional event planner or employ a new college grad who had only planned a few events before, none of which were close to the scale of that which they needed their 50th Anniversary to live up to. The question was: could this inexperienced girl really pull off a professional event, with hundreds of attendees, on such a tight timeline? Something or someone pushed them to answer that question in the favor of this brown eyed girl, and the organization took a risk, again.
Moving to NYC was exhilirating for the girl. She was extatic just to be a part of the city again, to be able to walk its corridors, breathe its dirty air, and swim through its complex soul. She was thankful, every day, for this experience. It was a love affair of the best kind: with a place.
But, soon enough, as all love affairs go, the honeymoon period ended. Work began to take more and more of her time...her love began to shift, from the city, to her work. And that's when things began to get messy.
She got involved, at one point, too involved. Like an overzealous girlfriend, she pushed too hard and almost lost that love. From this, she learned: she learned that there are more ways to change things than one, that with time and the will to understand and educate, all things are possible...even change.
And so, taking her learnings, she moved forward with even more passion and committment. It came time to create a team, the team that would help her lead the 50th Anniversary...the team that would make it possible. Many great people applied, some more qualified than others. Choosing them was not the hardest part. The hardest part was more internal: it was trusting herself in leading this team--in knowing that she could do it, even if she never had before. For this, she turned to a trusted Saint Patrick's Day fellow reveller. Advice was given (be consistant, celebrate wins, share challenges so they could more easily be solved, be strong, know your team, get people talking).
Trips were made to Chicago and San Francisco, where she made good impressions. Plans were finalized, re-vamped, and finalized once again. She learned the process of getting things approved (and how to get around it). She learned how to work with people. She learned how to sit still for a couple hours, and what good that can do. She learned event planner parlance, alumni parlance, office parlance, and loved when she didn't have to speak in one of them.
The day of reconning came, all in a blur of baggy eyelids, chandilers, coffee, stolen speakers, crabby hotel staff, amazing organizers, last minute agenda changes, beer spilled on freshly printed nametags, engravings, day-of-registrants, 4am trips to kinkos, : all in all, total chaos.
And then it passed.
And the girl moved home and planned a new adventure. And that saga awaits her as she awaits it: eagerly.
Sometimes she wishes she could have done some things differently, gotten started earlier, made more contacts, pushed harder, remember more...
But this experience will pass as all have for her. They will remain alive in the memories of those that attended, that worked with her, that guided her...but the will not remain vivid memories for her. For her, the experience will be remembered as a feeling, a feeling that it's just "all in a years work..." And with that, she knows that she did her best and has no regrets.
posted by Kleinsies at
4:01 AM
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6 Comments
