Too soon to post again?

[sail_aweigh]

LOL! As if.

Anyway. How about a work update? I haven't mentioned much of what I do, which has turned out to be a different proportion of things than what I expected. It's more of an event coordinator/party planner/troubleshooter than I expected. To enumerate a few of the things I've had to do:

• Set up lunch catering for a twelve day lunchtime lecture series, including ordering the food and then setting up/taking down, submitting the correct documentation for reimbursement, etc. That particular series started Aug. 3 and ended Aug. 18. These dates are important for reasons.

• Coordinate aallll the things for a week long programming workshop with 25 attendees from all over the world (Italy! Thailnad!) Dates of event: Aug. 17 to 21. Seeing the glitch here? Two days of overlap with the other event. ::headdesk:: But now, add in what was required for the workshop:

1. Contract hotel and negotiate pricing when the state changed the minimum they'd reimburse per night (from $70 to $83.) The hotel wanted to increase our charges despite the contract signed months before the change. Wankers. I made them stick to the contract. It's a fucking contract!
2. Facilitate arrangements for attendees with special needs (crib for one who was going to bring her nanny and baby)
3. Monitor registrations and help untangle travel arrangements/billing difficulties (Italy! Thailand!)
4. Catering contracts for four evening meals off-site (three restaurants out in town, one on campus at one of the conference facilities)
5. Arrange transport to and from dinners
6. Shepard attendees to and from, smoothing out catering glitches and generally keeping everyone happy.
7. Catering for four lunches on-site
8. Catering for five morning breaks and four afternoon breaks (course ended at noon on Friday
9. Order workshop manuals from campus print services (making sure instructors had the completed manual ready early enough to have time to proof it)
10. Special order flash drives in the shape of Bucky Badger (campus mascot)
11. Pulling my hair out keeping track of all this shit. OneNotes is my friend.
12. Miscellaneous shit that I can't even remember now.

• Current major project is arranging an evening reception for an artwork exhibit in the reception area of the newest addition to the facility (an entire new tower was completed last year.) Which has necessitated:

1. Ordering the artwork through a company in California that offers fancy printing services (on aluminum, called metalprints)
2. And since it was an art competition within the radiology department, award ribbons had to be ordered
3. Labels for the artwork so everyone knows what they are (brains! aneurysms! lungs! drug carrying nanoparticles!)
4. Reserve the large conference room for mini-lectures by the winners to describe their artwork
5. Confirm availability of dignitaries (department heads, who are also faculty and sometimes doctors on clinical rotation--harder to rope than a greased sidewinder)
6. Send out RSVP link to both entire fricking departments involved (Medical Physics and Radiology) to get a final attendance count, so that I can...
7. Order catering for how every many people are actually going to show up

The only thing I don't have to do for this project is arrange the alcohol license, the staff member I support gets to do that. Also extremely fortunate is that the open house that was supposed to coincide with this has been postponed until forever, maybe. It's been rescheduled four? five? times. Hence, smaller art reception, because who wants to get an award a year after you won a contest! And to think, it was actually my own damn idea to have the smaller artwork reception, since it didn't look like the open house was every happening and my supportee fucking took me up on it. Ah, well, that's what happens when you're innovative and a problem solver-people take you up on it.

• Then, to top it all off, just this past Monday, the department head unloads an event he wants to hold on Friday (yesterday Friday, not next week Friday.) Eep!

1. Again, arrange for conference room, one that allows live streaming to the room they had originally intended to use. However, department head decided to change locale because guest lecturer had donated the money that paid for the stairway from first floor atrium to the rooftop patio outside the reception area of the new tower. New conference room opens out onto said patio. Therefore, reception on patio! Only it was so fricking cold, everyone had to stay inside. But, I digress; moving on.
2. Send out RSVP link with deadline of Thursday to order food for Friday
3. Order said food one hour before catering office closes
4. Spend an hour and a half pulling tables out of the conference room that holds 30, to set it up with auditorium seating for 65 (we couldn't find enough chairs, it ended up being 63. Fortunately, we arranged for additional streaming to a smaller conference room just off the reception area.)
5. Adding to the chaos, not being able to eat on the patio meant everyone standing around in the hallway. Therefore, pulling half the tables that had previously been removed from where they'd been stored and putting them back in the room, set up banquet style. About 10 people availed themselves of the set-up, which could have held about 40 people
6. Then, of course, tearing down food display and setting conference room back to its original configuration. Again, fortunately, I have some awesome co-workers, who chipped in on both the set-up and tear-down. (Thank you, Meredith, Jenne', and Lorene.) Kind of slowed by the broken toe, still, so help was greatly appreciated

Let's not even mention all the other, more administrative, tasks required of me. Thank heavens I'm good with Word, Excel, Illustrator, Visio, Acrobat, Photoshop, etc., etc., etc. Now, all I have to do is learn how to use a dictation machine.

I love my job, my job is fun. For the most part. I really like the challenge of it all and it keeps me very busy, as you can well see. Only it also keeps me away from some of my online social hangouts I was used to skimming during the work day. And it's just so hard to keep up with it all, anymore. I've abandoned my tumblr and I used to have so much fun at it. Pinterest is lagging. I hardly check Facebook except 2-3 times a week. It makes me sad. At least I'm still reading fanfic! In bed, before lights out. It's the only time I have for it.

Okay, enough whinging. I have made plans to go out for my birthday with friends this coming Tuesday, so it's not like all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl! :D

And that's all she wrote&mdahs;for now.