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In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Swiss-born psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross outlined the five stages of death and dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Today I started giggling uncontrollably and realized I was entering into one of the five stages of event planning.
So with the risk of being morbid, I suggest we go through the five stages for every event: acceptance, bargaining, denial, uncontrollable giggling and success.
Acceptance: We are sometimes informed that we will be planning an event years in advance, but oftentimes we get less lead time. And so we have no other choice but to sharpen our pencils, estimate a budget, create a time line and declare, "YES," we can do this!
Bargaining: Budgets need to be cut, time lines condensed, quality increased. I counter that you can have two of the following: high quality, low cost or a shorter lead time.
Denial: We are informed, just after we sign an iron clad space contract, that we must move the date up a week, cut the budget in half, hire the flying Elvi (the ones with hang gliders, not the ones with parashoots) to fly around the ballroom during the opening general session, and then find something much more dramatic for the closing session. "NO, NO, NO, IT’S JUST NOT POSSIBLE TO DO ALL OF THAT IN THE TIME ALLOTED," WE COUNTER.
Uncontrollable Giggling: We all have experienced it. It's that time when we renegotiated the contract, convinced the Elvi to fly for half-price and found a troop of tap-dancing white tigers to perform at the closing session. We are well on our way to pulling it all off, but we don’t quite yet see the light at the end of the tunnel. But then, something just hits us as funny and the uncontrollable giggling starts. By the next morning, we realize it’s all down easy riding from there.
Success we find on site as our training and experience kicks in, and problems are resolved quickly. And as our planning pays off, the attendees look at us and say, "Your job looks so much fun, and, you get to travel!"
That’s what we do. We make our job look easy and we never let them see us sweat.
Have you had similar experiences? Tell me your stories, I'd like to know. Email me at: Dudek323@aol.com.
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