I have succumbed to a meme posting.  Please do not judge me…

The rules are as follows:

1. Go to your documents

2. Go to your 6th picture file folder

3. Go to your 6th picture 

4. Blog about it

Seems easy enough.  

Alas, this is what I discovered- Tony Bennett and guests.  The 6th folder in my photos file holds photos from my previous life- fundraiser and paparazzi on occasion.  This particular photo was taken after one of the worst sponsorship snafus of my career.  

I was handed the sponsor stewardship after my colleague unceremoniously departed from the organization mere weeks before the sponsored concert. What then occurred is something that one hopes never to deal with in their career.

Snafu Number 1.  The sponsor’s concert tickets were supposedly on hold months in advance but when I went to retrieve them from the box office they had been mysteriously sold.  I then scrambled to find 20 seats in the hall (a difficult feat as the entire concert was sold out).  My efforts were for naught as the sponsor was still upset that the seats were sporadically spread across the Loge level.  

Snafu Number 2. I then went about planning the sponsor’s intermission reception only to learn the morning of the concert that Tony Bennett does not take an intermission.  This resulted in me scrambling around and switching the intermission reception to a post-concert reception and frantically calling all of the donors in attendance at the concert and begging them to stay after the concert for cocktails and dessert.  

Ah, if only this were the end of the story…

Snafu Number 3, 4, and beyond. I proceeded to cater to the sponsor and their guests from the moment they walked in the concert hall doors until the bitter end.  I listened to them complain about the size of their logo on pre-concert advertising, I endured their wrath about the fact that there wasn’t a Playbill with their logo displayed prominently, and nodded with regret that not all of their guests could attend the post-concert meet and greet with Tony Bennett.  

I might add, that the sponsor had every right to be frustrated and angry about the confluence of events that turned their sponsorship into a circus.  Albeit that the snafus were out of my initial control however it was still my job to fix them and take the brunt of the anger directed at the organization for such a poorly executed sponsorship.   

It’s difficult to feel the animosity seeping through the camera lens in this photo.  However, at 11:30 at night all I really wanted to do was to capture their souls and imprison them in my digital camera to avoid any further confrontation. 

Ahhh, memories.  Don’t you just love memes?  This little reminder of my past life makes me extraordinarily happy that a) I’m currently unemployed and b) that my future job does not require me to handhold donors.