![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Gimme Danger
Aug. 14th, 2013 06:53 amAs I posted over on FB, ain't no crazy like last-minute convention crazy. Let's start on Monday, about 48 hours before I'm scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis for GenCon.
I started the day off emotionally compromised anyway. Get to work, I'm already in convention/vacation space, have just about completely checked out from the shoulders up. Late morning, one of my volunteers texts me to let me know that he can't make it to GenCon. I immediately check in with my bosses, and we make an emergency plan that arranges for said volunteer to be able to make it, but blackballs him from any future work with us. I pass the first part of this along to said volunteer, he's grateful, and we're ready to move on. So far, so handled. I call around the rest of the team (minus our volunteer coming in from the UK, because), get hotel counts and confirmations (from most, and you can bet that'll be important later), and things look okay. Workday ends, I go play Infiltration, exchange some texts, and sleep like an innocent.
Tuesday, and the e-mails hit. Volunteer CH doesn't like e-mail. Rarely uses it. I wasn't too thrilled with this cat for a couple of reasons - he was added over my objections by one of the company owners, and since we do 95+% of our team communications through e-mail, he rarely checked in. CH had bought his plane tickets to the con with a rarely-used credit card. Round-trip airfare bought on a card that sees very little use? Yep, that'll trigger a fraud alert. And how is the card account set up to send out this alert? You got it - e-mail. THIS HAPPENED IN JUNE. CH didn't find out about until Monday night. After I'd called him. Grr. Then EO e-mails me. Now this mofo I was getting tired of anyway, because he'd started asking if his girlfriend could stay with us, and can we things for her to do at the con because she's not much into gaming and what-the-hell-ever-man. And he can't make it because of "unexpected expenses." I call bullshit, because that's the kind of guy I am.
My bosses are in transit from the West Coast. We communicate as we can, and start to figure out contingencies. The last thing we want to do is cancel events, but all of a sudden we have five games that don't have GMs and two exhibitor spots to fill up and it's less than 24 hours until we start assembling in Indy and the con for-real starts at 10AM Thursday. And this is where stuff starts getting good, and I mean good. I remove the offenders from our e-mail list and send out a call for help. Let the others know what's up, what spots are available, and why. About 75 minutes later, after texts and phone calls and e-mails, the spots are filled. We are set. We are ready to go. And who was the first person to step up? The dude in the second paragraph. You can bet he's now off the blacklist. Karma and shit.
Now, in the course of writing this entry (while I was also ripping and re-encoding Layer Cake and putting it on the iPad) ST texts me. He's overslept and his son has missed his flight to Oregon or Washington or wherever, so our hastily-modified plans to meet him in Louisville have been disrupted. We'll deal. If three dudes can get to Indy in a Civic coupe, three dudes can get to Indy in a Focus wagon. And we're going to. Because it's time for Nerd Prom.
I started the day off emotionally compromised anyway. Get to work, I'm already in convention/vacation space, have just about completely checked out from the shoulders up. Late morning, one of my volunteers texts me to let me know that he can't make it to GenCon. I immediately check in with my bosses, and we make an emergency plan that arranges for said volunteer to be able to make it, but blackballs him from any future work with us. I pass the first part of this along to said volunteer, he's grateful, and we're ready to move on. So far, so handled. I call around the rest of the team (minus our volunteer coming in from the UK, because), get hotel counts and confirmations (from most, and you can bet that'll be important later), and things look okay. Workday ends, I go play Infiltration, exchange some texts, and sleep like an innocent.
Tuesday, and the e-mails hit. Volunteer CH doesn't like e-mail. Rarely uses it. I wasn't too thrilled with this cat for a couple of reasons - he was added over my objections by one of the company owners, and since we do 95+% of our team communications through e-mail, he rarely checked in. CH had bought his plane tickets to the con with a rarely-used credit card. Round-trip airfare bought on a card that sees very little use? Yep, that'll trigger a fraud alert. And how is the card account set up to send out this alert? You got it - e-mail. THIS HAPPENED IN JUNE. CH didn't find out about until Monday night. After I'd called him. Grr. Then EO e-mails me. Now this mofo I was getting tired of anyway, because he'd started asking if his girlfriend could stay with us, and can we things for her to do at the con because she's not much into gaming and what-the-hell-ever-man. And he can't make it because of "unexpected expenses." I call bullshit, because that's the kind of guy I am.
My bosses are in transit from the West Coast. We communicate as we can, and start to figure out contingencies. The last thing we want to do is cancel events, but all of a sudden we have five games that don't have GMs and two exhibitor spots to fill up and it's less than 24 hours until we start assembling in Indy and the con for-real starts at 10AM Thursday. And this is where stuff starts getting good, and I mean good. I remove the offenders from our e-mail list and send out a call for help. Let the others know what's up, what spots are available, and why. About 75 minutes later, after texts and phone calls and e-mails, the spots are filled. We are set. We are ready to go. And who was the first person to step up? The dude in the second paragraph. You can bet he's now off the blacklist. Karma and shit.
Now, in the course of writing this entry (while I was also ripping and re-encoding Layer Cake and putting it on the iPad) ST texts me. He's overslept and his son has missed his flight to Oregon or Washington or wherever, so our hastily-modified plans to meet him in Louisville have been disrupted. We'll deal. If three dudes can get to Indy in a Civic coupe, three dudes can get to Indy in a Focus wagon. And we're going to. Because it's time for Nerd Prom.
