The eventful adventures of Mary Croquette: ‘Events are a piece of cake’

Hi there, I’m Mary Croquette

Let me tell you about…

EVENTS ARE A PIECE OF CAKE

They aren’t the same as pop-up events…well kind of, only bigger.

Picture this: at the end of the fiscal year when management ask you for a marketing strategy for the year after and you then ask about the budget. They reply “It’s not set in stone so if there’s anything you need to add or remove, there will be time” So far, so good, like always.

You draw up the calendar and you start the, wait for it… “enthralling” fiscal year when after having prepared all the answers, they change your questions, but it’s no problem whatsoever, you love it because you thrive on challenges and change. In fact, if nothing changes from one fiscal to the next, you’re best not pleased.

Marketing management sets you some guidelines that they don’t understand over at Sales and you spend your whole life trying to get them to do it. You plan the budget, after you finally get it, you go over the events of that quarter and everyone leaves the meeting quiet as mice, yet when the day comes, you’re swamped with event requests.

You try to ride out the storm, finding ways to squeeze some of them into the schedule…until the day comes when you get an email directly from the sponsor agency with an attached invoice. You start to panic and wonder “Did this event just slip by me?”…searching through endless emails only to find nothing. Then you make some inquiries in the company to find out who is responsible…and cue the tennis match, an email here, an email there, and in the end you listen to the person who tells you that “you can’t miss it”. That phrase is a scourge! That phrase should be wiped from the face of the earth. Both at work and in your social life.

You get home on a Friday, mentally and physically drained, and your partner reminds you (or says that he had already told you) that you have a party to attend. You try and drag your heels and get out of it, but in the end, BOOM, you’re slapped with the same phrase: “you can’t miss it because…” It’s the same story at work.

Then you come to the conclusion that it’s easier to make a 12-tier cake than it is to plan events, but that said, I wouldn’t swap places because I love taking on the challenge.

Sometimes it works out, others it doesn’t, but would someone please to tell anyone who doesn’t work in events and marketing that it’s not that simple.

I gotta shoot – I signed up to three courses: one on empathy, another on assertiveness and a third on mindfulness.

Best wishes

Mary Croquette