I am not an event promoter. Let me say this again, I am not an event promoter. I have been saying for over a year that if I am involved in this con I cannot be one of the people promoting it. I have been saying this because I have a pretty good grasp of my frustration levels and the things that will make me angry and I will no longer be helpful. However, due to massive flaking on the parts of several people I am now doing event promotion during the last six weeks of the con. I’m doing it while trying to prepare for my last two weeks of teaching professionally. I’m doing it while trying to pack my house so it can be “staged”. I’m doing it while trying to move. I’m doing it while trying to figure out where in the fuck in Pittsburgh will I not drown in the mid-western white mentality. (I love that people on message boards try to explain how culturally diverse their childhoods were by saying, “Well, my parents were upset when Martin Luther King Jr. died…”) I’m doing it while going through a fairly difficult pregnancy.
I’m having to suck it up and deal with people and things I don’t want to deal with right now. I’m tired of being complained at. I’m tired of having to “be nice” when I would really like to punch some people in the face. I was willing to handle arranging the classes and dealing with presenters. I have done that. I actually kind of enjoyed that. It was really neat to get such a broad array of presenters and classes when I was told it couldn’t be done. Go freakin me. But that is all I signed on to do for many and myriad reasons. Now it doesn’t matter what I signed on to do. Either I help do stuff that is way beyond the scope of what I agreed to do or it gets dumped on someone who is turning around and freaking out at me 20 times a day and making my stress level go through the roof. I think when this is over I’m going to avoid talking to him for a year or so. Of course, this will make me one more evil person who has abandoned him. Right now, I don’t care. The pressure he is putting on me is making me crazy. And now we have another pushy person on board who might actually get some work done, but I have to put up with public admonishments to be nice in order to get that help. I really want to say fuck everyone and just walk away.
GRIN
I would offer to help you with that con in any way I possibly could, but …. well, you know … I’m so far from being a TNG, I can’t really do much.
I *can* post an announcement about the con in our EK Yahoo group and tribe with a personal endorsement to our members, but that’s about it. But if you think that would be helpful, I’ll certainly do it.
Oh, and I can offer you hugs and supportive energy, and the empathy of someone who has maxed herself out on organizing events for the past several years. Not that that helps you, anyway, but hey … I do feel your pain.
Passing along word is helping. Thank you.
Sure — it is the least I can do.
I don’t suppose you guys have flyers for the con made up? Because one of the ways we’ve found effective for getting other people involved in promotion (even when they say they don’t have a lot of time to help) is to give them a stack of flyers to take along with them to things like smOdyssey’s X Group meeting next Thursday, or the next Bent party on Feb 1st — and, of course, to BaGG any Wednesday night. You may have already thought of doing this, but I was just trying to remember other things we’ve used successfully, and figured I’d mention it.
I have this terrible habit of reading responses in email and thinking, “Oh, I should respond to that…” and then not doing it. oops.
Jon has fliers, but I don’t have any. I believe that they have been handed out at some events but I have no idea which ones.
Aside from cheerleading on your behalf….
….I got nuttin’. Promoting events is tough. I have a few friends who are eligible to attend this event and I will post it to my blogs, to try to help spread the word.
It is a fuckawful lot to have to deal with. But hey, this is a pretty good dress-rehearsal for the rest of your life, no? 😛
Love
Mo
Re: Aside from cheerleading on your behalf….
Thanks for the repost.