Waiting for the other shoe....

You know it's going to happen, something will go wrong. We don´t have enough nametags; the plastic part is missing, which, after having spent much of the previous day correcting incorrectly cut nametags, is rather disheartening. Next the copier jams. Again. And again, and again and again and... we are experts at fishing some forlornely crumpled paper from the depths of the machine. Then the toner runs out on the copier. We find another copier. Somewhere in there the database is no longer connected to the network, and five or eight people have to use the one remaining database computer. A mass of Spanish people didn´t receive nametags like they were supposed to, so we had to jury-rig a mock-up version just in time. We order more another toner cartridge, and they say itll be there in an hour—which in Spain could be tomorrow, or next week. The other copier doesnt want to work, or is blocked, or for whatever reason refuses to cooperate. We run out of paper, both of cardstock for nametags (we have since run out of the second set of nametags). One of the laptops dies for good, and someone has completely rearranged my carefully alphetized set of folders. We receive more paper, but the copier still doesn´t work, then it does, then it doesen´t.

Oy vey.

But it´s work, and the list of tasks keeps you going. Much of it is repetitive, some of it is interesting, and all of it is necessary. And tomorrow, we have to be ready for the 1,400 people who will descend in full force on the venue....