by Sabina Popârlan, Project Manager M.I.C.E. Division

The clock is ringing. It’s Thursday and it’s 5:45. I’m not a morning person at all, except that today is going to be a long day; tonight we are going to the event. While the kettle sizzles on the stove, still half asleep, I think about today’s to-do.

Mostly, it’s about the upcoming event, but I also slip in tasks for upcoming projects and clients who can’t wait for me to come back next week.
The whole day goes according to plan, with e-mails and phone calls, once again going through the whole event. One more time, that is, about three times, because if I have a flaw, it is OCD and the fact that I learned from the “event planner” that if you end up being stressed on the day of the event, it means that you didn’t do something good.

00:00: all materials, luggage and the project team are “loaded” into the cars. A good few hours of travel await us, but we are used to spending most of our lives in cars. We play loud music and dance, laugh, sleep or tell some details about the event. We always find occupations.

The day before the event is never friendly and keeps you busy from morning to night. He asks you the most questions and, sometimes, makes you doubt because many ideas still come to you and it is not an easy exercise to convince yourself that the decisions you have made so far are the best, of course, leaving room for small improvements.
Every detail that appears crosses your mind to leave it for the next morning, after which you realize that it is better to save that time for the unforeseen. Because there is no event that does not involve the unforeseen. No matter how much you plan and go through checklists, there will always be at least one element that you didn’t take into account or a change, so you need to be constantly on the alert.
Why so much attention to details? Doesn’t “and so” work? No. Your clients expect, as is normal, that you are more than an executor. You are a consultant, you are the specialist who offers the best solutions and ideas throughout the project. How comfortable would you feel just to implement, without having to make decisions and always look for other and other options, until you reach the best one? Where else would your footprint be?!

The day of the event passes without a moment of crisis, and as you get closer to the end, the smile spreads across your face. In the end, that’s what it’s all about. The joy of the participants, the satisfaction of the client and a happy implementation team are some of the things that cancel any sleepless nights, stress and moments of panic. All together because the event is not just about the Project Manager. You need a team with you that will go in the same direction, that will share the attention to details, because when it is necessary, they will show you details that, perhaps, have escaped you from the overall picture. You need to be with people who can offer you another perspective.
Events have this gift: when they go well, they wipe everything that came before with a sponge and leave you to keep only what you can do better next time.

Sunday, 12:00, we resume our seats in the car bound for Bucharest. And while you sleep you think about everything that follows and the projects you have at work. A successful event does not guarantee you that the others will be the same, so you start from the beginning and do dozens of to-dos, go through the checklist countless times and stay alert. Any moment of laxity can be fatal. And the goal is to deliver what you promise: custom, original events, with exceptional customer service and flawless implementation.

And if the title misleads you, yes, sometimes a day in the life of a PM starts on Thursday and ends on Sunday. Sometimes it starts in September and ends in January.