to be so angry at myself?

[spence24]

Alongside owning a shop, I'm also a freelance event manager for a major annual event in our town. This involves a number of special guests that are big crowd pullers, and then dozens of industry-specific exhibitors and retailers that I have to book in, arrange accommodation and transport for, look after their general welfare when visiting our town, and also relay all information to our promotions team to produce our posters, flyers, website announcements and all other marketing material.

I booked all guests "behind the scenes" months ago, long before we announce them. In May, I found out I was pregnant, and being my first, and keeping it a secret from the rest of the event team (who are all quite close friends), it's occupied a lot of my mind as I quietly work out how to be a self-employed mum and balance all my work too. All the while still having to do mountains of work, and not being able to give reasons why I've forgotten meetings, or it's taken me a little longer than usual to complete tasks (so bloody tired and head-fog almost constantly)

This morning, while doing some social media updates for the event, I glanced across at the stack of promo flyers on my desk and had a horrific realisation that one of our special guests is missing from all materials. Thousands of flyers, hundreds of posters, nothing on our website. He is a really great guy, who's donated a significant amount of work to use to help with fundraising for the event too, and I am mortified

I frantically opened up all my spreadsheets and databases and found that I have booked him a hotel room, arranged his transport and even allocated him a space in the venue so he's on the floor plan. I've sent information over to our Web Guy and he's getting him added onto our guest list within 24 hours, and luckily my OH is our programme designer and he hasn't sent it to print yet, so he is spending this evening (which was supposed to be our first Date Night in months) fixing a mistake that I made.

But it's too late for the flyers and posters. The flyers go out to every home in the town, and all surrounding villages. I've sent them nationwide to other industry-specific businesses and all major places in surrounding towns and cities have posters.

I am sat here close to tears as I've cocked up so massively, and I can't tell my colleagues (friends) that I've been sick and hormonal and it was a genuine human error that I feel so bad about.

The only comfort I have is that we don't have a meeting until Thursday, and me and the OH were going to tell everyone then as we are at 12 weeks this weekend.

I feel like I've failed the whole event. It's my event, I'm the founder of it, but I brought in so many people to help and still kept so much of the work for myself, and now have just proven that I can't handle it all. I don't know what else I can do.

Sorry, this was so long, but I think I just need to anonymously rant and get it out there.

STOP IT!

Is the event sold out?

Would the person mind being a Mystery Guest?

Can you now send out a reminder email with a ta da! announcement that he will be there?

Find a way of making this a highlight... and stop beating yourself up about it.

Can you create a small flyer to go out with the rest?
Sorry if that's completely impractical, I have no idea

" Find a way of making this a highlight"

Yes, this is the sort of thing I was thinking of

Is the person you have left off likely to see any of the promotional material? The place he is most likely to spot anything surely is the website and that can be fixed quite easily presumably?

Get some stickers made up quickly - "Now also staring special guest xxxx" and stick one across every flyer/poster etc.

You can use it for extra publicity - how lucky you've been to get him at short notice etc etc. It will work in your favour if you play your cards right.

Call the chap and explain the problem - I'm sure he'll be sympathetic.

Agree with Nomama turn it into a positive & feature this special guest in future promo pieces. Stop beating yourself up & congratulations!

Thank you guys. He was a special guest at last year's event as well, and actually one of the first we booked as he was so popular. He's quite a quiet guy and I highly doubt he'd kick off about it if/when he finds out.

The issue we have about updating the flyers is that there physically isn't any room to add something extra on a sticker or something without obscuring other information, as it's a jam packed event.

It's a really niche event that was met with doubt by some of the stuffy older members of the community, but it's the second-busiest day of the year for our town, and made them all shut up about it being "too out-there" for us. One mistake and I'm kicking myself that it'll be noticed by people who probably won't even show up to support it anyway.

I've spoken to my best friend who is also on the committee and admitted my blunder, he's agreed that we do as much damage control as we can now, and then just let the flyers ride as they are and we make him a bonus guest, and maybe colour code the guest tables so he doesn't get lost among the others, making it clear that he is a guest, even if it got overlooked on the flyer.

I guess this is a learning curve for me. I need to put my inner control freak to one side, and offload some of the more minor jobs to other team members next year, allowing me to get all the guest booking right from start to finish. I'm just relieved I at least booked him into a hotel, as all local accommodation is now fully booked for that weekend!

Play 'Return of the Mac' as he walks in and forget about it.

It sounds as though you are really overthinking this (hormones?) but yes, do loosen the reins a bit!

Don't think negatively about it..we all make mistakes and always a plus that no one has died!

Ok - the best bit of advice I ever had as a manager, is to find out your strong points and employ someone else who is the opposite. Or partner with them. As soon as I found out I was NOT a completer finisher - the next person I hired was.

For me, I am a plant and resource manager, and I like detail and numbers and my business partner is creative and likes networking. So she creates the flyers/posters etc and I check them. If I create something she adds her unique touches and proof reads it for me and when I get it back I proof it again. So she usually goes to the networking events unless it is run by the funder that seems to have taken a shine to me. Play to your strengths.

You definitely need someone working with you to pull in any oversights. Everyone makes mistakes, don't beat yourself up. I like the idea of a Mystery guest. You can send an email to all the people that had the original info saying 'Just a reminder and to let you know we have booked a mystery guest for the event'.

Never tell anyone from outside that it was an oversight!

Can you put "back by popular demand" on labels across your posters and fliers?

Oh yes! Perfect Peter strikes again

That has to be easiest way round it!

Thank you for all the suggestions - me and my OH have done as much damage control as we can from our desks right now, and I will admit my mistake at our group meeting on Thursday as it's not something I feel comfortable keeping quiet anyway. In fairness, all our materials go out to the group as a proof first for approval and no-one else pointed it out at the time, everyone approved it, and off it went to the printers!

I may be able to fit a little sticker on some of the posters that haven't gone out yet, simply saying "More Guests Added!" and that's it, and refer everyone to the website for more info.

Gaaaaah. I actually can't wait until next week so I can tell everyone our news. I was dreading people pussyfooting around me and treating me like I was an invalid and can't do things because I'm pregnant, but actually, now, if people want to offer to help, they can bloody well do some work. We're a team of 20 people, yet I do triple the hours of everyone else, as many seem to think because I'm self-employed and they are all employed elsewhere, that I have twice as much time to do things, so muggins here get left with all the big jobs, and problem-solving.

Congrats on being pregnant.
Please don't beat yourself up about this mistake - I sympathise, I know that awful sickening feeling when you realise something is totally your fault and it is not nice, but when all is said and done the whole event is not jeopardised and all your other hard work will be evident.

But PLEASE stop banging on about this being to do with your pregnancy etc I don't think that helps anything and actually sounds like you are trying to use it as an excuse which kind of sets gender equality back a million years.

You are human and you made a mistake and you are fixing it. Also you are pregnant. Not connected.

StickyFloor - I do actually agree with you, thank you for that. It's the slap that I need. I'm still me, I'm still human, I messed up, it's being dealt with. I have now realised that I need to listen to my friends when they say I do too much and I should pass work on to others, and I've been stubborn for too long.

Thank you. I really did need that, and it's made me smile.

Ok, you've made a mistake. We've all been there and recognise that sinking feeling when the realisation hits. But, you already know the best thing you can do it face up to it and you have taken steps to putting it right.

I find, as I'm usually pretty good at my job, when I do balls up and admit to it, people are generally very forgiving and wilol usually do all they can to help you sort it. There have been times I have been on the phone to people and said quite blatantly "look, I've messed up here and I need your help - I know it's my mess but if you could help me do xyz I'd really appreciate it".

As you've done this event for a number of years, you must have bulit up PR and media contacts for it? USe them. Local radio, papers etc. They will want your event to be a success as it benefits them - throw yourself at them.

We're all human and people will help you out bgecause we all know that feeling.

The team proof read it so,please don't judge yourself too harshly for the omission - all of you missed it, and would have continued to miss it if it weren't for you noticing. So, looking at it that way around, you're the hero of the situation.

Can you name your baby after him as recompense?!! Seriously-you will look back on this and wonder why it seemed like the end of the world. It will be fine. Enjoy your pregnancy.

I've no advice to offer except (((Hugs))) don't beat yourself up over it hun!!

I had that much of a baby brain while pregnant with my exp that I forgot his birthday, our anniversary and numerous other more important things (the worst one was forgetting to feed the gerbals and then leaving the oven on in our (wooden!!) Home so they died from the heat :'( ) it'll all be fine, and congratulations!!!

Oh I missed that the group had proff read the blurb! In that case, ignore what I've said. YOU haven't ballsed up, the group has. All the same stuff applies though, but even more reason to stop giving yourself a tough time!

Update on the saga - I admitted to our Web Guy about the problem, as I had to send him the Guest Profile to put on the website. He was so casual of it, very much "Could have happened to any of us, we all have a part in it", which made me feel a bit better. OH is updating the programme on his lunch break and early evening, while I run errands to give him some extra time, so that we can still have our Date Night as planned.

I forget in my moments of blind panic that I have such a great support network of colleagues that I get to call friends and family too! I need to remember that more!

Glad it sounds under control - hope you managed to relax and enjoy the date night!

Congratulations on your pregnancy

If you're going to blame your mistake firmly on being pregnant, I don't understand why you don't tell your work colleagues now?

11 weeks or 12, what's the difference really?