Note: Wrote this sometime last week. Never got around to publishing it as I did not get time to edit.
As I write this, I am sitting at a site where a team I have hired is putting up a LED wall and other AV equipment for an event that I am producing, directing and managing. The work has come to a standstill as the other team that the client has hired has, sort of, fucked up!
The venue is about 30 KMs from Jaipur, on the Ajmer Road and I have been working on this event for some 20 days. Lately things have been so hectic that I haven’t spoken to my folks in a week. And it is the week of Rakshabandhan, a day when my extended family gets together at my place. Once a year. And thus I make it a point to be at home on Rakhi (apart from Diwali, the other time in the year when I ensure that I am home). Of course for someone like me, these festivals are essentially symbolisms of archaic life that we Indians lead but its nice to keep some traditions.
Coming back, I haven’t opened my workflowy in a while. I haven’t written. I haven’t checked email. I haven’t had time to get a haircut (whatever hair is left on my head). In one line, I don’t even know what is happening in my own life. On the work front, I haven’t cracked a single new client. The last client I had hopes of making money from has sort of disappeared. It wasn’t going anywhere and I just did not have the energy to chase it. There are no new clients in the pipeline. Heck, I don’t even know what a pipeline looks like. See how easy I digress into a rant? Especially when I want to hurt myself?
So, like I said, I am at a setup and work has stalled for a stupid reason. I am not really liking this feeling of time ticking away and me blogging while work has come to a stand still. I have a deadline to meet and there are people on my clock. And they better work. Shit is stalled because of the incompetence and oversight of the other set of people working on this. The sad bit, I cant control what they are doing – after all I am not paying them. The client is.
I can try and complain and get them to move their ass faster. But the industry I work in, things often get stalled and the pushing around will not help you. As they say, the baby will take 9 months to come out. So, I wait. And I will have to get my team to work harder to cover up for incompetence of the other team.
The silver lining is that I can learn a few lessons from this snafu. After all its not often that you get to learn from expensive mistakes of others. Here it goes.
First and foremost, the biggest lesson so far is that indecision can fuck things more than doing em wrong. Doing things leads to outcomes – desired or undesired, good or bad, loss making or profitable. But they are outcomes. They move things forward. They are visible. Indecision leads to nothing. It just makes you sit on your ass, making your bottom rounder. And we were definitely not gifted this life to make our bottoms rounder. I can rant all I want on this but the sense of urgency captures this like nothing else.
Second, I need to build in redundancy in the systems. I still operate like a one-man army and while I love the action, the adrenaline, it is a deterrent to growth. Of course I hate corporate behemoths where process manuals are longer than the Holy Bible but I can see that they are there for a reason. Just need to find the right balance. More on this on the work blog.
Third, while I was sitting around, it dawned onto me that my parents are now old and they need me. All my life I have opined that I need to live away from my folks. Not any more. I can see the frail bodies and parched souls. I need to be around them. I am sure I cant be in Delhi. And I am not sure if I want to uproot them and make them move to Mumbai. It will be the mother of all selfish things. So its going to be a tough tricky decision. And I am not even sure if I want to be Mumbai for long. After all I am in love with my nomadic life. I love it that I can pack a suitcase and move at the drop of the hat. So, I don’t know. But I will speak to them, speak to SG and then decide on this. Fast. And act before end of September.
That’s it for the time being. Oh, one more thing. I need to get back to writing. There is no other thing that gives me joy like writing. May be being on the road? I think its the ultimate pursuit – to create something. Even if its as small, simple, silly as a blogpost that no one may even read.
And, coming back to the setup, I will ensure that it gets done. And in time and cost and quality that we have promised to the client. They’ve trusted me to deliver a fantastic experience to their guests. After all thats what I we do at C4E.
Note: Like I said, I am writing this almost a week after the event and it went like clockwork. There were a few things that I could’ve done better. I will ensure that we address them as we put up the next set of events. In case you want to see how the setup, the event looked like, drop me an email (sg@c4e.in) or head over to the blog.