A great big cup of gross incompetence

The title basically describes how I started my morning. A morning leading in to a day which saw me in the office of the vice-president of operations, in Banff under the scornful glares of a group of delegates from my company, and in the office of my manager who was threatened with dire consequences if he ever let anything of this magnitude happen again.

The setting:
The largest conference on remediation in Alberta (my company listed as a major sponsor of the event).
A booth space at the conference, paid for months ago with a cheque equivalent to a large portion of my yearly income.

I am in charge of organizing our delegation and the materials for every tradeshow that my company attends. This was the case here as well. What was different is that I somehow forgot to organize a volunteer to transport and setup our tradeshow booth at the conference.

An angry call from the VP yesterday to my boss (I was in class, so they didn't call me) saw two of my coworkers in a panicked drive up to Banff with the booth, arriving just in time to set it up on day two of the three day conference, after our spot (proudly labelled with the handy reservation tag) sat empty for 36 hours between the booths of many of our largest competitors.

Today was a blur from when I first arrived (glare from my boss boring a hole in to my skull) to when I left (glares from delegates arriving back from the conference). Sat through a meeting with the VP, fighting the urge to break down in tears or throw myself through the plate-glass window behind him. Spoke with my boss after his meeting with the VP, a meeting which basically gave him the promise of dire consequences should anything like this happen again...

I hate that I screwed up. But more than that, I hate that my boss was pilloried for this. He asked me to handle this, he is too busy, he shouldn't have to check in on me every 5 minutes just to be sure that I'm doing stuff right. I screwed up and I got a "do better next time" while he got blamed for it. That's not right, and it bothers me immensly. I said so, to both of them, but I guess this is how hierarchy works. It feels horrible though. Not only did I shame myself, but I shamed my boss and my entire department...

Tommorow's gotta be better.

(Note: Today wasn't all bad. Got a good email back from my beloved Sindy. I miss her, so it is very nice to get a dose of Sindy reality once in a while, even if only by email. I'm a pretty "set-in-my ways" kinda guy, not easily forced out of a rut. Sindy is one of the only people in my life who really managed to push me beyond myself, I am very thankful for it. I've got a long way to go, especially in the area of interacting comfortably with people, but I definitely give her credit for getting that process started within me.)