Wednesday morning, I met people from the show to check the banners and signs before they were hung.
The banners were the wrong color. The color for this show can tilt toward gray or toward blue. All the structures made by the local vendor tilted blue, the banners tilted gray. Not a happy color for a large area with only those color banners.
Long story short, at 4 pm the VP who hired me called me over, "Three things, first, call your husband and apologize. Second, you're on a plane tonight to Detroit, third, go outside and get a taxi home." He offered me $40 for the cab. I shook my head, "They'll take a credit card." (From my house to work, 8 miles, it's $25-28, $40 isn't going to get me out of the city limits!! I walked down and grabbed the express train for $6 instead.
So, yeah, Detroit. Red-eye, three-hour nap on the plane. Toothbrush and paste at the airport, hat (very chic hat) and a change of clothes later, I'm at the mother ship. Our company's headquarters. Everyone was very nice. It's the midwest, people are required to be nice. They were also very white. And everyone had some connection to cars. The drivers chatted with me both ways (I just want to sleep! You're very nice. Shut up!), one had been a test driver, the other went to car shows for some reason. His son sold a $750,000 racing car to some oil-rich prince.
I delivered the color sample from the San Fran vendor, we spent two hours getting it matched perfectly. Then I worked on show stuff, sleeping between each key stroke, until lunch. Grabbed sandwiches with a bunch of the guys from the design department (they're all guys), got a tour of the HUGE facility, worked on more show stuff. Got to the airport in time for the flight to be delayed. Slept on the floor until some guy got on his cell phone next to me with a hard-of-hearing/stupid relation. "That's the day Sadie leaves, Sadie won't be there, Sadie will be out of town". I was ready to kill Sadie and solve every one's problems!!
I'm back at work waiting for a final approval before heading home. Tomorrow and Sunday are walk-throughs with the client and hopefully no more changes. Given the rate of chaos for this show thus far, doubtful at best.
But, hey, I've got major street cred now in the company. People came up to me all day, "You went to Detroit!! Really! Wow."
6 comments:
Argh! This project sounds soooooo stressful. I'm sure you will be glad to see the end of it. Hope nothing else goes wrong.
Surreal. What a crazy experience. Do you get to take a day or two off after the show?
Well, I thought Monday would be a day off, but it turns out I have to art direct the photographer that day. I'm taking this morning as a lazy day in San Frans newest hotel. However, just got a call about a little design work to do...no problem.
The good news? No changes based on the walk-through!!! Major triumph.
Congrats on the great walk-through!
You must be sooooo looking forward to the end of this project.
well here is to the final stretch i hope you are able to take a moment to enjoy it.
it all sounds so needlessly harrowing. i hope you have something nice to look forward to after all this!
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