Undoing acts of God

If you think planning a business trip is stressful, try organizing one for thousands of people. At once.

Meeting planners like me do it every day. But when you’ve pulled it off so many times that it looks easy, then people start asking for more.

They want you to do the impossible. They start to call you “God.”

I am not. But lately, I’ve specialized in undoing acts of God — or at least smoothing them over. For example, last year, I was in the final stages of putting together a meeting for 500 employees of a pharmaceutical company at the Marriott on Hilton Head in South Carolina.

The decorators were there. The ballroom was being set up. And then the phone rang. It was the president of the company.

“I don’t think we’re coming,” he said.

It was just one month after Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans, and Hurricane Ophelia was bearing down on the Carolinas. With only hours before the meeting was to start, my client wanted to play it safe and get out of the storm’s projected path.

“Are you kidding me?” I cried.

“I know you can do this,” he replied confidently. “Please find another place for us to meet.”

I felt like I was going to throw up. But for the better part of the next day, my staff and I worked the phones, talking with everyone from general managers to housekeepers at any resort west of the Mississippi. It felt like a Jerry Lewis telethon.

And then, a miracle. The Hyatt Regency Reunion Center in Dallas said it would take us, and within hours, we were on our way to Texas.

My seemingly supernatural abilities aren’t limited to meeting venues. Just before the final night of a sales meeting I had planned in Orlando, we hit a snag. The closing musical act, the Counting Crows, was supposed to perform for an audience of 1,500 sales representatives at the House of Blues at Downtown Disney. Then my cellphone rang.

“Andrea, you’re not going to believe this.”

It was the manager of the Counting Crows.

“Adam Duritz, our lead singer, is sick. We may not be able to play tomorrow night for your group.”

“Shut up!” I said, incredulously.

Again, I started making calls. It turned out that Barenaked Ladies were available, and I persuaded them to fly down to Florida from Toronto.

But my powers as an event planner are limited. At the closing session of one national sales meeting, the president had organized a stunt to motivate his employees. As an accomplished archer, he planned to pull his top-producing sales representative on stage, ask her to balance an apple on her head, and then shoot an arrow through the fruit from about 50 feet away.

But as he pulled the bow back, the power in the building went out. The ballroom was completely black.

Everyone turned to me.

“Andrea,” they said. “Do something.”

Moving a meeting I can do. I can even find a new band. But I have no control over the power.

The lights came on about 10 minutes later. The president took his shot.

He hit the apple.

Andrea Strauss is a meeting planner.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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