Relationship

People often ask me, "What exactly do you do at your job?" Technically I'm the Event Services Manager at the MGM Grand Garden Arena but what I really tell people is, "I handle things." Today was a good snapshot of a non-event day in the life. It started off with with meeting, after conference call, after conference call, after meeting. Some things got done, some things I managed to steer in another direction, some things were a complete waste of time. 

One of the things I spend time doing with my job is managing people's expectations, whether it's a guest's, a tour manager's, a boxing promoter's or an employee's. A great example is what happened today. One of the sponsors wants to do a red carpet for the fight. Some of the execs on our property were fully on board too. Sure, sounds good but when you dive into the minutia of it it's actually not a great idea. Fights are different animals than say, award shows, club openings, charity events, etc. So I spent the day managing what people wanted to do with the reality of what will actually happen and what the cost of that might be, both in dollars and in possible embarrassment - and trying to delicately (and not so delicately with people close to me) explain why. An idea can be great but if it's not executed at the right time in the correct scenario it's just a wasted opportunity - like drinking a great Châteauneuf-du-Pape after you're already drunk. Wasted opportunity. 

I also spend a lot of time regurgitating information. I'm not sure if it's actually part of my job or if it's just something I'm good at. I'm always funneling information I get back thru other channels kind of like one of those old fashioned change sorters. Dump it all in and the machine spits coins into the right categories. I guess it makes sense I'm good at that. I'm pretty fastidious. 

One of the most important aspects of my job is creating and maintaining relationships.  It is one of the things I like best about my job and probably the thing I'm best at. (Clearly it's not writing in grammatically correct sentences because I keep ending them with prepositions.) If you have a good Relationship with someone you can overcome anything. I can't tell you how many times my personal relationships with people have helped me solve problems. You're more apt to help a friend with whom you have a relationship than just some schmo and vice versa. And it makes the job more fun too. I'm not a boxing fan at all but some of the people who work in the industry are longtime friends so the events are like reunions. Same holds true for the ACMs, concerts, convention clients, you name it. It's all about relationships.