Who needs to go to the gym, anyway? While some planners may keep in shape between events with spinning classes and aerobics, others find the job itself to be a great workout. Jo Angela Maniaci, CMP, who heads up Special Events Planning LLC, an event-planning company based in St. Paul, Minn., posted her take on exercising, meeting-planner-style, to the Meetings Community listserv (www.meetingscommunity.org), also known as MeCo. She kindly agreed to let us also share it here.
THE WARM-UP, TO BE UNDERTAKEN DURING THE PLANNING STAGE:
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Bend over backwards to meet a client's unrealistic demands.
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Do deep knee bends each time I get on my knees to pray for a miracle to meet said unrealistic demands.
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Stretch myself thin to condense 30 hours of work into the 12 hours I have been given to solve problems created by changes in directions.
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Perform mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to clone myself to accomplish No. 3.
THE WORKOUT, TO BE DONE WHILE ON SITE:
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Weight training, a natural outcome from lifting and schlepping the many boxes of stuff needed. An added benefit: great core strengthening.
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Circuit training, which includes mandatory brisk walking, as I check on each session room to make sure things are proceeding as planned.
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Deep breathing, required each time I find myself being asked to answer yet one more ridiculous question.
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Resistance training, the result of stopping myself from the urge to throttle the person who just asked said ridiculous question.
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Deep knee bends again, which are required to put myself at the correct height to kiss the posterior of an obstreperous speaker/VIP.
Do you have an irreverent, controversial, or just plain different take on some aspect of meeting planning that you'd like to share? Let Editor Sue Pelletier know by dropping her a line at spelletier@meetingsnet.com.
