Prison Breakout! Day Prelude

Well, it is that kind of day when I’m on the road, so I could have time to blog on the go.
Tomorrow is Prison Breakout! Day, or as the layman calls it: Family Day

The prep for the event had been meetings after meetings, with me having to prepare the minutes or chase people for deadlines cos I am the Secretary. This explains the lack of mention of my job for this departmental committee work.

Of cos, we had more than meetings. We made 3 site recces, which explains the long road journeys between east and west. The first was to listen to Sg Discovery Centre pitch. The 2nd was to meet up with our event management vendor to trash things out on the spot. The last was the N-1 day meet up to brief every single member of the sub-comm and let them familiarize themselves with the place.

The 2nd trip was the most interesting, cos we had a major car pool. So it felt more like an excursion than a work trip, what with all the excited chatter…!!

Well, considering how we had engaged an event management company, the legwork to be done was atrocious. I mean, the Secretary of cos had work to do after each meeting, but from the correspondences that I saw and heard about, the others were putting in bloody lot of effort trying to make sure we cover every part of the event.

The event’s name also had its own story. It went that mega boss wanted a new, interesting name for the event. Each member had to make 3 contributions, of which 5 would be selected for all the staff to vote for. At that point of time, I was juggling a lot of work, so I only sat down to do the task on the day of submission. I thought that conventional wisdom was

a. Bosses won’t accept out-of-the-world names

b. Bosses would still choose a conventional name despite popular vote.

Therefore, I simply submitted 2 plain names like Bonding Day and Partners Day, throwing in Prisons Breakout! Day to make up for the number (also as a tongue-in-cheek gesture).

Fate has it that my submission became the popular vote and mega boss actually OK-ed it. So we were actually stuck with this commercial, college-y name ;p

Worse still, people like my ex-boss would come and ask me why we chose such a cheesy name for the event (I think they guessed the name could only come out from someone as cheesy as me). I came to realize that a ‘popular vote’ of >60% is a must, not just being the choice with the highest number of votes. Cos every vote that was not for the popular vote is against it, be it that they were for other choices.

Our event is quite unlike what was done in previous years. Last year, for eg, the Family Day was held at Universal Studios. Nice location as it may seem, it was not a Family Day strictly speaking. It was just another subsidized ticket to a place of interest. People just buy the tickets at a subsidized rate, play the stuff available inside the park and then attend the lucky draw.

We would be having a carnival this year, at the empty land in Sg Discovery Centre. Choosing an event management company is one thing, getting to choose what they have to offer is another. We also had to work out with them how to do up the place so as to fulfill our needs.

Actually, I tried to sell the idea to my staff that kids would dig the games at the carnival. But well, the X-box-infused kids these days would not really care for ‘Fishing the Ducks’ kind of games. Rather, it would be those parents who would want to bring their kids out to experience their own childhood, I guess.

Besides the carnival, SDC also opened up its facilities at discounted (if not free) prices. I just came back watching a 3D film there, at a fraction of the cost in a mainstream cinema! We are going to have paddle-boating, Shooting Gallery, XD experience thingy… SDC is actually a less decked out version of USS. Considering that what staff had to pay was like less than 10% of what they paid to get into USS last year (and we’re providing lunch, goodie bags and Lucky Draw…), it was no wonder that our participation rate was almost as much as we expected!

I am also glad that this event is ending soon; this would mean the end of my last departmental level committee! Although I still have a lot of ECAs (my Dy Supt had been making that comment once a week since he took over), it would still be one work less. I look forward to the days when I could look inward (to my institution) and focus on getting my basics right again.

I have to admit I was very stressed about this job. I was the only RO who was an IC (but my sub-comm only involved mi and my 2IC lol), ie the lowest ranking IC in the comm. This is not uncommon, but I did feel the heat. But according to Mi’s sayings, I do my best and let god handle the rest