IKC2 Re-profiling at theatrette
[Friday, 16 June, 2006]
This new event is going to be hosted up to thrice each month, disregarding the fact that it is straining on our limited manpower. Nobody has spent a thought for us; experienced and rich players would only care for their promotions.
I was only told right in the morning that I had to go back to the theatrette again. So, even though I had told myself I would never get involved in events there, I did not have a choice. So, the responsibility was pushed to me again. I was not sure why people were there so early but I supposed I had to get the place set up earlier, but luckily I was not blamed.
Just as I was almost done with all the setups, I was asked to help out in distributing their stuffs, placing the papers and notebooks on each of the 214 seats. It was certainly not my responsibility but the rank was pressing on me and that I hated to lie to say that I was really busy. Since some of the audiences were already there, it made the distribution work tougher. It was hard to move to the centre of the seats and that some of them were so cheapskate that they took the quite well designed notebook on the unoccupied seats.
I faced another tight situation that they did not have a script for me so that I could roughly know what would be happening and all the sequences. All I knew was that there were speakers and videos to be screened, which involved the change of lightings. The camera man even requested for a brighter lighting, which was reasonable, however the screening of the projector onto the screen would be affected and which I could not fully comply to.
I had set the volume of the rostrum mike to a level a bit lower than normal but the organiser went to test it and wanted me to lower down the volume when he was so near to the mike. Just as the commander was giving his speech, I had to change the lighting with the retarded buttons and did not notice about the volume, which was far too soft. My reaction was fast then when I noticed something was wrong and quickly adjusted it to a volume which was almost perfect for the commander was really a good, confident and experienced speaker who kept a distance from the gooseneck mike. I realised one person alone was difficult to concentrate on both the lighting and sound at the same time, plus the fact that I had to react immediately without any probing of the next item.
The audiences left empty seats in between and then some of them required portable chairs instead. I was told to do the job even though obviously they were fit enough to carry the chairs by themselves. This rank-playing place just seemed too disgusting to me.
I was cool with everything and I used the same light setting for all the previous major events. Suddenly, the officers came into the control room to claim that it was too bright out there such that the PowerPoint slides could not be viewed. To people of certain intelligence, it was obvious that the slides were too poorly designed with black font and dark background, which I told them but they refused to believe until I dimmed the light at the rostrum where the speaker could not read his script anymore. They finally realised I was right.
As other presenters started to read directly from the papers to give very uninteresting talks with eyes looking downwards most of the time, they also tried to kiss the mike at the rostrum. The gooseneck mike was ultra sensitive and without the sponge which was lost quite long ago, they needed to control their breathing in order not to produce irritating “pert” noise whenever before pausing. Then, I was told to lower down the volume instead of them not staying too near the mike. Most of them probably did not realise it was mainly the speakers’ faults though the commander could do his talk well using the same mike. After that, I was told to switch the mike to a wired one. Then, the other presenters wanted to use the rostrum one instead and that was extra work for me.
In the end, Captain Justine proved me right by giving his speech impressively by keeping a distance away from the mike. He knew his work well that he needed not prepare any script or take down any note and was able to elaborate on stuffs from the PowerPoint slides well.
Then, I was also asked to increase the temperature when the organisers who came so many times apparently knew the old air-con could only be switched to either on or off. I also wished I could adjust the temperate for I was freezing as well and had to stay inside the place all the time and certainly longer than anyone else. If your dear company did not want to spend the money, why did you want to complain to the poor innocent and low status me instead?
There was another surprise before the event ended when the deputy commander suddenly used the other rostrum. Luckily enough, I was on alert and managed to switch the lighting and adjust the sound in time.
It was nice to know Captain Justine who was friendly and knowledgeable. However, I was quite disappointed somehow when Ben did not realise the need of me to stay in the control room. I wished I could go down to the office to enjoy the Counter strike game with the rest and avoid unforeseen shit work as well.
Labels: army
... Skai (Kailun) dreams @ 2:41 AM
