I’m not sure if this happens to every party planner, caterer, or event manager, but I often experience what I call the “revolving door” of supplies. I constantly leave items behind at events, no matter how many “idiot checks” of the venue I do before heading out the door. And I’m not talking just little things; I’m talking things like ladders, tables, large pieces of artwork... even my guitar! It’s happened more times than I care to count. I’ll often get calls from clients telling me that their child made off with this decor item or that. On the flip side is the inevitable packing of things that do not belong to me. This usually happens when I have assistants on board, since they don’t have the same knowledge of my inventory. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cringed when I discovered an unfamiliar little velveteen jacket with rhinestones in the dress-up box, or a foreign soccer ball in our sports box. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to catch these unintentional thefts in time, and can figure out who they belong to, but every now and again it’s just too late, and I’m left feeling incredibly guilty about finding a poor child’s lost beloved Frisbee.
There was one recent “theft” that I thought I’d share with you -- and I feel okay telling you about it, because the crime was caught before it escalated too far...
I was doing an event for a client in the city that involved a lot of decor. Because of that, my assistant and I were actually present at the end of the party when the birthday girl was opening her gifts. There were oohs and ahhhs of delight over each gift, but the most discussion came up when the girl opened a unique craft project. It was a “Color Changing Light Kit.” Although the birthday girl was impressed, it was her twelve-year-old sister who was most intrigued by the gift. She kept chatting about how fun it would be to make the craft, and how she knew the perfect place for it, and how it would be a really nice thing to do together... and so on and so on. It was sweet, and because of her excitement I took special notice of this one gift.
The party was on a Friday, and Mondays are typically when my staff unpacks all the boxes from the previous weekend. So you can imagine my horror when Monday afternoon I discovered that light kit sitting on my desk in front of my computer! I couldn’t figure out why it was there, and I asked Freda where it came from. “Oh,” she said in that blithe way of hers. “It was in one of the Willy Wonka boxes. I figured someone gave it to you. I was going to give it to Walter for his daughter.” I nearly fainted. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “That’s the birthday girl’s gift!”
I immediately phoned the client, who got practically hysterical. Evidently, the theft had not gone unnoticed. In fact, it was the cause of much strife over that weekend, because the birthday girl was convinced her sister had taken the gift and hidden it. I hopped right in my van and delivered the stolen goods before a full-scale police investigation began! How the gift got into one of our boxes is beyond me. To this day I still can’t figure it out. I find it hard to believe that my assistant on the party could think that the kit was ours. The only thing I can figure is that it might have fallen off the table and into one of our open boxes, but that seems pretty odd to me. In any event, there was no harm done... other than possibly causing some sibling rivalry that might need years of therapy to clear up.
I don’t know how I can be sure to prevent this kind of incident in the future. And trust me, I’ve lost a fair share of really valuable items, from $30 extension cords to a convertible rolling cart -- but I suppose it’s part and parcel to the job. When you’ve got so many items and so little time, something’s bound to get left behind or find its way into my boxes. As I said, I just call it the “revolving door” of inventory... And hey, has anyone seen my green water bottle?
