Mine on Christmas

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “I need you to find someone to plan a Christmas party at my house,” I ordered him as I walked past and toward the meeting.

  “It’s going to be tough. We are only a few weeks away, everyone is probably booked,” Matthew replied as if he had taken a page right out of Ashley’s handbook.

  “What are you doing?” I asked turning around and walking back to his desk. “Did I ask you to give me the reasons why I can’t hire someone? No, I told you to find someone to plan the party. I don’t care how much it costs. Just do your job and find me a party planner. That’s what I pay you for.”

  “What’s your budget?” he asked, unfazed by my yelling at him.

  “I don’t have one. Just find me someone who can plan the damn party. And please don’t make it an old man who isn’t going to get along with me at all. Now, I have a meeting to go to. I’m going to let you do your job.”

  “Yes, I’ll find you a Christmas party planner by the end of the day.”

  “It’s like I pay him to do nothing but complain,” I mumbled under my breath but loud enough for Matthew to hear me.

  Matthew was my assistant. His entire job title was to do the things I asked of him. It baffled me how often he felt like arguing with me was the best use of his time. He was a good assistant though, so I let his backtalk slide for the moment.

  Chapter 2

  Niki

  “Hello this is Nicole Normandy with Superior Designs,” I said when Mrs. Stapleton answered my call.

  I started tapping my pen against the desk quickly while reminding myself to breathe. This was the worst part when they first answered the call. I was awkward and never knew how to steer the conversation.

  The silence seemed to last forever before she realized who I was. The worst was when I had to explain to them who I was again. This only happened when it had been months since they threw their party.

  “Oh, hello, Niki. It’s so good to hear from you.”

  “How are you all doing? Is Randal adjusting well after his Bar mitzvah party?”

  “He is doing very well. Adjusting to his new freedoms of being a teenager. His party was so wonderful. We can’t thank you enough for all your thoughtful designs and making sure everything went off smoothly.”

  “I’m so happy to hear that you loved everything. Um, I was calling to see if I could note when you might be able to make another payment on the account?”

  There was a long silence as Mrs. Stapleton realized why I was really calling her. This was the part of my job that I absolutely hated, the collection of the bill. I couldn’t stand the idea of chasing people down and getting them to pay the remaining balances on their accounts. Whenever possible I tried to get full payment before the party, but it was reasonable to pay half up front and half the day of the party.

  As a party planner, I understood that some people weren’t able to pay all of my fees up front. I wanted to provide services to as many people as I could and taking a payment plan seemed like a good way of expanding my business. The problem I was running into was that many of my clients were extremely slow in paying off their remaining balances after the party was over. Plus, I was terrible at collecting from them.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Stapleton replied. “I’ll talk to my husband about that tonight and get a check over to you.”

  This was a lie and I knew it. They often made up stories so they could get me off the phone. I wanted repeat business from my clients so I had to be as understanding as possible and just keep on people until they finally sent me the payments that were owed.

  “Great, thank you and I appreciate your business.”

  “Have a nice day,” Mrs. Stapleton said before hanging up the phone.

  This was what my life had come to. I was spending my Monday going through a long list of clients who still owed me money. With the holidays coming up I was desperate to take some time off and spent it with my friends and family. The problem was, I couldn’t take time off from my job if no one was paying me. I had a couple of small parties booked over the next few weeks, but then I was going to rejuvenate with time off, well… if I could get my clients to actually pay me.

  “Hello, is this Mr. Zictine?” I asked dialing another number on my list.

  “Hi, Nicole, how are you?” he asked with a chipper response.

  They were always chipper and happy to talk to me until I brought up the money that was still owed. My clients were never rude or never said that they weren’t going to pay me. Instead, they nicely told me they would get on it and then just never sent the payment. It was a frustrating process for me.

  “Mr. Zictine, I was just calling to follow up on that last payment you mailed. I haven’t received it yet and last week you mentioned it was going out in the mail.” Ugh, I absolutely hated this. If I could afford to hire a secretary to do this part of the job I would have done it a year ago.

  “Oh, yes, I’m not sure what happened. I’ll check with the bank and get a new check out to you. Thank you for reminding me. I have to run, have a nice day.” And he quickly hung up on me.

  I let my head fall into my hands as I let out a long sigh of exasperation. My job was something I’d dreamed about doing for so many years but this part of it was draining all the fun out of my work. Somehow I had to build my company up so that people would pay me up front and I didn’t have to go through this constant struggle, it was exhausting.

  My phone rang with a number I thought looked familiar and I thought it had to be one of the clients I’d left messages for earlier in the day. Not often did they actually call me back, so I answered the phone quickly. I really needed some of these clients to make payments on their bills.

  “Good afternoon, Superior Designs, this is Nicole. How can I make your day better?” I sat up straight and put a big smile on my face.

  “Hello, my name is Matthew. I’m looking for someone to throw a Christmas party.”

  “Oh, hello. I’m sorry; I’m very booked up this year already. If you’d like to schedule ahead for next year I am taking reservations.”

  “No, it needs to be this year over Christmas weekend.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. Best of luck and please consider me in the future,” I said and then tried to soften it a little. “It is very late in the season and most party planners are booked solid. I’m actually taking that time off so I cannot help you.”

  “Okay, thank you,” the young man said. “I appreciate your time. I’ll keep trying to reach someone that has time in their schedule.”

  We hung up the phone just as Alana came home from her workout. Alana and I shared a small one bedroom apartment just outside the city. I worked from home when I was doing billing calls like this particular day, but normally we were hardly home at the same time. It was the perfect roommate situation. We split the bills, got along when we had to and had our own space when we needed it.

  “You look terrible,” she laughed at my large sweatpants and messy hair. “So the calls are not going well?”

  “No, they aren’t.”

  “Niki, you need to be firm with them. You need to tell them to send the remaining payment of their contract by the end of the month or you’ll send them to collections,” she made a firm fist and pounded it on my desk. “You have to be mean to them.”

  “How will I ever get repeat jobs from people if I’m mean to them?” I laughed.

  It was so easy for Alana to say what I should be doing. She didn’t have to do any of the business-related things I did on a regular basis. Alana was an actress on Broadway. Once she landed her job she was paid every week and knew exactly what her schedule was long in advance. I didn’t know what my schedule was from week to week. I could estimate how busy I’d be based on the job I was doing, but inevitably there were disasters that came up along the way and it was impossible to plan for them.

  Sometimes I longed for a normal nine to five sort of job. The stability of my employer providing health insurance and sick leave. The comfort of knowing exactly how much I woul
d get paid in every paycheck and the ease of not having to call clients to get them to pay what they had already agreed to.

  But… I also loved designing parties. I was energized by my job. Meeting a new client and getting to know them and their party needs were fun to me. Going to design shops and buying accessories or renting party supplies was so much fun. If I could just get past the money issues I was having I could see myself thriving in this business for years to come.

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Alana said trying to change the subject. “We can go dancing and drinking and just have a hell of a night. It’s been ages since the two of us went out and had some fun.”

  “I can’t tonight. I’m going to be exhausted. You know how it is when I’m calling for money all day. I’m just going to want to sleep when I’m done.”

  “Friday after my show then. We will go drinking and dancing. I think you need to let off some steam.”

  “Fine, I’ll go Friday, but only because I’ll have time to take a nap while you’re at the show and I can sleep in on Saturday. God, I’m getting old. Listen to me, I sound like a Grandmother.”

  “Yeah, you are an old twenty-seven. Maybe you need to take a break from work for a bit. Are you still thinking of taking a couple of weeks off around Christmas? Or did you end up taking another crappy Christmas party job?”

  “Yes! I just finished turning down a client because I need those weeks off. What should we do? My parents won’t care if I’m there for Christmas day, I can go visit them and then we could take a vacation.”

  The idea of running away to someplace warm was all I could think of. It was the perfect driving force I needed to continue making my phone calls and get these clients to pay up before the end of the year.

  Vacations were not on my normal schedule. I spent nearly every day working in some sort of capacity. I was either at a party, meeting a client, browsing for supplies or making collection calls. Running my business as a one-woman show was exhausting but I didn’t have the finances to hire permanent staff yet.

  “I think Mary and Sarah have a cruise booked. We could be the third and fourth ones in the room. They would be stoked to have us and split the costs,” Alana said as she started texting the girls without waiting for me to answer. She knew I wanted to be in the sun. We both had been talking about going someplace warm this winter.

  “How much do you think it would be? I don’t know what kind of payments I’ll get from people. I don’t like spending money when I’m not sure how much is coming in.”

  “Five hundred dollars. Sarah says that’s all they need to add each of us. Five hundred total. I’ll pay for you. You can pay me back later. I’m telling her yes. I’m going to send her the money now so you can’t back out.”

  This was how Alana operated. She just did things. She barely planned and then went for it. I wasn’t like that at all. I liked planning. I enjoyed the process and the buildup of excitement that came with the planning process. That was probably why I enjoyed party planning so much.

  “Okay, yes,” I laughed all hyped up from the excitement of it all. “Yes, I want to eat all that cruise ship buffet food and sit on the deck and soak in the sun.”

  “We will have to drive down there since flights are outrageous right now. So we will need an extra day or two on the ends of the trip,” Alana said as she suddenly realized she was in a Broadway show and might not be able to get more than a week off from her job. “I’ll probably have to pay one of the girls to fill in for me. My understudy is going to be busy with another vacation week. It’s a good thing my part is easy to learn.”

  Her part was not easy to learn, at least looking at it from the outside. I couldn’t believe she remembered all her lines every night. Being an actress seemed terribly hard to me and not fun at all. But that was a gift she had that I didn’t possess. It was fun to know that she had followed her dreams and was living her passion. I just hoped that someday I could live my passion without the constant stress of financial issues with my clients.

  Alana had brown hair and a deeply tanned skin tone. She let her hair down from the ponytail it was in and her hair nearly touched her butt. She was effortlessly beautiful and I envied that in her. My blonde hair was only to my shoulders and I hardly ever let it down because it never did what I wanted it to. I was pale and couldn’t manage a tan unless I had a week in the sun and even after that my tan quickly faded away. But I still couldn’t wait to spend a week laying out with the sun’s rays tanning my skin and relaxing me.

  “So we are doing this?” I asked.

  Trepidation had taken over my initial excitement already. I hadn’t taken two weeks off from work since I started my party business. This was going to be a totally new experience for me.

  I’d committed to it though and after my initial worry, I would be able to relax and get excited about it all again. I would really be able to relax after I was done with all the parties I had booked for the season and if some of these clients would actually make payments on their accounts.

  “Yes, we are on for Friday night and we are on for the cruise over Christmas. This is going to be the best Christmas ever.”

  “You’re sure you can get someone to cover for you?” I asked again, a little worried that she could get all that time off from her show.

  “Yes, all the understudies want work. I’ll just find someone who has time and give them the lines to learn. It will be fine. So look at me, I’m going to get other people to actually cover my live shows, so I don’t want to hear about your excuses why you can’t go. I know you’re going to try to make one. I’m telling you right now, it’s not going to work. You are coming.”

  I just laughed at her, but that was because I couldn’t argue at all. I was already thinking about the reasons that might come up that would make me need to cancel the trip. Owning my own company was exhausting but it also meant that I had the choice of taking time off or not and I was really going to do my best to actually take those weeks off for vacation.

  “I’m going to get back to calling these clients so I can get paid,” I turned back to my list. “I’ll feel a lot better about taking time off when I get some checks coming in from everyone.”

  “Be firm with them, Niki. Offer to come to get it from them if you have to. Ask for a specific amount and date, then write it down so the next time you call you can note exactly what they said. I know you don’t want to be mean, but you can be firm. You are running a business and they liked the product you gave them so get them to pay you what they agreed,” Alana said.

  “Okay,” I laughed and then saw I was getting a call again. “I need to take this. We can talk later.”

  “Good afternoon, Superior Designs, this is Nicole. How can I make your day better?” I said with my fake smile plastered across my face again.

  “Hello, I called earlier about the Christmas party. My name is Matthew and I really need someone to do this party for my boss. He’s probably going to fire me if I can’t find someone and I’ve called two dozen places and you were the only one that might have time.”

  I felt bad for the guy. He sounded very desperate to find a party planner and I knew he wasn’t going to get anyone to agree. It was way too late in the season and people were either taking time off or they were booked solid.

  Despite feeling bad for him, I wasn’t going to accept the job though. I had enough parties to do over the next month and hardly enough time to do them. This was my time to set boundaries and make sure I was giving myself time to relax and rejuvenate at the end of the year.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I could send you over the list of places I use to get supplies and stuff. Maybe you could help your boss plan the party?”

  “No, I’m not working with him on this,” Matthew said firmly. “I’ll pay whatever you need. I mean my boss will. It’s just a party at his house. You could plan it ahead of time and maybe figure the scheduling out with him. Anything you could do would be helpful.”

  This was the part of the conve
rsation where I always gave in to the client. I set my boundary and then the more they asked for something, the more I felt bad for setting my boundary and would eventually give in. Not this time. I wasn’t going to give into this customer just because they needed someone, nope, I wasn’t going to give in.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you, but I’m not going to be working that week. I’ve already planned to be out of town. How about you give me your email and I’ll send you this supply list. Maybe you can hire someone else to help you plan the party?”

  “If you were going to be able to help what would your normal rate be?” he asked.

  It was an odd question considering I’d just told him that I was going to be out of town and couldn’t help. Assistants were always trying to push the envelope though. They had a boss to answer to and the only possible solution was to do exactly what their boss had told them to. I appreciated that Matthew was trying to wiggle his way into getting me to accept the job and it was rather funny.

  “Well, I can’t help so this seems like a silly question,” I replied not wanting to even continue the conversation any further.

  “I just need a ballpark so I know what to offer other people when I keep calling them,” Matthew said. “You can give me an idea of what your normal rate would be for a Christmas party, right?”

  “This close to the holiday, with this little notice. I’d say it would be at least ten thousand dollars. And that’s for a party of fewer than fifty people. If you are talking more than that…”

  “Okay, it is less than fifty people. So we can offer you one hundred thousand dollars to organize and design this party. I really need your help. I saw your website. I think my boss will love your style and you seem like the sort of person who could get along with just about anyone. Since it is so late and we are desperate for your help, I think one hundred thousand dollars is a fair deal.”