It had been a solid 3 months since I had taken a single day off.

But the project I was working on was important and exciting, and I was in the stage of my career where you:

• Suck it up 😮‍💨

• Get it done 💪

• And add accolades to your resume 🏆

We were launching the largest ice sports center in the Southern Hemisphere in Melbourne, Australia —  an $84 million venture.

And in Part 1 of this story last week, you learned that I had gone from “nearly fired” to “doing everyone else’s job” in the blink of an eye.

(Missed it? Catch up here.)

You want me to do… what?

As the token American on a team of Australians, I was the only person who had ever actually operated an ice sports center before.

So while my official responsibility was to develop and execute ice sports programming, I got pulled into every area of the business.

At first, I didn’t mind — in fact, I loved it. It’s rewarding to have your expertise valued.

A few weeks before the launch, when I should have been solely focused on finalizing my department’s operating plan and training my team, my boss took me out for coffee.

“You’ve been doing such a great job on everything Kristin, and we’d love it if you could produce our launch event.”

Um — what?

I knew that this was something the marketing team had been working on for months, and I was happy to support them, but as it turned out, all they had done was line up some dignitaries to cut ribbons.

They wanted something much bigger:

A full-scale ice show with professional skaters, theatrical lighting, a video component to exhibit our million-dollar jumbotron, and even indoor fireworks. 

In three weeks. 🤯 

Since I was the only one with “ice experience”, they figured I could pull all of that out of my ass without a second thought.

And after the early days of fearing for the safety of my job, I was too embarrassed to tell them that no — I could not.

So I said yes. 🤦

Thank god I had a husband in show business

My husband at the time, James, had a few incredible things going for him:

1. He was a radio superstar with stellar show biz connections.

2. He had recently launched a video production company.

3. And he loved me.

I ran home that day, screaming “HEEEEEEEELP”, and god bless him, he leapt into action.

Since my days were filled with, ya know, my actual job — this project would need to happen at night.

We poured some whiskey, and began conceiving the event.

It was important to feature a live demo of all four ice sports we’d be facilitating at the venue:

• Ice hockey 🏒 

• Figure skating ⛸️ 

• Speed skating 🏁 

• And curling 🥌 

Plus, we needed to honor the Australian athletes who were competing at that very moment at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

And we had to do all of this in a fast-paced and theatrical way.

So the first question was…

How the heck do you make curling… fast?

Since James had literally zero experience with the mechanics of ice sports, he proposed ideas I never would have dreamed of—

Things that would make a traditionalist cringe, but had dynamite entertainment value.

And that’s exactly what we needed.

We outlined all of the show elements, and began assigning responsibilities. James would take care of sourcing things like lighting and pyro, and he would personally develop all the video content. 🙏 

I would cover everything that was happening on the ice.

For the next three weeks, we worked day and night to pull it off.

And in the end, we delivered a stunning event, at the last minute, on a shoestring budget.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re too stupid to say no. 👇

Then something crazy happened

The grand opening event was exhilarating. Politicians cut ribbons. My show was a hit. Everyone was thrilled.

But then…

We were open.

There was a line around the block to get into the venue for our first night of public skating.

And my colleagues were across the street at the pub, celebrating our “success”.

That carefully synchronized event was nothing compared to the chaos of opening the doors to the public for the first time.

Nervous and wide-eyed staff members were looking to leadership for direction, but leadership was off getting drunk and congratulating each other for a job well done.

I couldn’t fathom walking away, so I stayed until the last customer left that night, putting out fire after fire.

And I was back at 5am the next morning for the first figure skating session.

Thus began a cycle that I wasn’t sure how to stop — until I exploded.

Boom goes the Kristin

Since the process of planning and launching the venue had been so stressful and relentless, the team assumed that operations would be easier.

It’s not.

We no longer had a construction site—

We had a venue that was open daily from 5am to midnight.

And since none of them were prepared for how intense it would be, I was constantly filling in the gaps, growing more and more resentful each day.

👉 I should have taken my boss aside and maturely expressed my concerns early on.

👉 I should have set boundaries.

👉 I should have just taken a damn day off.

Instead, I put my head down, my ass up, and just pushed through those feelings.

Then one day, I was called into a meeting with the Sales Director and his new Sales Associate.

This guy had his marching orders — sell, sell, sell. 💰

Which he did. 

Monday through Friday, 9am - 5pm. 🙄

And he had just sold a program concept that was impossible to execute, so he was coming to me to figure out how to make it happen.

He walked me through what he had promised this client, and I told him that it wasn’t possible — he was going to need to go back to them with a different plan.

But he wasn’t going to do that. 

He wanted me to figure out how to make his impossible plan work somehow.

Frustrated by my “inflexibility”, he said, “Kristin, sometimes you just need to put in a little extra effort.”

That was it for me.

I stood up, and walked out of the building. 👋

Seriously — I didn’t even stop at my office to collect anything. I left my jacket on the back of the conference room chair. I didn’t say a word to anyone.

I just… wandered out of the building like a zombie, and went home.

I was f*cking done.

Apologies mean nothing

A few hours later, my boss called. He couldn’t find me, and he finally got the story of what happened out of the new Sales Associate.

He copiously apologized, and acknowledged that I had been overburdened (to put it lightly). 

But I had reached a breaking point that couldn’t be mended with apologies and acknowledgements—

I didn’t want to see that slackjawed Sales Director’s face ever again.

My boss promised that he wouldn’t be a problem for me any more, and convinced me to stick it out.

When I reluctantly arrived at work the next day, the Sales Director’s desk was cleaned out. 

They had fired him.

The guy who had witnessed the drama was promoted to fill the role.

And as things settled down, he ended up becoming my favorite coworker —  partly because he knew not to f*ck with me, but mainly because he was great at his job.

In less than a year, I had gone from being so ridiculously under-qualified that I was fearing for my job — to being such a critical asset that they were firing people for me, and making me the face of the project:

Happy 15th birthday, Icehouse.

I left you in Australia with my ex-husband.

But just like him, I’m truly grateful for our time together. ♥️

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin :-)

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