Yes Peggy. Did you hear about this trendy new series Mad Men?

Ever since I’ve been able to recognise the affect pleasing others has, making people smile yay! that’s been my go to shtick. Not in any kind of fox like cunning way, that’s just how I behave. When I don’t pull things off I do a joke and then think about it for days and days and days. A regret machine. It’s never been a conscious thing, from when I was a wee girl, not a tiny arch manipulator - just eager to get it right.

The reason I’m good at my job is I can run with ideas and ask questions, matchmake things I’ve seen, things I may see, things I know instinctively work or will work. Like Colour Me Beautiful, but not the 80s and not clothes and makeup portioned in seasons. This festival season, I reverted to ticking  boxes, thinking to myself ‘but this is how some people work, in an office, hammering out emails, making phonecalls, GO GO GO’ - and it’s not how I usually work.

I’m onto season five of Mad Men (it’s this documentary about how when you wear a suit and have a willy you can do whatever you like and if you’re a lady you need to be a regular genius to be allowed to do more than pop a roast in the oven). In S5 of Mad Men Peggy gets frustrated that people won’t take her ideas seriously, as they don’t know what they want. It’s also layered with a million other issues around her being a women in a position of responsibility in a male male male workplace-worldplace. She looks around herself (working the longest hours of anyone in the office) and is constantly delivering but also expecting more from herself and those around her.

My job is ideas, and selling ideas, both how I can talk about a show or someone's creation - often deeply personal, and then fairly represent them - as if they were doing the talking themselves. On balance, like Peggy never is able to, I should look back and see how it is - I’m here in this position able to make mistakes, get frustrated, fire off at difficult situations - because I am here and I’ve worked hard for it. I am not perfect. But it’s tough. Cos like Peggy the onus is on me to continue proving myself, time and time again. As that’s how it goes.

We may work like Olympians but exhaustion ain't no competition

When I was in the first few years of high school physics I remember learning about how when electricity is conducted down loads of different avenues it always remains the same voltage. So instead of the (uh logical duh) option of electricity splitting in amount when it is routed down two wires from one source, both wires carry the same amount. I say this, as a bit of an analogy for how the arts works.

The mainstay of my work, and my company, for the last three years has been festivals. Arts festivals, work spanning venues and artists, producers and shows.

When you take on one project at a Fringe, you smash yourself into it with every ounce of yourself. When you take on two, that energy is not split but doubled. Same for 5, 10, 20 strings to your bow. Each requires the same energy as if it were just one project.

Watching Olympians perform I understand that feeling of pushing a little harder, that moment at the end of a sprint where you find energy and power that you didn’t know you had in you. And I am one of hundreds of people at this festival who entirely understand that feeling; dismiss it, and push on through.

There are two problems with this level of commitment to a job. One, is fatigue, and two is competition about the visible level of commitment to the role. Who worked hardest; who had the fewest days off; who is stuck in one place for the most hours; who is taking the most risk. I’m usually much more of a party girl than this year, but possible fatigue induced illness has rendered me slightly off kilter and where I would find that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th wind I find myself retreating, with my laptop, to double and triple check things over a cup of tea and some vitamin supplements.

There is something about the way we apply ourselves so vigorously to every task with the same energy, expectation and precision that we feel everything keenly, like the princess on her pea. Every layer of stress and self-expectation piled up, always aware of that wee bump right through all the layers.

I don't want to compete over exhaustion. That's plain bonkers. When we talk about this crazy-ass storm we've thrown ourselves into, I want a smile and a 'I know, we're idiots, bumz right', not a riff-off over who's the most burnt out. #martyr

Trying not to get sucked into it is key to me this time round. But it’s hard. I’m not at 100% and it’s breaking my heart. Although, I guess I get points for managing to make myself ill before the festival even started? Non? Promise, it’s not a competition.

We may work like Olympians but exhaustion ain't no competition

When I was in the first few years of high school physics I remember learning about how when electricity is conducted down loads of different avenues it always remains the same voltage. So instead of the (uh logical duh) option of electricity splitting in amount when it is routed down two wires from one source, both wires carry the same amount. I say this, as a bit of an analogy for how us in the arts work. (I also am not Brian Cox, but the idea of things never decreasing in power as they split off is a almost perfect analogy for festival work.)

The mainstay of my work, and my company, for the last three years has been festivals. Arts festivals, work spanning venues and artists, producers and shows.

When you take on one project at a Fringe, you smash yourself into it with every ounce of yourself. When you take on two, that energy is not split but doubled. Same for 5, 10, 20 strings to your bow. Each requires the same energy as if it were just one project.

Watching Olympians perform I understand that feeling of pushing a little harder, that moment at the end of a sprint where you find energy and power that you didn’t know you had in you. And I am one of hundreds of people at this festival who entirely understand that feeling; dismiss it, and push on through.

There are two problems with this level of commitment to a job. One, is fatigue, and two is competition about the visible level of commitment to the role. Who worked hardest; who had the fewest days off; who is stuck in one place for the most hours; who is taking the most risk. I’m usually much more of a party girl than this year, but possible fatigue induced illness has rendered me slightly off kilter and where I would find that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th wind I find myself retreating, with my laptop, to double and triple check things over a cup of tea and some vitamin supplements.

There is something about the way we apply ourselves so vigorously to every task with the same energy, expectation and precision that we feel everything keenly, like the princess on her pea. Every layer of stress and self-expectation piled up, always aware of that wee bump right through all the layers.

I don't want to compete over exhaustion. That's plain bonkers. When we talk about this crazy-ass storm we've thrown ourselves into, I want a smile and a 'I know, we're idiots, bumz right', not a riff-off over who's the most burnt out. #martyr

Trying not to get sucked into it is key to me this time round. But it’s hard. I’m not at 100% and it’s breaking my heart. Although, I guess I get points for managing to make myself ill before the festival even started? Non? Promise, it’s not a competition.