Unreasonable Expectations

[Alison]

Do you ever feel like you have to do everything you've ever seen/dreamed of/imagined during one small gig?  When all you've really been asked to do is give out as many simple balloons as possible?

I had my first balloons-only gig today.  At a summer-camp.  Instead of a line, instead of a lot of kids milling about as I expected, groups of 20 - 40 kids were sat in front of me - So I pressured myself to put on an impromptu show too -

The camp decided to bring me 3 groups (20 - 40 kids each) in the less than 2-hours (The Magician had come late, so his show cut into my scheduled 2-hours).  And I'm personally very strict about not kowtowing to demanding kids just bcause they cry - trained as a teacher, I also intended to teach behavior.  And I like to make my own life meaningful - I always try to get some moments when I really connect with some individuals....

produce a balloon that might be the best the kid ever had
each one unique - a litl different than the others
teach behavior
put on a fun show
discipline the kids
give one to each kid no matter how many kids they wanted done in how litl time
and my own personal goals of things like demanding respect
and making the moments of my life, even at work, meaningful connections...

That's a heavy load.  The venue had unreasonable expectations, but I was even harder on myself.  
I evaluated my performance after the event, and I realized that everything would have worked better
if I had the humility to just stand there and hand a simple balloon to each kid.  

I think we have dreams of  always doing super knock-out grand performances
even when the situation is not set up for that.  And even though clients might have unreasonable expecteds, I think we are the ones who are hardest on ourselves.  If I could have had fireworks like a Disney Spectacular, I would have wanted to handle that alone too.  While making balloons, teaching behavior, connecting, and and....

[Alison]

I know it's just a misconception on my part.  
When I first started working at Parties
and when I first started teaching,
it was just like this too.
But I figured out those jobs, so I'm sure to
figure out this one too.  I was just so surprised
because I've been working fine at Parties for many years already.
So I thought that Balloons would be the same thing.

I think things would have been fine yesgtterday if I just manufactured simple balloons and handed them out calmly even though the kids and adults were all calling out of turn 'me, me, me, a red sword, a black sword, no - with the circles on it, no - I want a pink heart.  Not that pink."  Better to have made a 'line' in my mind" and focus friendilly to each person no matter how obnoxious they were.  Because that's what they want at a party.

And when they put 40 new kids in front of me when there were only 10 minutes left, that was the time to handle the whole group the way I did - and of course, only making a few bigger, more spectacular balloons.  Because there's no way I could be expected to twist up 40 Requests (actually, they were Demands!) in 10 minutes.

How would you describe the job of a Balloon twister?