This February’s ten-year “Vaniversary” is a significant one for 2010 Gamers. I suspect it will be for the rest of our lives.

On social media I’m seeing plenty of photos showing the Games’ successes: group shots of smiling faces; cheering fans; packed venues; blue skies and white mountains. I wish I had taken more of those myself in 2010. But instead, I scrawled the remarkable utterances of colleagues on a white board in my cubicle.

I’m glad I did. To me these words, delivered unprompted by people under stress and “off-camera”, reveal what being part of a great undertaking – Olympic or otherwise – is really like.

Results Are Not Guaranteed

“We know the Games are going to happen. We just don’t know how, yet.”

“We are so guessing here, and it’s Christmas.”

In retrospect, success can appear inevitable. But in Vancouver there was little pre-Games enthusiasm in the city, athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili died on the first day, there were Opening Ceremony embarrassments, and no snow on Cypress Mountain. Despite years of diligent and relentless planning, training, testing and contingencies, a positive outcome seemed very much in doubt and we all sweated.

You Pay With Your Body

“I need, like, 30 days of yoga.”

“For the love of God, would somebody please get him some coffee?”

No sleep, sitting hunched in front of your computer screen, for infinity. On occasion, a colleague puts food in front of you, which you mechanically slurp down in a few moments before getting back to work. Obsession and commitment are like that, and for a while your body can take it. Just know that when the project ends, your constitution will implode.

You Lose Your Mind

“I got eyes in my tears.”

“It’s not shit! It’s water!”

“After years. Like, fuck, you know?”

Profanity. Difficulties with concentration and memory. Shortened fuses. Stress, in short. On the hard road to glory, something happens to your brain. In my case, during the Games I had very little short-term recall of what I had written (and I managed communications!) or where I had been. Fortunately, this caused no critical failures. But in stretching your limits, you may not recognize yourself. Or always like what you see.

You Are Not Always Great

“We’re leaving it in because nobody can check, and it’s useless information.” 

“Delegations do not transfer to the Opening Ceremony in alphabetical order. They transfer in disorder.” [This statement was delivered tongue-in-cheek to the delegations, but there was a well-understood element of gallows humour about a very tricky process].

“Emptied cardboard bins. Dealt with mice presence.”

Overall, and with justification, praise was heaped on the Vancouver Games. But every Gamer has a story of a shocking screw up. Mine include an embarrassing and hurried mass re-print because I put the Olympic logo on a Paralympic publication. If a project involves humans – even competent ones – things will go wrong. But the Games go on.

But doing a job well, with others, for others, is great!

Before I was hired, during my interview I asked my future boss:

“Is there anything you’re glad I haven’t asked you about being part of the Games?”

On the video conference screen, she though for a moment, grinned, and said:

“It’s going to be a lot of work.”

She did me a favour with her frankness, which prepared me for what was to come.

Like everyone who worked or volunteered in Vancouver and Whistler, I was hired to deliver an excellent experience for the world’s athletes and for Canadians. That came at a cost I’ve described above and we all paid it.

But as those posts and reunions demonstrate, there is a lasting pride in a job well done and friendships forged by a remarkable experience.

That, for me, is the Vancouver 2010 legacy.