What a Life!

Why is it when someone coordinates something, people think that means they do everything?

I came across this post this morning in my usual blog reading. The gal coordinates hundreds of people knitting socks for a “secret pal” and uses some kind of database to do it. (I’m not participating – I just read her blog.) But read the first paragraph. Apparently, instead of updating the database to show that their socks are done, people are emailing her directly as though she is going to go update the database for them. What is with that?

It strikes me because I just ran up against this in my personal life recently. I am part of a playgroup that someone else started but then left because she went back to work full-time (I would work full time too if my husband was in Iraq, just to get a break from my kids…[that would be my reason, not hers]). I volunteered to coordinate the schedule on the following basis:

• All of the moms in the group take turns hosting.
• If it’s your week to host, you are responsible for sending out an email or calling everyone to let them know that you are hosting and to invite them to your home (or wherever you are holding playgroup – sometimes we meet at the park or somewhere like that).
• A week before I make the schedule, I send out an email to everyone telling them what dates I’m making the next schedule for and giving them the opportunity to tell me if there are any dates which they are unavailable to host the group. Right now we have a mom who’s having a c-section so she won’t be hosting for at least eight weeks. Another mom was remodeling her bathroom so she didn’t host while that was going on. People go on vacations or know they have company coming to town. You know how it goes.
• If I don’t hear back from people when I send out that email, I assume they are available to host…and I state that in the email-before-I-make-the-schedule.
• Then I make the schedule, honoring people requests and preferences. For instance, we have one mom whose husband gets paid at the beginning of the month so she likes to host the first week of the month if she is scheduled; I always schedule her accordingly.
• Of course, we all know that life happens and that sometimes unforeseen events occur, and we aren’t able to host on the week we are scheduled. You may be going out of town, you may be sick, or you may just not be in the mood – it doesn’t really matter what your reason is. Just as each mom is responsible for sending out the email letting everyone know where playgroup will be held when she is hosting, each mom is also responsible for finding someone to take her place if for some reason she cannot host on the week she is scheduled. She can trade with someone or just get a sub. She can call people individually and ask them if they can help her out or she can send a mass email to the group asking for volunteers. All that matters is that she finds someone else to host that week. I include a reminder of this policy at the top of the email-containing-the-schedule when I send it out. Every time.

So with everyone taking responsibility for the week(s) they are scheduled for, our playgroup has run very smoothly for about three years. All I have to worry about, in addition to hosting on the weeks that I am scheduled, is sending out the email asking if people have any weeks for which they are not available and then composing the schedule accordingly and sending it out. Simple. Teamwork at its best.

There are always a couple weeks where people either trade with someone else or find a sub, but it has always taken care of itself. Until now.

About three weeks ago, we had a mom send a mass email to the group stating that her in-home daycare had “taken off” and she would not be able to host anymore. That’s great! We’re all happy for her. But she didn’t do anything beyond sending the mass email to the group. She was scheduled for the last week of every month since the only way she got to participate was when we came to her house which meant her quitting left three empty weeks in the schedule. I did not look kindly on her just telling the group she couldn’t participate rather than at least asking if anyone would volunteer to take the weeks she was scheduled for, but she was leaving so I just said Bygones and shrugged my shoulders. I would just deal with it, even if it meant hosting those week myself. No hard feelings because she’s no longer a member of the group.

Ten days after that, someone else emailed me directly and very graciously said that she would not be able to participate for the next few months but that perhaps later on it would fit back into her schedule again. She was scheduled for two weeks in the current schedule. Again, letting me know you cannot host and finding someone to take your place are two different things. We’re talking apples and oranges, people. If I had to find a sub every time someone couldn’t host, I would tire very quickly of my duties as scheduler. This was one of the situations that contributed to my overwhelming feelings of self-loathing on account of being a Coward last week. But I did finally send her an email telling her we would certainly miss her and then asking if there was any reason why she couldn’t find someone to fill in on the weeks she was scheduled. I also reminded her of the basis on which the schedule is set up and that our playgroup has been successful because everyone has been team players and done their part.

Now we have a third situation that has occurred. One of the moms couldn’t host last week because she was on a cruise. She mentioned it to me at playgroup (not via email) a couple weeks before, and I suggested she call the person who was hosting the week after her and even told her who it was. The next week when I saw her at playgroup, I overheard her talking about how she had called that person and what was going on in her life and so forth and so on so even though she didn’t tell me that she had traded with the other mom, I assumed it was all taken care of and her week was covered.

So Sunday evening she calls me and wants to know when she is scheduled to host since she wasn’t able to host last week. Apparently she didn’t find someone to host in her place. In fact, I asked her directly, and no, she hadn’t arranged for someone else to host in her absence. [Deep breath] I was out of town for Steve’s graduation. I had sent out an email asking who had taken her place, but no one replied. Had I been in town and taken it upon myself to host since no one said they were hosting, that would have been the third out of the last four weeks that I had hosted…and, quite frankly, that would have been too much. As it was, playgroup just skipped a week…which isn’t the end of the world, but still…

And to complicate everything, we have two moms who just had or are going to have babies so we were already a bit short-handed before these three people decided to just flake out…

But really, I just don’t get it. We are dealing with otherwise intelligent, perfectly capable people. They can say that they’re too busy and that life is chaos at their house with kids and everything. I totally understand. My life is busy and my kids add chaos to my life too…which only emphasizes the reason why everything is set up with everyone being team players and taking responsibility for the weeks that they are scheduled to host instead of all that responsibility falling on the shoulders of just one person. I mean, really. I’m smart enough to figure out how to do it – they can too…unless they aren’t as smart as I am and in that case, well, Houston, we have a problem… [Sorry if I’m being demeaning – I’m just rather hacked at the moment…]

There is no point in sending out an email to everyone reminding them of how things are set up to work because everyone else is being a team player like they’re supposed to. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, and I don’t want to create any more dead horses either.

All I have to say is that I’m glad that the moms who have done this aren’t going to be coming to playgroup anymore or at least for a while. I really do try to be a nice person, but this situation would make me have to try really, really hard, and there’s always a chance that I just might not be up to the task. I mean, I really do try extremely hard to never be nasty to people or say things I might later regret (which is probably why I beat myself up occasionally for being a coward…). I try to see things through other people eyes, and, if nothing else, just give them the benefit of the doubt. But I will admit to being human and that situations such as these test my limits.

Enough said. Rant over.

Addendum: Perhaps the reason why these moms are not hosting when they are scheduled is because they have too many balls in the air and simply cannot handle it all, which includes being overwhelmed at the thought of having to try and find someone to fill in for them? That’s fine. I understand. But they could at least ask me to find someone to fill in for them rather than just implying that I’m going to do it since they simply let me know they wouldn’t be able to host, as though I have some magic wand I can just wave and it will all be taken care of… Then perhaps I wouldn’t feel dumped on…