In the last few months, I’ve been playing event manager at work. It was a last minute decision the powers that be and I’ve been running around like a lunatic trying to make it work. What’s worse, the powers that be have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make every… single… step of this 5 times harder than it needed to be by being unable to make decisions in a timely manner or at all.
It seems that this disregard and disrespect for others is endemic, especially in the CEO and Executive Director level of any organization, be it non-profit or for-profit. There are plenty of executives who do think about these things but it’s been my experience that’s not the way to bet. It may be that they don’t remember working in the trenches or never have had to take responsibility for their actions because their staff had to compensate for the boss’s and/or the board’s thoughtlessness to keep their jobs.
These are the people who decide to have an event until three months before they want it to happen, and then are shocked that they don’t get exactly what they want. On the other side of the registration table, they don’t RSVP to an event that someone else is having, and are surprised when they might not get a nice looking badge or food and drink.
To those who don’t RSVP, evidently thinking it’s beneath you and not worth your time, it’s not enough to call the day before and tell the harried staff that oh, you’ve decided to come and assume that we’ll be happy to see you. To those of you who decide that you want a perfect event and do your level best to screw it up by ignoring our advice and ignoring our need for answers, it’s not enough to tell us it’ll work out fine since you don’t want to be bothered. No, we’ll think you are a major league jerk because events require planning and numbers. We’ll of course smile and treat you politely, but you’ve lost any kind of respect you may have had. It’s a shame that doesn’t have immediate karmic impact. Like I’ve said before, if there were karma, magic or gods, this would be a very different world.
Club Schadenfreude 