I've bitched from time to time about the vacuum of leadership with the alumni club. Right now it's me and this other person, and she is doing scholarships only. That is one hell of a duty, but that's all she does. So when it comes to other aspects of running this show, it's just me.
I still don't think I'm doing a very good job of running the club. I've admitted in the past to not organizing more events for the chapter. Another thing that I've let slip, something I think is/was important, was to get my scholarship chair administrative status for our Facebook page, the vehicle of social media I use most often to communicate with the members of the club. With administrative duties, she can moderate, approve members who want into the group, etc. I thought that as Scholarship Club, she is entitled to that power.
After realizing that I needed to do that, I sent her a message saying that I had just done so and apologized to her for not making her an administrator sooner. That had been some time ago. Well, this past week she sent me back a message saying that she actually gave back her administrative status because she didn't need nor want it. Huh?
Maybe she doesn't need it. But I do find it odd that someone who was so generous in taking on duties for the club had decided, after a couple years of coming on board, that she does not want a duty, one that, frankly, isn't taxing at all. Why is she doing this? And then I thought of something.
A sales representative with the Timberwolves e-mailed the alumni association and then me about arranging a ticket offer where we would go to a game with an opponent that also had a player from our alma mater. That was a great idea, and I was so glad that someone besides came up with an idea that the chapter could do, and then organized it. I thought it was a success even though six people didn't show up. Whatever.
Anyhoo, just before our Wolves game, this same rep sent me an offer in the morning: Two free tickets to another game that night. I had plans that night, so I posted on our Facebook about this offer. Two people asked to take them. The Scholarship Chair was first, provided that she find someone to take the other ticket.
As soon as I was sent this offer I started to panic. It wasn't because I couldn't take this offer for myself. I had two people want these tickets, and now I am in a position where I have to arbitrate which one gets it. And it wasn't as easy as "first one gets it" because the scholarship chair threw me the proviso that she needed to find someone first. In other words, she wanted it, and yet she kind of didn't reserve it, you know? And since the ticket rep dropped these damn tickets the day of the game, I needed to oversee to whom I would send the promotion code to pick up these tickets, which meant I had to check my e-mail and Facebook frequently to see when the Scholarship Chair could finally find her +1. This is hard to do because I have an iPhone 4. Not only is it so slow (and intentionally so) that it takes years to check my Facebook, the OS with the 4 is so old that Yahoo! Mail refuses to allow linkage to my e-mail from it. So I had to check Facebook through my laptop in the morning, and then take time out of my afternoon to check Facebook at the library.
In the afternoon I still hadn't heard from the schollie chair about the tickets. So instead of just letting the offer sit and potentially not giving the offer code and tickets to either person, I pushed the issue. I sent two messages to the chair, basically saying (and I paraphrase, of course): "Please let me know as soon as you can if you can use the tickets" ... "I have another person waiting, and I want to make sure she has time to use it if you don't." I didn't think it was too, uh ... forward? Aggressive? Confrontational?
Well, after several minutes I got a message from her. Paraphrasing again, she basically said, "Oh, sorry. You can give that person the tickets. I don't have one now, and I don't have time to find one because I work, ha-ha!" Now, it is just about impossible to glean tone and true feelings from messages and texts. But from the way she went from being enthusiastic to nonplussed about the tickets, and from the inexplicable explanation to give up the tickets (why say you want the tickets when you know you would need to fight through your busy schedule to find someone to go with you?), something seems off.
At least I got a definitive answer; I was able to give the code to the other person who wanted the free tix. But it seems to me that my Scholarship Chair did not like me pressing her on this issue. And with her not wanting to be a mod on our Facebook, I can now only come to one conclusion: She did not like my treatment of her with this situation, or my leadership in general, or the way that I am, and she finally got tired of dealing with me. We have scholarship applications to review. She had said in the past that she would gladly head the process. But the way things are trending, this might be the last year she is willing to do this. Hell, she might not want to do it right now. She might be that upset/unimpressed with me that she would just tell me that I have to do all of this on my own. And for what, free tickets?
I am scared to check whether or not we are still even friends on Facebook. That would be the definitive sign that she wants to slip away from any role in the club, and thus any connection with me. Man, I guess I shouldn't have pressed her on those tickets. But really, this is the last straw?
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