I have noted my frustration and boredom with this alumni thing. To reiterate in a tl;dr way, while I am absolutely up in arms about the decision that was made by my alma mater, I have become sort of disinterested in our efforts to find a middle ground.
But I haven't delved deep into that, so I will -- well, quickly. Not only have I become nonplussed with both the glacial pace of getting this done and the constant back-and-forth with The Other Side, I have gotten a tad frustrated with people on my own side. The leftists among us believe that these constant meetings have generated a repeated tone of frustration when the air of negotiation should win the day. There are some of us, quite simply, who believe that were are not airing our grievances so much as offering to help The Other Side with their alumni engagement efforts and their new social media platforms. In other words, some people believe we are just working for them, and for free.
That's a legitimate gripe. But I don't know how to counteract that when, at least to the conciliatory rank-and-file, progress has been made and that any outburst from us that gets out into the public and finds its way back to alumni relations will torpedo any concessions we have asked for repeatedly and after a long time. I have begun to feel as though we are dividing ourselves into these two camps. And I for one know that The Other Side is counting on such a rift to finally get us out of their way and to finally implement, in full, all these changes to the alumni relations hierarchy and technology they have so bizarrely wanted to do before the end of the year. Bottom line: As bad as this is, I am starting to get frustrated both with people on my side who don't put up much of a fight and those on my side who believe everything coming from The Other Side is a slap in the face, and that breaking off all negotiations will be good for us in the long run.
---
So The Other Side has basically dictated to us when they want to meet. For this time around (and I think the two sides have met over Zoom three times up to this point, including a couple weeks ago), they gave us two choices: Thursday and Friday. I was flexible with either, but I told The Resistance that if we hold this meeting on Friday and it goes as bad as I fear it will, it'll totally ruin my weekend, so I reluctantly threw my hat in the ring for Thursday.
OK, fast forward to afternoon lunch break at work yesterday/Thursday. I turn on my LTE and I was hit with all these notifications on GroupMe (never should have downloaded this app) whereby I am in a group with all the others in The Resistance. There has been periods of furtive chatter on it, and it had gotten to be annoying. And so my phone blew up again through these notifications where they were talking about getting on the meeting. You know, the meeting ... next Thursday.
Right? Wait -- no?
Stupid me. The Other Side hastily asked for a meeting after a third meeting, which I swear was only last week. But when they said Thursday, they meant yesterday. I saw all of this just before the Zoom was supposed to began. But I was stuck at work. I apologized profusely and begged for someone else from the group to hop on and get the lowdown on what this meeting was all about.
Frequently after these meetings with The Other Side, some of us join in on an impromptu chat to talk about what we discussed, what we should do and, most importantly, bitch about The Other Side. I told the folks that if they want to do a post-game, I think I could join in. But I didn't. The Zoom lasted an hour, as did the post-game. And after I got home (which was an hour after I saw all this hubbub and saw my grave mistake), I wanted to eat a leisurely dinner after my folks already ate. By the time I got done with the pork and corn on the cob and salad and bread, The Resistance got done with the post-game, too.
This isn't a good look. And honestly, I feel really, really bad for pussing out on this meeting, as innocent a mistake this was. But this shows, yet again, into a self-destructive practice I fall into. I went through the messages I got about the meeting that was planned this week, not next, and it clearly said "October 8" or an equivalent in several of them. This isn't an oversight, and it isn't just inattention. I know myself. I had wished that this meeting would take place on the 15th, and so when I saw that they were asking for a Zoom meeting Thursday or Friday, I wanted it to be next Thursday or Friday, and therefore my mind expected it would be next Thursday or Friday. And I simply didn't care to look carefully for a date or the phrase "this Thursday or Friday," both of which did appear in the e-mails I looked back on to see if this was really my fault. And it clearly is my fault.
I get the feeling the folks will start to doubt my commitment to the cause. They have good reason to doubt me. And yet I am totally, totally sorry for completely fucking this up.
No comments:
Post a Comment