1 I never do either.
2 You know that Monday thing that comes over people. Nice weekend. Hope you can slip in and out of whatever it is you have on Monday and just make it safely to Tuesday.
3 I guess it began on Friday when I suddenly got boxloads of something delivered to my office. I was in the process of organizing and getting stuff neatly put away for Monday when this stuff just appeared, a miracle second only to the sword and stone appearing in St. Paul's Cathedral.
4 It came with instructions, which ALSO included it's own box. Sort of like the sword that accompanied the stone, only boxes.
5 They put it right in front of my refrigerator door.
6 Fortunately for them I happened to be on a diet that day.
7 After moving them about thirty thousand times, I finally looked at the packing slip and called the company asking who they were and why they kept sending me boxes.
8 Nobody answered because it was in Cincinatti. I left a kind message asking why all this stuff was arriving.
9 No answer.
10 I finally got a phone call in the early afternoon yesterday telling me that I had ordered some huge activity to be done at our school on Wednesday and that of course I must have known this.
11 Turns out that in November, when these guys were talking to me, I had told them that I didn't even know what I was doing next week, and that I didn't even have the spring calendar in place and had no idea when things were happening in the Spring.
12 "Just pick two dates so we have a toehold," came a voice from the other end of the line. They assured me they had come in last year, so I just said, "Well, I don't want to commit to anything..." I was brand new and had NO idea of anything past January.
13 They just said, "Well, the third Thursday in March and April is what we did before." Something like that. I said, "Well I guess just pencil that in so we at least have a proposed date. We can always change it, right?"
14 I really don't recall what was said after that, but I heard nothing until this stuff just started arriving. Suddenly I am being asked on a Monday morning to somehow have almost 400 Seniors available at a meeting on Thursday, AND I had no recollection of everh having committed to ANYTHING in November, since I had no idea of our Spring calendar at that time.
15 Being a recovering Catholic, I felt guilty backing out, and became very apologetic about things. I didn't realize that in a very obvious way, they never followed up and solidified the date, and never contacted me after November.
16 Last night at 1 a.m. I awoke after a crashing nap and realized what had taken place. It seemed obvious to me at the time that I must have turned into a sucker and back into a human being when I told the guy to "pencil me in" with the clear contingency that it WASN'T set in concrete.
17 Amazing. Every time you think you've seen it all, some guy like that comes down the pike, and next thing you know you've been played.
18 Right after that, I received a call telling me I had to move all my classes into the library today. I have 89 students in my morning Leadership class. Oops. Last-minute notice. Time to change everything you're doing mang.
19 Well, all in a day's work. Nobody is REALLY interested in anyone else's work, but I just thought I'd share a universal Monday. I managed to postpone that group who sent all that stuff, having felt guilty, and also managed to get my classes moved.
20 Friday morning none of that stuff even existed. I deliberately told that company in the Fall that I wasn't interested in booking ANYTHING; it was clear as a bell. Penciled in doesn't = a yes. This seems to happen quite a bit. I tell people that we'll keep a toehold and they see it as a yes.
21 Friday morning I never had to move all my troops in one day. Neither item was anything I had anything to do with. It was THEM.
22 It's funny how we doubt ourselves sometimes. I instantly thought I had screwed up, when I have been extremely careful about doing a thorough job all year. These guys were wrong, both groups, and yet somehow I felt I had done something stupid.
23 You wonder why people turn crabby. Fortunately, I can laugh at most of this stuff and at my own insecurities.
24 I just let crap like that roll off my back. I do sometimes think of what happens to people with less backbone, and of people who might have also been played but who would have moved mountains on a Monday to accomodate someone who got in through the back door.
25 I just open the front door and tell them to go around.
26 And then I slide the lock into place. Here's your hat, what's your hurry?
Yvonne: Where were you last night?
~H~
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