A Great Honor
I have the great honor of being installed as the PTSA president tonight. As much as I grouse about not wanting this "honor" (read "job of tremendous responsibility and work, work, work"), it is, in fact, an honor.
I have labored over my speech for tonight and I think I've finally come up with the perfect balance of "thank you for this great honor" and "we (not just me) have a lot of work to do". My job for tonight was to provide the installation. I don't know why the new president has to provide her own installation, but I digress. A few weeks ago, feeling the time pressure, I called a former school board member who was a long time member of the Hoover PTSA board to ask her to conduct the installation. She was too busy to talk, so I just told her the date and she said she'd call me back. On Sunday morning (yes, yesterday) I suddenly realized that she'd never called me back. I was desprete to check my e-mail to find her number and finally was able to call her at home. Her husband took the message and said she'd call me back. THIS MORNING she called to say that her husband just told her a member of the community was calling her and didn't write down my name, just the number. She finally recognized my number and yes she can come to do the installation. Talk about last minute--this does not bode well for my year of tremendous responsibility. Needless to say, I will be providing the script for the ceremony and gifts and bringing a main dish--I'm sure I'll have time to pull that all off in the next six hours. It's not like I have a real job. (I say dripping with sarcasm).
Yesterday was the seniors Baccalaureate event. My job was to prepare the program. The junior class doesn't hold their elections until the friday before the event and the new class president goes in the program. No worries, I have lots of printers and copy machines at the office and I'm a college graduate. I can handle it. After being super prepared and showing the board, not one, not two, but three revised drafts for their review (probably about four hours of work on my part), Susan completely redid the program, put in a new font and e-mailed it to me on Saturday. After grinding my teeth over all the work that I had done, I remembered the golden rule--I DON'T CARE. I love that rule. So I printed out Susan's program and I proceeded to take my entire Saturday to devote to printing 150 programs. Every printer at the office jammed on the paper. Both xerox machines jammed on the paper. So it was off to Kinko's.
The guy at Kinko's was very nice, yes, he could do the job while I waited and yes, he could fold them (for a charge of .03 per copy--a pitence). His machine skewed the print and there was that xerox kind of film showing on the paper. This won't do I said--they have to look beautiful. Not to worry that great guy from kinko's said, he'll call the La Canada store--they have a brand new machine--no film, no skewing. He called them and yes, they could do my job while I waited. I raced up to La Canada--the best clerk in the store waited on me (I know this because the folding machine had to have the copies fed one at a time--I was there a long time). He did a beautiful test, we discussed reduction to 98% and rejected it, the finished product was beautiful and the whole time I was waiting (about 45 minutes) I was thinking, this guy deserves a tip. Can you tip a guy at kinko's?
The glendale store quoted me a price of .16 a copy plus .03 per copy for folding. I was calculating a tip that would not insult this wonderful clerk when he started adding up the bill: .29 cents per copy, plus .03 cents per copy for folding. Wow, this was going to be much more expensive than I first thought. Then my rapidly diminishing in wonderfulness clerk explained to me that this was a rush job and normally they do not do jobs like this while you wait. I almost thought he was going to add a surcharge for the rush, but he didn't. I thought to myself, it sounds like this guy is fishing for a tip and here two minutes ago I thought I was the most magnamous person on the planet planning to give him a tip. Dissolutioned and depressed (but with 150 beautiful, half folded programs under my arm) I left. No tip.
The Baccalaureate started at 4:30--the e-mail we got said we should be there at 3:15. At ten minutes to three, Adrienne started ragging on me, wasn't I going to be late? Hardly. It started at 4:30--there's nothing to do at 3:15--those people are all nuts. I got there in plenty of time. They said that they normally get about 70 people at the event--150 programs is plenty. The senior class advisor apparently made an announcement that if the students didn't attend Baccalaureate, then they couldn't go to grad night at Disneyland. I can't tell you how many kids asked where the sign up sheet was to prove they were there. We had a huge turnout and it was soon clear that 150 programs was not enough--I made the ushers start handing them out, one per family. oye. It was a very long, tiring afternoon and no diet coke. I bailed out while there were still eight people cleaning the kitchen for two pots, six pitchers and seven trays--I think eight people could handle that without me, but I still felt guilty not being the last person to leave. Adrienne asked me if I had fun when I got home. It's going to be a long year.
I have labored over my speech for tonight and I think I've finally come up with the perfect balance of "thank you for this great honor" and "we (not just me) have a lot of work to do". My job for tonight was to provide the installation. I don't know why the new president has to provide her own installation, but I digress. A few weeks ago, feeling the time pressure, I called a former school board member who was a long time member of the Hoover PTSA board to ask her to conduct the installation. She was too busy to talk, so I just told her the date and she said she'd call me back. On Sunday morning (yes, yesterday) I suddenly realized that she'd never called me back. I was desprete to check my e-mail to find her number and finally was able to call her at home. Her husband took the message and said she'd call me back. THIS MORNING she called to say that her husband just told her a member of the community was calling her and didn't write down my name, just the number. She finally recognized my number and yes she can come to do the installation. Talk about last minute--this does not bode well for my year of tremendous responsibility. Needless to say, I will be providing the script for the ceremony and gifts and bringing a main dish--I'm sure I'll have time to pull that all off in the next six hours. It's not like I have a real job. (I say dripping with sarcasm).
Yesterday was the seniors Baccalaureate event. My job was to prepare the program. The junior class doesn't hold their elections until the friday before the event and the new class president goes in the program. No worries, I have lots of printers and copy machines at the office and I'm a college graduate. I can handle it. After being super prepared and showing the board, not one, not two, but three revised drafts for their review (probably about four hours of work on my part), Susan completely redid the program, put in a new font and e-mailed it to me on Saturday. After grinding my teeth over all the work that I had done, I remembered the golden rule--I DON'T CARE. I love that rule. So I printed out Susan's program and I proceeded to take my entire Saturday to devote to printing 150 programs. Every printer at the office jammed on the paper. Both xerox machines jammed on the paper. So it was off to Kinko's.
The guy at Kinko's was very nice, yes, he could do the job while I waited and yes, he could fold them (for a charge of .03 per copy--a pitence). His machine skewed the print and there was that xerox kind of film showing on the paper. This won't do I said--they have to look beautiful. Not to worry that great guy from kinko's said, he'll call the La Canada store--they have a brand new machine--no film, no skewing. He called them and yes, they could do my job while I waited. I raced up to La Canada--the best clerk in the store waited on me (I know this because the folding machine had to have the copies fed one at a time--I was there a long time). He did a beautiful test, we discussed reduction to 98% and rejected it, the finished product was beautiful and the whole time I was waiting (about 45 minutes) I was thinking, this guy deserves a tip. Can you tip a guy at kinko's?
The glendale store quoted me a price of .16 a copy plus .03 per copy for folding. I was calculating a tip that would not insult this wonderful clerk when he started adding up the bill: .29 cents per copy, plus .03 cents per copy for folding. Wow, this was going to be much more expensive than I first thought. Then my rapidly diminishing in wonderfulness clerk explained to me that this was a rush job and normally they do not do jobs like this while you wait. I almost thought he was going to add a surcharge for the rush, but he didn't. I thought to myself, it sounds like this guy is fishing for a tip and here two minutes ago I thought I was the most magnamous person on the planet planning to give him a tip. Dissolutioned and depressed (but with 150 beautiful, half folded programs under my arm) I left. No tip.
The Baccalaureate started at 4:30--the e-mail we got said we should be there at 3:15. At ten minutes to three, Adrienne started ragging on me, wasn't I going to be late? Hardly. It started at 4:30--there's nothing to do at 3:15--those people are all nuts. I got there in plenty of time. They said that they normally get about 70 people at the event--150 programs is plenty. The senior class advisor apparently made an announcement that if the students didn't attend Baccalaureate, then they couldn't go to grad night at Disneyland. I can't tell you how many kids asked where the sign up sheet was to prove they were there. We had a huge turnout and it was soon clear that 150 programs was not enough--I made the ushers start handing them out, one per family. oye. It was a very long, tiring afternoon and no diet coke. I bailed out while there were still eight people cleaning the kitchen for two pots, six pitchers and seven trays--I think eight people could handle that without me, but I still felt guilty not being the last person to leave. Adrienne asked me if I had fun when I got home. It's going to be a long year.
posted by KathrynVH @ 10:41 AM
2 Comments:
At June 11, 2007 at 3:08 PM,
Anonymous said…
You are concentrating on the work and the "woe is me", tell me about the fun and fullfilment.
The tip was just right.
At June 12, 2007 at 9:53 AM,
KathrynVH said…
Well I did see a kid who had been in my girl scout troop--I recognized her mother and grandmother--she didn't look anything like the kid I remembered. I also saw some kids from my class--all dressed up and looking like they were ready to take over the world. Fulfilment, maybe, fun, not so much. But great people--I am glad that I went.
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