Sunday, December 07, 2003
Other People’s Projects
It can start off amiably enough. One of your friends/acquaintances needs help on a project. Of course, they can’t pay you, but you will get a credit and it’s only for a few hours a week. It sounds harmless enough.
Besides, you reason that you will get to reunite with a few old associates from the good ‘ol days.
Unfortunately, the first day the project organizer is two hours late and extremely hung over. Instead of getting out by 6 pm, you are stuck there until almost midnight. You had a whole list of errands to run and to top it off the project organizer doesn’t even apologize for being late.
After a few more Saturdays of his antics, it becomes clear to you that this project is doomed. But, how can you escape without making a permanent enemy?
You could always feign sickness and never return to another meeting. However, that might come back to haunt you in the long run. You could organize a walkout with the other volunteers. But, that might gain you a ton of enemies and lots of bad karma.
The best solution to this is to inform the project organizer of your schedule availability verbally and with a follow-up email.
Bad Project experience:
One of us volunteered on a project with a disorganized control freak. Most of our time was spent running around in circles while the project organizer struggled to articulate the vision to us. After it was all over, the project coordinator did not thank us and even berated some of the team at the wrap party. It was one of those hellish experiences that makes you vow never to volunteer for anything again!
It can start off amiably enough. One of your friends/acquaintances needs help on a project. Of course, they can’t pay you, but you will get a credit and it’s only for a few hours a week. It sounds harmless enough.
Besides, you reason that you will get to reunite with a few old associates from the good ‘ol days.
Unfortunately, the first day the project organizer is two hours late and extremely hung over. Instead of getting out by 6 pm, you are stuck there until almost midnight. You had a whole list of errands to run and to top it off the project organizer doesn’t even apologize for being late.
After a few more Saturdays of his antics, it becomes clear to you that this project is doomed. But, how can you escape without making a permanent enemy?
You could always feign sickness and never return to another meeting. However, that might come back to haunt you in the long run. You could organize a walkout with the other volunteers. But, that might gain you a ton of enemies and lots of bad karma.
The best solution to this is to inform the project organizer of your schedule availability verbally and with a follow-up email.
Bad Project experience:
One of us volunteered on a project with a disorganized control freak. Most of our time was spent running around in circles while the project organizer struggled to articulate the vision to us. After it was all over, the project coordinator did not thank us and even berated some of the team at the wrap party. It was one of those hellish experiences that makes you vow never to volunteer for anything again!
