I don’t understand how people can sign up to do something and then not do it. Oh wait. Because I end up having to do it. Hey, we don’t need to sign up to be cookie manager. We’ll just leave that for Tempe. We don’t need to sign up for camp certification. We’ll just leave that for Tempe. Nevermind that I ask other people to do these things and say that I can’t do it all. Too bad. And I keep having girls ask me when they will go camping. Lovely. No pressure there.
I had two other people to run the Spring Book Fair with me. They both had sick kids during the week of the book fair. I worked every single day. I did all the reorders. I restocked the drawers. I handled the money. Which, by the way, I can’t get PTO to take off my hands and deposit. And hey, they don’t need to get back to me. Because the only person running under deadlines is me.
And I’m missing those deadlines. I input the incentive order for the troop for the cookie orders on time, but I had a question and the cookie chair undid my input and now it’s past the due date and I can’t do it. I only hope she will fix it. They wouldn’t punish the scouts for the cookie person, would they?
After last year doing the Art Appreciation Night I asked for a co-chair so it wouldn’t be all me. Literally, the volunteers only had to show up for the evening. I had everything purchased, prepped and there. Someone signed up and told me that I had only to tell them what to do and they would do it.
I find out this month that the person is well-intentioned but unreliable. She seems to have forgotten that she signed up as a co-chair and is only planning to show up to volunteer that night. I keep reminding her, but it isn’t getting anywhere. So this will be all me as well. While I am trying to straighten out the cookie mess, get the money out of my house, finish up the credit to the teachers, take the camp training, which I still have to sign up for, plan scout meetings, handle Easter, summer school and basic life.
I’m drowning. I took myself out of art appreciation for next year. I will tell the parents next year that if they don’t sign up for cookie manager there will be no cookie sales, therefore no activities. I will not be doing soup labels, which I haven’t finished any of this year so far. It doesn’t look like I will be doing the spring book fair. I made it quite clear that I don’t want to do it for cash for PTO, just credit for the school. The PTO president won’t let me do a presentation to the PTO to set up a modest budget to cover the costs with the book fair so there will be more credit, because how many books do we need to buy anyhow? They might want to do it for cash. It won’t be me. I’m not rearranging my family’s life for over two weeks for what comes down to the president and the vice-president making decisions on the money. They can do the work. Yes, stuff is voted on by everyone present at a meeting, but it has been made clear to me that they block presentations, much less getting something on the table for voting. Essentially, they control it.
Which will leave me with the troop. Really, if you get the same training manual that I do and I say there is a class that we must take to go camping, look it up! I don’t have time to sign myself up, much less tell you when to do it. I didn’t want to be leader in the first place. I wanted to be co-leader.
Three weeks from now and I will be down to just scouts.
So e
