general rant: making a commitment
Feb. 7th, 2005 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raganiTo: anyone who makes plans with me
From: the one who is tired of doing all the planning, and getting no respect for it
RE: keeping commitments
If you make plans with me (and probably with anyone else, really), to simplify both our lives, please keep these things in mind:
• Before you make a commitment to a specific date, check your schedule to make sure you are not double booking by saying yes
• If you are unsure if you are busy or not, do not make a commitment until you are sure you can fulfill said commitment
• If you do make a commitment, and your plans change, inform the organizer of said plans as soon as you can so she can accommodate for the change
• Don't be afraid to say upfront if you are not sure you can commit to said plans so the organizer knows not to accommodate you until you are are ready to commit - personally, I would much rather hear a tentative "maybe" then a solid "yes" which really should have been a maybe - although, feel free to express an interest in staying informed of plans so you can decide one way or another at a later date
• Also, don't be afraid to say no - I can respect that you may not want to participate in plans, and, if I might ask why, it is only because I am trying to see if there is something that can be done to make it work for you (and face it, if I am disappointed, that is my own issue - be flattered I am disappointed you can't make it, and leave it at that as I will get over it)
• If you suggest a date for said event and that date is chosen, please remember that you made that suggestion, and plans were made to accommodate your needs, so make an effort to attend (remembering the points above about communicating any changes)
I realize not everyone feels the same way about needing to plan, but I wish people would please respect that planning in advance helps me to prepare, which helps my sanity tremendously, and will make for a much happier person at said event. I admit that when events don't go exactly as planned I am disappointed. But I find I am the most frustrated when I feel that I have been held back from planning to my comfort level, or left to do it all alone and left hanging by those that assure me things will be fine if I just stop "forcing them" to actually think in detail about anything.
A well run event does take some forethought, and people make careers of planning events for other people so they don't have to think about the details. In case my friends didn't know, I am not, nor do I desire to be, an event planner for a living. If you ask me to plan an event for you, expect me to want lots of help. This help could be in giving me information, bringing supplies, making food, or even (in fact especially) clean-up. I have actually helped a friend plan a party for his birthday and ended up feeling like we (myself, my boyfriend and roommate) were "hired" help, instead of guests at the party, while most his other guests (including the person who's house we were) slept in the middle of the party. I am a generous person, by nature, but really hate it when people take advantage of my generosity.
It is only February, and I am already done with planning events this year. I am not sure I will be up for planning any of my standard parties. I have one small one scheduled for later this month for a close friend, but beyond that, I just don't see myself wanting to do the work. Even that one is taking its toll, in that I have very few RSVPs yet, and it is a multi stage party that involves making reservations at several places.
Oh, and in case this point has been lost on people (and it seems to have been for some) I cannot read minds. No matter how close we are, and yes, I might see you everyday, if I am not told something, I cannot possibly be expected to know it already. Let me repeat that: If I am not told something, I cannot possibly be expected to know it already.
OK, I will stop now as I have work to do. A place in which I wish I was better at planning, as does my boss, believe it or not.
From: the one who is tired of doing all the planning, and getting no respect for it
RE: keeping commitments
If you make plans with me (and probably with anyone else, really), to simplify both our lives, please keep these things in mind:
• Before you make a commitment to a specific date, check your schedule to make sure you are not double booking by saying yes
• If you are unsure if you are busy or not, do not make a commitment until you are sure you can fulfill said commitment
• If you do make a commitment, and your plans change, inform the organizer of said plans as soon as you can so she can accommodate for the change
• Don't be afraid to say upfront if you are not sure you can commit to said plans so the organizer knows not to accommodate you until you are are ready to commit - personally, I would much rather hear a tentative "maybe" then a solid "yes" which really should have been a maybe - although, feel free to express an interest in staying informed of plans so you can decide one way or another at a later date
• Also, don't be afraid to say no - I can respect that you may not want to participate in plans, and, if I might ask why, it is only because I am trying to see if there is something that can be done to make it work for you (and face it, if I am disappointed, that is my own issue - be flattered I am disappointed you can't make it, and leave it at that as I will get over it)
• If you suggest a date for said event and that date is chosen, please remember that you made that suggestion, and plans were made to accommodate your needs, so make an effort to attend (remembering the points above about communicating any changes)
I realize not everyone feels the same way about needing to plan, but I wish people would please respect that planning in advance helps me to prepare, which helps my sanity tremendously, and will make for a much happier person at said event. I admit that when events don't go exactly as planned I am disappointed. But I find I am the most frustrated when I feel that I have been held back from planning to my comfort level, or left to do it all alone and left hanging by those that assure me things will be fine if I just stop "forcing them" to actually think in detail about anything.
A well run event does take some forethought, and people make careers of planning events for other people so they don't have to think about the details. In case my friends didn't know, I am not, nor do I desire to be, an event planner for a living. If you ask me to plan an event for you, expect me to want lots of help. This help could be in giving me information, bringing supplies, making food, or even (in fact especially) clean-up. I have actually helped a friend plan a party for his birthday and ended up feeling like we (myself, my boyfriend and roommate) were "hired" help, instead of guests at the party, while most his other guests (including the person who's house we were) slept in the middle of the party. I am a generous person, by nature, but really hate it when people take advantage of my generosity.
It is only February, and I am already done with planning events this year. I am not sure I will be up for planning any of my standard parties. I have one small one scheduled for later this month for a close friend, but beyond that, I just don't see myself wanting to do the work. Even that one is taking its toll, in that I have very few RSVPs yet, and it is a multi stage party that involves making reservations at several places.
Oh, and in case this point has been lost on people (and it seems to have been for some) I cannot read minds. No matter how close we are, and yes, I might see you everyday, if I am not told something, I cannot possibly be expected to know it already. Let me repeat that: If I am not told something, I cannot possibly be expected to know it already.
OK, I will stop now as I have work to do. A place in which I wish I was better at planning, as does my boss, believe it or not.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 11:25 pm (UTC)I can read this a few different ways. I guess to me it depends on what they had planned before you stepped in to plan things in more detail.
e.g. My birthday parties: They work pretty well with relatively little planning. If somebody came up with an idea and offerred to come run a more flamboyant affair that required more planning, I probably wouldn't object.
If, in the process of planning, they caused there to be a great deal more work than my plan had involved, get really worked up and stressy about it and stress me out in the process, and then got mad at me for not being happy with the amount of work that's involved, then I'd get irritated.
At that point my perspective is much what you've described: They wanted to plan, so I let them, but then they wanted me to do a whole lot of extra work for a plan that wasn't mine, and then got mad at me for it, and that's not ok.
But if the extra complicated party was MY idea, and I asked for their help because they're better at planning than I am, and then proceeded to not help them make my idea happen, then yeah, I should expect them to be mad at me. (You'll notice I rarely attempt to plan things that are drastically beyond my ken in the first place for this very reason.)
The thing is, the kind of people who don't plan a lot ahead of time are often the same kind of people who really don't find it all that stressfull to handle changes at the last minute. Running to the store for the thing I missed on my last trip is no big deal in my world. So if somebody is stressing at me about it, yeah, my response would be "don't worry so much".
In that case it's a tone of voice thing. "Oh, darn. Could you run and get milk please?" gets "Sure. Anything else?" but "We didn't make a list, and now we have no milk, where is the milk going to come from?!" gets "Calm down, it's not that big a deal!" because the fact that the person is stressing out is a much bigger problem than the fact that there's no milk in the house.
If you're the only one who wanted to plan ahead AND the only one who is inclined to stress about it, while you're hardly more wrong than the people who don't plan because they don't stress, you're definitely not on the same wavelength.
What becomes a problem are the people who don't plan, but *do* stress when their lack of planning causes problems. That's just not ok. They either need to learn to chill, or they need to learn to plan ahead.
I have some areas of my life that are like this, and I'm working on fixing them, and it's slow going, because I'm usually inclined to just chill and let things go, but there are a handfull of things that I'm not supposed to just chill and let go. (Most of them involve money, and the government...) :\
--Ember--