Saturday 8 March 2014

"Well Cat doesn't go to work so....

maybe she could do it?" someone at the meeting said.
There was silence. I did not explode. It was a close thing. The person who said this is retired and has time on his hands. He loves to organise other people. He loves meetings. He loves to run meetings. He could do what needed to be done much more easily than me - but it involves real work.
Thankfully he was not running this meeting. I looked at the person who was running it. She knew what I was thinking. 
"I think," she told him, "You might find that Cat is rather too busy for that."
I was at the meeting which should have been held on Tuesday morning. It was held very early yesterday - before several people went to work. We met at the only coffee place open in the shopping centre at that hour. It's central for all but one person, close enough for me to pedal there and for another person to walk.
"I have to go back to work."
I managed to say this quietly but I was fuming. I am not a member of this committee. I had agreed to come so that they could call on my knowledge, indeed I had been prepared to perhaps miss something else I wanted to go to in order to be there on Tuesday - and thankfully did not have to do that when the meeting was cancelled.
The other person, who really does have time on his hands and does not know what to do with his retirement, is a professional "meeting" person. He loves committees but he does not like work. His working life was like that. People said he was "good at delegating" but, in his case, it was often laziness. He would see to it that people did the things he did not want to do. He irritated me then and now, when he does have time to do things, he makes me angry.
There are too many people like that. They like the importance of "being on the committee" but they don't like doing the other work involved.  I am sorry but I am not going to do their work for them.

3 comments:

jeanfromcornwall said...

Reminds me of a boss I once had - trouble with these people is that they have so little self-knowledge, and they fail to realise that the rest of us are wise to their faults.

catdownunder said...

Yes - and you do wonder when someone has been living with themselves for 68 years!

the fly in the web said...

Tell me!