The other day, the school began sending home the invitation for the annual volunteer celebration. I have already received two of them and might find myself with a third, since three of our children currently attend the school. I've wondered about the repeats, the waste of paper, but I've talked to the PTO (I'm not a part of it but I have friends that are) and they've explained that while they do try to conserve paper, it is more important that whatever news needs to be shared gets home to the parents. I still feel as though there could be a "family" list that sits in the office and some way of making it so that people with multiple children only see the information once. I do wonder how much paper and printing that would save.
However, I digress. That is not the point of today's post. What is? The two letters came home under very different names. They both had the proper first name, but one had Tim's last name and one had something that looked like it was trying to be mine. I laughed when I read them. The fact that I have not changed my name sometimes causes problems. People simply aren't sure what to call me. And even though I'm registered with the school office with my own last name, because they see me with the kids, they often call me Mrs. M. No big deal. Again, I laughed, and then made a very grave error.
I posted to Facebook what I thought, was a tongue in cheek comment. I said something similar to this:
Well, a friend called in the evening and told me that my post generated a few bad things for her that day. She happens to be PTO Co-President. She said, "I just want to tell you that I know you didn't mean any ill-will with this, but this is what happened." She then went on to say that two things occurred because of my little post:
However, I can only say that people really need to learn to direct their energies in the proper directions. And I don't mean my friend. She had every right to call and inform me of her day. But the people that called her (and I'm not certain how many actually did contact her)? In my opinion, find something else to complain about. Not all communications from the school get distributed at the same time. Teachers forget to pass things out all the time, or don't have a chance to do so. If you are expecting a flyer to reach you, don't panic until the end of the week, and then make a nice phone call to the office to inquire about it. In addition, I would never, never, never take an incorrectly spelled name to heart, nor would I castigate someone over it. That ain't my style. I learned a long time ago to let go of such things, I lightened up my life, kept the important stuff and tossed out the trivial. I think a few people could stand to do that as well.
Had I been my friend, I would have calmly explained to the first person that flyers don't always reach the intended recipients at exactly the right time (which I am sure she did). And the second person? I'd have said, "If you know Chris at all, you know she's kidding. No big deal." Which gets me thinking I need to delete a few of these "don't quite know me" friends from my list.
However, I digress. That is not the point of today's post. What is? The two letters came home under very different names. They both had the proper first name, but one had Tim's last name and one had something that looked like it was trying to be mine. I laughed when I read them. The fact that I have not changed my name sometimes causes problems. People simply aren't sure what to call me. And even though I'm registered with the school office with my own last name, because they see me with the kids, they often call me Mrs. M. No big deal. Again, I laughed, and then made a very grave error.
I posted to Facebook what I thought, was a tongue in cheek comment. I said something similar to this:
"Hey PTO: After all the hours I put in over there, do you think you could make sure my name is correct? Chris M is fine, even Chris M [an alternate spelling of Tim's last name]. But Chris C [horribly misspelled]? Don't worry, I'll still be a faithful volunteer. And thank you for the hard work you do."Friends "liked" the post, especially those that spend half of their lives spelling their names out for people and I thought people would know that I was kidding. I have dealt with an incorrectly spelled last name for almost 40 years. Why would it really bother me now? A snafu on the list and a volunteer who didn't know me probably explained the whole thing, right?
Well, a friend called in the evening and told me that my post generated a few bad things for her that day. She happens to be PTO Co-President. She said, "I just want to tell you that I know you didn't mean any ill-will with this, but this is what happened." She then went on to say that two things occurred because of my little post:
- Someone called and said, "Hey, where is my invitation to the celebration?"
- Someone else called and said, "How could this happen? She puts in a lot of hours there. Make sure it doesn't happen again."
However, I can only say that people really need to learn to direct their energies in the proper directions. And I don't mean my friend. She had every right to call and inform me of her day. But the people that called her (and I'm not certain how many actually did contact her)? In my opinion, find something else to complain about. Not all communications from the school get distributed at the same time. Teachers forget to pass things out all the time, or don't have a chance to do so. If you are expecting a flyer to reach you, don't panic until the end of the week, and then make a nice phone call to the office to inquire about it. In addition, I would never, never, never take an incorrectly spelled name to heart, nor would I castigate someone over it. That ain't my style. I learned a long time ago to let go of such things, I lightened up my life, kept the important stuff and tossed out the trivial. I think a few people could stand to do that as well.
Had I been my friend, I would have calmly explained to the first person that flyers don't always reach the intended recipients at exactly the right time (which I am sure she did). And the second person? I'd have said, "If you know Chris at all, you know she's kidding. No big deal." Which gets me thinking I need to delete a few of these "don't quite know me" friends from my list.
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