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Getting a Big Head

Every year, my company participates in United Way's Week of Caring. It's a good cause, and it's an excuse to get out of the office, so I usually agree to help out. I'll let you decide which of the two is a bigger motivator, but if you pick the second one, we need to have words.

Anyhow, this past week was the Week of Caring. There is actually quite a bit of work that needs to be done before the actual event, so every project is assigned a coordinator. Really, it's a sensible way to make sure that the organizations we work with get the help they need. One interesting side effect of this system, though, is that the project coordinator is now a position that gets recognition/exposure. As a result, the various clubs & employee organizations try to show a presence by snapping up projects, putting their people in the coordinator positions, and then filling the project slots with their people.

The newbie club is no different, so they scooped up three projects. I happen to be a part of the newbie club (for those of you making "you're old" jokes, I'm the elder statesmen of the group, okay?), so I basically got to pick from one of those three projects. However, they were having trouble filling the slots for one of those projects, so it wasn't much of a choice. That's not to say that the project itself was in some way unappealing (I was going to be there, how much more incentive did people need?), but that's just how it worked out.

The project involved putting on a computer skills seminar for people who were basically computer-illiterate. We knew all of that going in, but, initially, we didn't tailor our presentation appropriately. Our contact at the organization putting on the event realized this, so she helped us navigate those early moments. For example, she was the one who suggested we cover how to turn the computer on and off. Anyhow, our initial showing was not exactly impressive.

We did, however, get better as we went along. Incidentally, the middle section was the part that I was going to present, so I'd like to think that the quality was directly proportional to how much I talked. Seriously, though, we did adjust to the audience once we realized what their collective skill level looked like. Once we did that, the clients learned at a much quicker pace, and they picked up the skills that we were trying to teach. Basically, we did our job well after that rocky start.

In fact, our contact at the site mentioned to me that she thought the event was going really well. Me being me, I jokingly told her, "you don't want to say that to me, it'll go to my head. These guys are going to have to pay for it on Monday morning." We both laughed, and since the break was about to end, we headed back to our stations to continue the presentation.

I just happened to be doing the next section, so I ended up talking for a while after that. It's not like everyone else was being lazy; we had set up the presentation so that everyone but the person presenting the current section walked around to answer questions or give hands-on help. Still, it was my turn to talk, so I did. By this point, things were going well enough that the project contact was starting to feel comfortable with us, and she started cracking jokes:

Project Contact: "Wow, look at Sam doing it all, we might as well make him do the whole thing."
Sam (that'd be me): "Eh, it was just my turn"
Project Contact: "Well, seriously, you're doing a good job. I think the clients are getting something out of it"
Sam: "Well, I ain't trying to brag, but ... " *pops collar* (if you've got jokes, so do I)

Clearly, I was kidding. However, it had become the running joke that I was going to let the compliment go to my head. It probably didn't help that the other guys were chiming in with jokes of their own (thanks a lot, guys). Normally, I wouldn't care too much, because I would never see these people again. In this case, though, I thought that the program was worthwhile enough that I was considering coming back for seconds. You could almost see the light bulbs turning on for some of the clients, and there was a real chance that we made a difference in the lives of the clients.

So, I'm now considering doing some more work with this organization, but I'm going to have to face scrutiny/jokes if I go back. If anything, I think I've guaranteed the exact opposite - there's no way I'm getting a big head this way. Then again, they gave us cake as a thank you gift. How many of you were handed your own cake for a job well done last week? *pops collar*

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