Tales From the Coordinator

I don't quite know how it happened, but I've somehow become the de facto coordinator for my social circle at work.  It wasn't something I ever aspired to be, but about a bajillion lunches later, here I am.  It's not terribly difficult, although coordinating different people's schedules can take a little bit of time and patience.  Even so, it's usually no big deal because people work with me to make sure things work out.

Then again, there are also the times when people decide to totally screw with the process.  Whether they are doing this on accident or because they're selfish, it often results in all sorts of interesting anecdotes.  Heck, you might even say it results in (mild) amusement.

The latest example of this just so happened to be from the same person in the link above.  Now, in order for this to make a little more sense, you'll need a little background info.  We usually set up a monthly happy hour and dinner soiree with the work crew.  Since we usually end up going to places that let us sit and order food, we need to make a reservation.  It's hard to drop in and find a table for 12, for example.  So, I always ask people to let me know if they're coming so I can make a reasonably accurate reservation.

A couple of months ago, a whole boatload of people decided that the "kindly tell Sam if you're coming" rule didn't apply to them.  We had something like six people just show up, or show up late and assume it was all right if they just dropped by.  We tried as best as we could to fit people, but at some point, it became a fire hazard.  Let's just say that the wait staff was not particularly thrilled with us.

Anyhow, as a result of this, I'm usually far more explicit about asking people to get back to me (I also chided/teased the people who showed up unannounced, so they know better now).  In this case, I specifically wrote, "if we're celebrating your birthday, invite whomever you want.  Otherwise, check with me first."  Again, the idea was to make sure we didn't end up with another fire hazard.

So what was the brilliant course of action that this person settled on?  He forwarded the invitation to his girlfriend (that's strike one, it wasn't his birthday), and he then failed to respond to me about his own attendance (that'd be strike two).  I figured out he had done this because his girlfriend responded to the invitation, even though he hadn't.  That was slightly annoying, but at least I could account for it all.

Then, it got even better.  The girlfriend canceled because she had to be in a meeting at the same time, so I stopped worrying about her.  The guy still hadn't responded, so I had to hunt him down and ask him  (his response: "oh yeah, sorry, I just skimmed the invitation and forwarded it").  Then on the morning of said outing, I get an instant message from him, "[the girlfriend] is coming, just so you know."  Note, he didn't ask if we still had space, he declared that she was now taking up 1 seat instead of 0 seats (those would be strikes three through six; I need to exact some payback on this joker).

Surprisingly, someone else had dropped out, so this plan of action managed to work out.  I almost wish it hadn't, but them's the breaks.  Still, the whole thing made for a good story once I got over being annoyed.  Even better, I learned the following things:

• People are surprisingly good at suppressing their ability to read.  I'm going to start putting in random clauses like, "if you fail to do X, Y, and Z, you owe me $20 bucks" to take advantage of this fact
• If you're consistently oblivious, things sometimes work out in your favor
• Teasing people is still a good way of encouraging them to do the right thing.  I think I'm going to have to do more of it.