Incompetent People
I enjoy doing things to help others. I don't mind serving on committees - I don't even mind chairing sub-committees if people really need help. But I really do mind these things when nobody else seems to be putting in a respectable effort. Perhaps it isn't fair to say that NOBODY is putting in effort - just most others aren't.
Such is the case with a committee I am currently working with to plan this year's Cal Summerfest Staff Appreciation Day. I offered to help out, and in the usual fashion, "help out" turned into chair a sub-committee. I ended up being put in charge of the Staff Organizations & Strategic Vendors. I was told to invite the various Stafforgs listed on the Berkeley Stafforg Website along with out Strategic Sourcing Vendors. I did this. Then I started getting all these other requests forwarded to me by our Committee Chair and our Development Coordinator. It turns out that other campus groups should also have been invited - groups that fall into neither of the categories I was told to invite. Silly me...
Finally things started to fall into place and so I set a few deadlines. The early deadline was May 23 and the late deadline was June 2. I still had people wanting to join TODAY! Part of this is because of their own stupidity, but part of it is because others on the committee refuse to say NO. Despite my vehement protestations, exception keep being made to let vendors join my section. It makes me more than a little upset.
To top this off, I really feel that a lot of my time is being wasted in all these meetings I go to. The committee meetings turn more into a place where people are trying to conduct business than a setup where people report on progress. Do I really need to hear the entire discussion between catering and parking? No! I actually got up and left a meeting once because it was so ludicrous.
Things wouldn't be nearly as bad if people would just act a little more responsibly, but it seems competence is something extremely uncommon these days.