Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been at least 20 years since my last confession…
I am constantly on some variation of the “BE NICE!” soapbox. I’ve been known to call people out for posting pictures of strangers on Facebook and making fun of them. I write statuses talking about supporting political candidates instead of bashing. I write entire blog entries about empathy and how making fun of something other people love can be really hurtful.
But y’all? I AM NOT PERFECT.
Case and point:
Our local track club has a kinda terrible website. I’ve spent YEARS making fun of it and getting all self-righteous about how EASY it would be to just create a new one. Then at a meeting once it was announced there WAS a new one and how it just wasn’t ready yet to be launched. So then I changed my self-righteous snark to making fun of THAT delay, “Anything is better than what’s there!” and I would try to be funny but also super-critical of the fact it hadn’t been launched yet.
BUT THEN I GOT ELECTED TO THE POSITION IN CHARGE.
And I haven’t slept well sense. Partly because I feel terrible for all of the snark I dished out when I see how much the people involved work every day on the club. How could they have time to approve the final website when the day-to-day activities take several hours a day and they all have full-time jobs? Why was I so judgemental towards people who sweat blood over this club? I HATE MYSELF.
But also? Y’all? I’m busy as shit just keeping the old website updated. We run 23 (I think that’s the official tally) races through the club but we list all others on our calendar and we share out results. Every weekend there has been AT LEAST one race to load results for. And sometimes they find errors so I have to reload them. Then there are the “please add this race to your calendar” emails of which I have FIVE right now in my inbox. Then there’s the new races that need pages and printable entry forms and there’s updates and changes on old races that need to be made and I’ve been using my morning time as my HTC time and it is NOT ENOUGH. I woke up at 2:30am yesterday to try to get caught up.
And all of this goes on while they’re waiting on me to proof the new website since I’m going to be the one kinda maintaining it once it goes live.
Not to mention we have to evaluate different tools and because of the turnover of the volunteers we have to consider flexibility and there’s a lot of tools out there that do what we need but there are pros and cons we have to weigh and none of us have time because we all have full-time jobs and families and the daily responsibilities for this club take over the “future” obligations so it just keeps getting put off and…
I AM SO SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
I will say that I spent some time last night going through the new site but you know what I had to do? Skip my kid’s basketball practice which is not a HUGE deal except he likes me being there. I had to do it then because I’m using my 1-hour HTC time every morning filling the daily needs and answering emails and making edits in the HTML to the current site. The only thing that motivated me last night was knowing most of my work will go faster on the new site so I need to get it approved and launched ASAP. But it’s really hard when you LITERALLY have no free time.
So I’m sorry for snarking and making fun of something for years that people behind the scenes were stressing over on top of all of the volunteer work they do for the organization. I’m sorry for making it sound easy. IT IS NOT. I’m sorry for not realizing how many emails a day the people involved have to field or how many tasks they have to complete JUST to keep everything rolling forward.
This is what I get for no listening to my own words. Jeezus, Kim. BE NICE FOR CHRISSAKES.
(I feel better now. My soul has been cleansed. Thank you.)
Do you think you and the other people in charge could agree to stop updating the old website for just a few days so you could have time to get the new one up and running? Then maybe you would have time to get that one going and you wouldn’t have to worry about the old one at all and you could just move on with the new one. You could make an announcement on the old website telling everyone there wouldn’t be any news for a few days and then another one when the new site is ready. I’m sure most people would understand, especially when they see the new, awesome site.
I wish! There’s still some testing/approval type things on the demo site. We’re meeting regularly so there’s progress, hoping to have a timeline next week! But there’s still some stuff on the demo site that needs to be changed/corrected before we can launch and THANKFULLY – that’s not my job 🙂 (yet)
Thanks for your efforts, but in the end it will all be worth it (and a few beers or bottle so wine). I completely understand what your going through having gone the same process myself 10+ years ago, except I decided to do it on my own which meant lots of learning. In the end, it was all worth it.
Once the change has been made, expect an increase in membership. I remember moving to Huntsville 3+ years ago, looking at the HTC website and thinking these folks are so far behind the times, that it must be a reflection on the club. Obviously I was wrong, but three times now I have printed off a membership form and not sent it in, but it would have been a done deal if only it was available online.
Thanks for all of your efforts. I look forward to the new site and becoming a member of the HTC.
Maybe not helpful, but a suggestion: Can you ask a friend in the club to help? We did that a lot in NOLA, and it worked great. Some folks helped a lot for short periods of time.
Hi Miss Zoot- I just wanted to let you know that I happened upon your blog through the Bullet Journal posts but I am now so grateful to read your thoughtful and thought-provoking posts. I didn’t just want to be a lurker – I wanted you to know that I am sending you love and gratitude daily.