Passive-aggressive "schedule send"

[rebeccmeister]

I have hit a breaking point with rowing club administrivia taking up too much time during the work day, so this morning I am making very aggressive use of "schedule send." I'm not sure exactly how many messages I've queued up so far, but it's not a small number.

This strategy means I can actually work my way through the list of things I want to get done, without interrupting myself dealing with message reply ping-pong.

Hopefully it will also mean other people might discover that I am setting boundaries. I have had to put too much energy into scheduling meetings, and now people are bailing on meetings left and right. shalpacafarm sent me a little jpg yesterday that decoratively says, "I do not have the bandwidth to attend another meeting" but I really need it to have "attend" crossed out and replaced with "schedule" and a certain expletive inserted between "another" and "meeting." I suspect people are out of the bandwidth required to recognize how exhausting it is to try and schedule and arrange things for them.

If nothing else schedule send is giving me temporary relief this morning.

Now it's just about time to close that tab for the rest of the day so I can get back to assembling a 200-page course booklet for the scientific writing class. That's a whole 'nother story. At least when the booklet is done, it will go to print and be done for this year.

/rant

Comments

[moodyduck]

Scheduling-type admin is a HUGE use of energy and mind-capacity and transition time. I think a lot of people don't recognize that.

[rebeccmeister]

Thank you for recognizing and acknowledging it.

I wish I had better ways of doing it, but I suspect it's always just kind of awkward and cumbersome. With students at least, last year I finally learned how to create calendar appointment slots. Hmm, tempting to make calendar appointment slots for rowing, now, too!

Half of the time, with rowing things, people are like, "So, what time is ___ going to start?" and then I look at them, and I go, "Oh, uhhhhhh, 8 am? Yeah. 8 am."

I goofed up recently, but it was a small goof-up. We had a combined practice from 8 - 10:30 am. I scheduled a potluck for 11 am. I should have made it a potluck brunch at 10:30 am. I mean, that's what it turned into anyway, so I guess it was fine.

Bleah.

[annikusrex]

It was totally fine!