It seems that I rarely agree to do a friend a favor with an accurate prediction of the time it will take. It never takes up the amount of time originally planned. I should remember that people who ask me to do things they can't do themselves also means they have no idea what is entailed or how much time it will take. I've had people look at a silver chain I have made that may have taken a total of 60 or more hours and say, "Oh that's nice, will you make me one?" I remember knitting a beautiful wool afghan in blue and white cable stitch. It took months since I only used to knit when I was sitting down watching TV or conversing...neither activity that I do with people often in the house...so the finished product may take a long time as this did. I said, "This is all wool so please be careful and wash it by hand in cold water." The next time I saw my painstakingly knit afghan, the colors had run together and it was now about 24 inches square and more than an inch thick.
This time I agreed to do a mass mailing for someone trying to get people involved in a task to help themselves on a grand and legal scale. My task was simply to enter email addresses that had been handwritten (over 100 of them) and type the letter handed me, then send it off in blind copy.
I did that within a 2 hour period and thought, "Now that wasn't too bad." Within a few minutes I began to receive delivery failure notices. I have no idea how outdated the addresses were but many were 'unknown' and others indicated that the mailbox was unavailable, triggering my assumption that their ISP or spam controller considered it to be spam....after all, my name would not have been familiar to the receiver.
One responder really laid into me, rather annoyingly. I emailed back: 'Please do not kill the messenger", followed by a description of my limited role. I got an apology and I replied with a question as to whether she wanted me to forward her email to the concerned parties. Another email in which she agreed that I should forward to the person with whom she had not previously spoken, which I did. Then I had to email the forward.
Checking the list and removing the ones that failed took considerable time since the list was not alphabetized. New failures kept coming in throughout the evening. So much for favors that won't take long!! Will I even learn to say, "NO!" Probably not! I like my friends and it is easy for me to do what I know how to do than watch them fumble through time trying to get things done...but i have difficulty asking others to do for me ....but that is for another blog......
This time I agreed to do a mass mailing for someone trying to get people involved in a task to help themselves on a grand and legal scale. My task was simply to enter email addresses that had been handwritten (over 100 of them) and type the letter handed me, then send it off in blind copy.
I did that within a 2 hour period and thought, "Now that wasn't too bad." Within a few minutes I began to receive delivery failure notices. I have no idea how outdated the addresses were but many were 'unknown' and others indicated that the mailbox was unavailable, triggering my assumption that their ISP or spam controller considered it to be spam....after all, my name would not have been familiar to the receiver.
One responder really laid into me, rather annoyingly. I emailed back: 'Please do not kill the messenger", followed by a description of my limited role. I got an apology and I replied with a question as to whether she wanted me to forward her email to the concerned parties. Another email in which she agreed that I should forward to the person with whom she had not previously spoken, which I did. Then I had to email the forward.
Checking the list and removing the ones that failed took considerable time since the list was not alphabetized. New failures kept coming in throughout the evening. So much for favors that won't take long!! Will I even learn to say, "NO!" Probably not! I like my friends and it is easy for me to do what I know how to do than watch them fumble through time trying to get things done...but i have difficulty asking others to do for me ....but that is for another blog......
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