Management, Why I Don't Like Doing

Ugh. I went to a meeting of library directors yesterday to be sure my library's proxy vote could be 'legally' counted. Aside: ever noticed how some people really only enforce the legalities when things get testy, or when it suits them?

ANYway. Praise God I don't have to go to these meetings regularly. I said quietly to one of the directors (whom I'd just met) that it was like junior high all over again. Someone else overheard and suggested I was too old: more like "toy-truck-throwing age." Appalling. These are our leaders? I hasten to add that only four individuals were being schmucks...out of 16...and one was just being stupidly rulebound. Having just counted around the table, I also find it interesting that no one sat directly next to the chair or the secretary, instead pulling chairs to corners of the table.

I also never realized that you can see evil in people's lips. OK, not really, but one specific individual's mouth shape (not to mention the words issuing from that mouth) just looks...mean. "Mean" in all of the following senses:

1. offensive, selfish, or unaccommodating; nasty; malicious: a mean remark; He gets mean when he doesn't get his way. [the sentence is 100% accurate, by the way]
2. small-minded or ignoble: mean motives.
3. penurious, stingy, or miserly: a person who is mean about money.
4. inferior in grade, quality, or character: no mean reward.
5. low in status, rank, or dignity: mean servitors. [my color emphasis]
6. of little importance or consequence: mean little details.
...
10. troublesome or vicious; bad-tempered: a mean old horse.
11. Slang. skillful or impressive: He blows a mean trumpet. [my color emphasis, and do not assume I see this as admirable in this case!]

I love some of the synonyms listed, too:

contemptible, despicable. Mean, low, base, sordid, and vile all refer to ignoble characteristics worthy of dislike, contempt, or disgust. Mean suggests pettiness and small-mindedness: to take a mean advantage. Low suggests coarseness and vulgarity: low company. Base suggests selfish cowardice or moral depravity: base motives. Sordid suggests a wretched uncleanness, or sometimes an avariciousness without dignity or moral scruples: a sordid slum; sordid gain. Vile suggests disgusting foulness or repulsiveness: vile insinuation; a vile creature. 3. niggardly, close, tight, parsimonious, illiberal, ungenerous, selfish. See stingy. 5. common, humble; undignified, plebeian. 6. inconsequential, insignificant, petty, paltry, little, poor, wretched. 7. squalid, poor. [again, all color highlighting is mine]

Give me my stack of items to be added to the catalog, with their need of properly formatted 300 fields and so forth, and I'm a happy camper. As annoying as some of the stuff is with cataloging and classifying, at least there is no pettiness coming toward me! :-)

On the other hand, our youth group did a marvelous job last night feeding the church our traditional Ash Wednesday spaghetti dinner, and made enough to nearly cover the cost of renting the van to drive to our mission trip this summer. We had a lot of fun with the kids. I do like to hang around with teenagers. Does that make me insane? heh I was paid several nice compliments, both personally and organizationally, and so I came home tired, but upbeat ... and finished updating the official annual report for our church online. It was due at midnight. Nothing like waiting till the 11th hour, literally: I printed the final draft at 11:06 p.m.

And now I'm off to think about what I'm doing today besides going to work at noon. No more library meetings for awhile, thank God!!