November 9, 2010

One Eye Roll Too Many

The curse of death for any board meeting is the phrase, "Tonight's meeting should be a quick one." It never quite happens like that. This week is a crazy week for me and I didn't count on spending four hours in a meeting on a Monday night. That will frustrate the living daylights out of any normal person, let alone a very stressed out one.

I get frustrated at these meetings for several reasons. First, although I am the secretary on the board and therefore an officer, sometimes I get treated more like a secretary in an office building. Half way through the meeting last night, I had a list with at least seven "to do" items on it. I may be the Secretary, but some people seem to think that I'm their secretary. It gets really annoying. I am hoping that on Sunday, after the election, I can get rid of the secretary title and can just be a regular run-of-the-mill board member.

Another reason I get frustrated is because there's only a handful of people on the board who volunteer and do things to help out, while there is another faction that graces us with their presence once a month at the meeting to complain that the fish at the club is mushy. It would be fine if the mushy fish statement would bea simple statement, like a thesis statement, perhaps. But these statements tend to be more like tirades, diatribes really. We have one board member in particular who is quite talented at taking one sentence worth of information and weaving it into a good 20 minutes of the exact same sentence, just worded slightly different (or sometimes not at all different).

When you have a pile of papers to grade at home and you know you have to wake up at 6:30 to be on campus for your 8 a.m. class the next day, you don't need the world's longest speech about mushy fish.

The frustrating thing that sent me over the edge last night came in the form of a dramatic eye roll directed at me, before I was even able to finish my statement. What happened afterward can only be described as an out of body experience. After being subjected to months of eye rolls, dirty looks, growls and other nonsense from this particular woman, I just completely snapped.

I don't remember everything I said. I know I started off with something like, "Don't you roll your eyes at me!" to which she barked at me that she hadn't and then I basically called her on the table and told her she was a liar and that she had indeed rolled her eyes at me. I felt like I was scolding a child who was talking back to me. I have a feeling she never knew what hit her.

When I was finished with my outburst I apologized to the board for my outburst, but added that "it needed to be said."

It did. No one defended the eye rolling woman. I did get a couple looks of approval from other board members who were probably thinking it was about time that someone said what I said.

I thought a lot about my outburst during the rest of the meeting. I contemplated whether or not I should approach her after the meeting and apologize for yelling. I'm just completely overwhelmed and frustrated with how much I had to do this week. I thought about explaining that to her and how it makes me feel when she sits there rolling her eyes at me. And then I decided against it. She has treated me like absolute dirt since she met me. She hates me because I'm young and outspoken. She hates me because I want to make the club more family friendly and she would rather sip her happy hour drink without my children being there for dinner. In a word, it's hopeless.

It's not like I go around telling people off on a regular basis; but I certainly know how to do it when it's well deserved. Some people need a wake-up call to snap them out of their madness. I don't know if what I said will have any impact on her at all. I do know that she didn't say a whole lot after I went off on her. I probably saved us all another 20 minutes worth of more mushy fish tirade though. If that's the case, that alone was worth it.

After the meeting, another board member came up to me in private and said that she wishes she could speak the way I do. I told her I hadn't the foggiest idea of most of what I'd said. She assured me that I hadn't done any swearing and that I was just firm and professional, while strongly putting that woman in her place. I was relieved to hear this, because I was worried I looked like a crazy lunatic who had completely lost it. I'm sure the woman I was directing it at thinks the latter. That's fine by me.

I tolerate a lot from people; I really do. But I have my limits and I have no problem telling people where to stick it when it's deserved.

My husband doesn't call me the verbal machine gun for nothing.