No Hot Dogs? Great!

Once upon a time I was the PTA president at the elementary school our children attended.  I have all kinds of memories and experiences from that time, but this one stands out because it has come back to me so many times.

Our board had planned to hold a reading carnival in the spring.  So we had a buzz session to decide exactly what we wanted to do.  I took all kinds of notes, and then said, "OK, we've talked about a lot of different things.  Let's get organized.  Who wants to be in charge of the hot dogs?"  For 20 seconds no one said a word, so I said, "Alright, great.  No hot dogs."  And I crossed hot dogs off the list.  Then I said, "Who wants to be in charge of balloons?"  Another 20 seconds of silence followed, so I said, "No balloons?  Great!" I crossed balloons off the list.  "Who wants...?"

At that point one of the commissioners stopped me.  She said, "Hold on.  Go back.  I'll do the balloons."  We discussed some particulars, I gave her the budget, and she took control.  I never worried about the balloons. 

The rest of the discussion went well.  Each person offered to head up part of the carnival.  I did not babysit them.  I figured if they wanted hot dogs, they could take care of it.  If it wasn't done, oh well.  No hot dogs!

The funniest part about this is that at least 3 different times when I saw some of those ladies, I got introduced to their friends as "that PTA president who was willing to just cross hot dogs off the list," and the new friends go, "Oh!  That was you!"

Fast forward 10 years.  My friend keeps telling me about a job where she works.  It is an HR position, doing workers' comp and other types of issues.  The woman who currently has the job is busy all the time.  Knowing how irritated I get with stupidity, I said, "Yeah, right.  I'd be the perfect fit for that.  I'd be all, 'Stupid head!  I've told you 14 times that if you don't fill out this form there's nothing I can do for you!'"  She replied, "No cotton candy?  Great!  No form?  Great!"
I might have to think about this job...  ;)