Throwing Myself Under the Bus

I think I’ve proven by now that sometimes I really don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. You’d think I’d have learned. You’d think that I would have some small sense of self-preservation that would say “Ahuva – don’t, just don’t”. But no. That does not seem to be the case. I committed the cardinal sin the other day. I volunteered. Yep, I threw myself under the uncoming bus,my eyes wide open, believing somehow that I would emerge unscathed. I’d LOVE to blame my co-worker. In fact I tried, but in truth, said co-worker merely encouraged me to play in traffic. I wasn’t pushed. I jumped.

I work for a company that does some business in SL. I have joined the SL interest group, I’ve attended some meetings in-world. Now there is a conference being held in-world. I met one of the conference chairs, J, at a party in SL several weeks ago. I expressed an interest in being able to help, as much as a “dumb user” can help. So J suggested that I contact her via email in RL. I did so, and repeated that I was offering my “dumb user” help. Are YOU getting the point here??? Are you understanding the skill set involved???? Gee, I hope someone is. 🙂 Next thing I know I am on the list of mandatory attendees for the set-up meetings. Gulp. Okay, be careful what you ask for (yes – I DO know that is a dangling participle -ignore it). You just may get it. So I begin to attend the weekly hour-long meetings. These meetings have been a real-eye opener, but for reasons NOT related to SL. I’ll merely say it’s fascinating to watch how different groups approach the task of holding a conference.

So I bide my time quietly at these meetings. My biggest contribution up to last week was testing someone else’s script. LOL. A woman approached me and asked me to click on her name tag. I was supposed to receive her business card. Didn’t work. 🙂 Can I put “script debugging” on my resume now? 🙂 Then sometime last week J decided that we needed trees to make the conference location look more attractive. Fine, trees are nice, no big deal. Do you see the bus coming over the hill?

No one is volunteering to be responsible for the trees. That meeting ends. Trees still not assigned. The next meeting occurs. Again the call for trees. Again people volunteer for other tasks but no one wants to plant trees. A co-worker and I are somewhat baffled at the insistence for trees, but what the heck, WE aren’t chairing the conference. Third meeting. Vroom! VROOM!!! Trees. I IM to my coworker and say “What’s the big deal? How hard can it be to find a bunch of trees that are copy/modify and modify them? Do you think I could do that?” Supposed friend and co-worker replies “Sure. Easy. You could do that.” VROOOOM!!! So I say “J, I don’t know too much about building trees but I will give it a try.” SCREEEEEEECH!!!!!!!!!! J says “Thanks, Ahuva! That’s great!!” THUD!!! I am under the bus.