No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Sad day------after personally defending the PTA President twice this week:

Phone call, late in the afternoon on the last day to turn in ticket orders that I am processing (because I was coercively manipulated into doing this job for the PTA---see my previous blog posts):

Me: Hello

'Betty'(PTA Pres.):  Hey, how is it going with organizing the ticket sales?

Me:  (putting on a happy face, trying to be positive) Great, I am all caught up, just have the last few orders that came home with my child today.

Betty:  Good.  I was calling because someone called today to see if you needed help. You have done such a great job with this you will be asked to do more things.

Thoughts swarming in my head right about now:  Glad to be offered help on the last hour of the last day.  And: What?  Am I 10?  Do you think I am going to fall for that line of crap?  (insert syrupy, overly animated tone of voice here) "Your so good at this we need you........"=You are so good at folding the laundry dear, you get to do it from now on!---ha!!! No good deed goes unpunished!

Betty:  Another mom has spent some time brainstorming on our next venture but, while she has such creative ideas she cannot go out and shop for the necessary items and put it all together.  So you and I can get together next week and kick it out. (Notice, she did not ask me; she stated that we would be doing this together next week.  I find this cohersive and manipulative---at best!!)

5 seconds of loud, awkward silence

My emotions:  Anger/Disgust/Anguish/Disgust/Disbelief..........

Me:  I got my fill this past week. (it was all I could muster up after being put on the spot by the very woman I had defended earlier in the week; do you think that's going to happen again???)

Betty:  Well, you should have said you were overwhelmed not, 'I'm doing great and I'm all caught up.'

Me:  I'm caught up because I worked on it every single day.

Betty:  Well, I guess we will get this next event taken care of somehow.

Me: Yeah, I guess............

And, with the heaviness felt by both parties even over the phone lines, we said our goodbyes.

I promptly went to the PTA FB page and opted out of the group.  I do not want to be associated.  I don't want my friends afraid to pick up the phone when I call them.  I don't want to be that mom.

I Don't Want to be a Party to This!

Okay, so I have been trudging along doing the job the 'committee' commited me to.  Just put on my happy face and did what they asked (even put up with their micro managing!).


But, then I get an email asking for me to share the names of all the people that have purchased tickets to the event that is being organized stating, 'if they are going to be there, they can volunteer!' (and they added the exclamation point, not me).  Knowing how I feel about this new wave of coercive volunteer recruitment you can imagine the conflict I felt.  I have a philosophical issue with essentially putting a target on my fellow parents' heads.  I was physically ill. I did not want to be a party to this.  Just last week, when I was at the school helping organize (because a friend actually asked me straight forward for help---leaving it a voluntary decision on my part to participate or not---imagine!) I overheard another mother expressing her dismay that she a friend had actually volunteered her to help.  And the mom she was speaking to stating that they are now pitting moms against other moms (have you heard that somewhere before?----I'm not making this stuff up!).  Later that day the mom that was expressing her frustration got into an altercation at the school with the very mom that threw her under the bus.  It has come to this: The PTA is affecting our relationships with our very support system! And now, I am faced with being that mom.  Again, I am physically ill over this.............