How I am NOT like Rabbit

It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said, "Yes, Rabbit " and "No, Rabbit," and waited until he had told them. 

                                                          --From The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

I didn't delegate enough with the 27+-family-garage sale, it turns out, now that I know what's involved. But I did delegate sign-making, and that was was extremely helpful, but also very hard for me. My friend L, who runs her own business and has a very different personality than me, told me, "People like to be told what to do." Which is think is probably true, but, still, I had some concerns.

I asked three people via email to take charge of the signs. One, whom I had never met, had said when she signed up for the sale that she had some signs from a friend's sale we could use. We had a productive exchange about signs in which I tried to subtly suggest she might be a good person to help work on signs. The other two I had met, but one, when volunteering to help with the signs, made it clear that although she wanted to help, she lacked all confidence in her artistic ability, and so might be best at putting them up. The third is a working mom who spends a ton of time and energy on her kids and her local extended family. She offered to help, though, and she is just the kind of clear, direct, and just person you want to work with, so I took her up on it.

I finally decided to ask them if they would form a team and take over the sign project, even though I didn't know if any of them knew each other. So I sent the email, and then left town for a few days. And this is what I did while I was away:

• I worried that they were mad that I was being so bossy.
• I worried that they were thinking I should have just done the signs myself.
• I worried that they had not all gotten in contact with each other. 
• I worried that they had gotten in contact with each other, but were all angry at each other and not getting along.
• I worried there would be no signs/few signs/small signs/etc. when I got back.
• I wondered if I should email to check up on them and how I would do that without sounding even bossier.

I should say that none of these concerns had anything to do with the particular people involved. My concerns came entirely from my own fear of putting myself out there.

Of course, you know what happened. I came back from my trip to find lovely, giant, clear, durable signs at key points around the neighborhood, and immediately I started receiving compliments on them, which I happily passed on to the awesome sign team. As much as I hated asking them to do it, I was thrilled to be able to tell them what a great job everyone thought they were doing.

How I am Like Piglet

"But Piglet wasn't listening, he was so agog at the thought of seeing Christopher Robin's blue braces [suspenders] again. He had only seen them once before, when he was much younger, and being a little over-excited by them, had had to go to bed half an hour earlier than usual; and he had always wondered since if they were really as blue and as bracing as he had thought them. "          -- from The House at Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne

The neighborhood garage sale is Saturday (I have been spending a lot of time on organizing this event; that and the fact that school ended has left me with little time to blog).  About a month ago, I sent out my first email to all the people who had signed up--seventeen people at that point. I sent it one night right before bed, and the next morning checked my email eagerly and a little apprehensively to see if anyone had responded. No one had, but I discovered that a) I had gotten someone's email wrong; and b) I sent everyone a PDF of a blank sheet rather than the flyer I was trying to send.

I quickly re-sent the email with an apology and actual flyer, and by the time I had sent it, I had gotten this response to my original email:

Awesome organization!  Thanks for making this so easy :).

A few minutes later, my husband got out of the bathroom, where he had been checking his email (come on, you know you do it, too!) and came looking for me. He found me laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He asked me if I had seen the nice response. "Yes." I said, "That's why I had to lay down. I'm having a Piglet moment."