What One Should Not Do, Part deux.

A few posts back I was celebrating my 2008 Organizer book, and talking about my full class. Well, I managed to squeeze 3 more people in, bringing the class to 11 women. Tonight was the big night. And, it was a gong show.

Earlier in the evening, Denise had used a phrase along the lines of "so organized I'm disorganized"...I think that is an appropriae description of me tonight. I had everything prepped well in advance... so far in advance it wasn't fresh in my head. Well, that and just some general stupidity.


I think it all started when the afternoon was insane, complete with "Cranky Pants" who insisted she was sold the wrong refill pages becasuse they didn't come with cardstock... then as I was trying to print of the instructions I'd e-mailed to the store, I could not open them on any of our beloved computers. Thankfully, Kelly showed up extra early and I was able to send her to my house to pick up my laptop.

All 11 people arrived and we promptly started at 6:30. It was all going smoothly until I realized I'd made a mistake on the printed calendar, which was very fixable, but just totally threw me off (and a bad word left my lips) and from there it was a downward spiral, including the "brilliant hole punch stencil" that I'd created weeks ago to save people time & measuring, but decided to finish at the store with the better hole punch, that never did get the holes actually punched... sweet April catching me at least twice with, "shouldn't we be...." before I led the class further astray, plus both bind-it-all machines (the store's and my own) became completely consitpated with punched-bits. LESSON HERE: REMEMBER TO EMPTY OUT THE TRAP REGULARLY!!! and Heather and I had to dig the crap out before she could do her book....

Plus I forgot the notepads at home, and no one at my house was picking up the phone. They are the last thing to go in after the book is bound, so not the end of the world, but I was soooo mad at myself, (and Joel for being in the hot tub with the kids when I needed him to save the day!)

I have little "thanks for your patience" gifts to go with the notebooks I'll be dropping off for everyone in the next day or so. (Take a class from me! I might kind of screw it up enough that you'll get free stuff!)

So I ended the evening running back and forth from the cash desk where people were finishing their shopping, the front door to unlock and let people who were done leave, all while I was still giving the bind-it-alls a colonoscopy and helping people finish. It was a little nutty.


So, now I will just lie here all night, replaying the whole fiasco, thankful for a very very friendly, patient, flexible, fun group of girls in my class, re-thinking how I would do it again, wonder what I was thinking taking on 11 people the first time I attempt this, and most of all the irony of "personal organizer" class that was so disorganized!

So for all of you instructors out there who have had a class that was not quite a smooth as planned, I feel your pain!

For all of you who have been in a class with a few glitches, be patient with the instructors, they really do mean well!

As for me, well, I think I'll count this as professional development... I learned a LOT tonight!