Hear That?

** crickets **   ** the refrigerator running ** 

That's the sound of the first day of school.  Not at school, no.  Chez Annie.  Whew. 

We had a great summer.  Two great trips, lots of fun camps, time at the pool and with friends, even boring jammie days.  We did it all.  And I'm not really the kind to do the back-to-school dance, well, not this year anyway.  School is hard work -- what with homework, clubs, teams, homework, .... oh, did I say HOMEWORK!  Summer's lack of structure makes me happy.  It makes my kids crabby.  So, back to school we go. 

The traditional back-to-school photo shoot happened this morning, up and down the street, kids in plaid and navy blue, wearing character backpacks, standing on steps or in front yards, getting their pictures taken.  The Serious picture isn't that great -- a pic of my kids.  But to get them to be serious, I have to promise them a silly picture afterward (so much more appealing with a digital camera -- no more paying to develop silly pictures).  Um, right. I'm so proud. 

Now onto quasi knitting subject matter and back to Yahoo groups.  I mentioned the Townsend Sock group when I blogged about Yahoo groups.  Such a cute group, normally, and great sock patterns for free.  All the help you can stomach as well -- really nice ladies and gentleman over there.  But this last week, whooeee.  Such a kerfuffel. (Yeah, it's a real word, look it up.)  Apparently someone in the group sent out an email (or several, I wasn't included or I just deleted it -- more on that later) asking for donations to give to the list mom, Jeanne.  This woman, the gifter, a variation of whose name I've seen on lots of groups,  supposedly then used all or some of the money to buy stuff for the list mom from the woman's own ebay shop -- stuff that maybe wasn't selling?  Stuff apparently the list mom couldn't use or didn't want -- whatever.  The group's all of a dither.  Kind of like a car accident -- unsavory or downright distasteful to watch, but hard to look away at the same time. 

Which brings me to my point -- I've gotten no fewer than five emails (if this woman sent me one, which I bet she did) asking me to donate yarn and needles or to just plain paypal someone money for a giftie thing for some member or list mom of a yahoo group.  In the last, oh, say, 3 weeks!  I delete them as I usually don't know the requester -- but, whew. 

My email information was given to the group in order that I might receive updates.  What would Miss Manners say about these members using information given in confidence in order to issue gift summonses?  I think I know, but I'm willing to concede I might be a tad crotchety -- just a tad.  Have you gotten these requests?  More of them lately?  Do they ... um ... bother you?  I feel like I'm working in an office or English department again, where everyone is pressured to give some money so some enterprising/pushy soul can buy a gift certificate to the Country Buffet for the birthday girl.  Sheesh.

Anyway, what I'd rather do in this case is pay this lovely woman for her patterns -- that just makes more sense to me.  Then she can buy the yarn and needles she wants.  Just sayin'.

Comments

[Bridgett]

Congrats to you & kids on school return.
Yes, your yahoogroup situation is tacky. Really. I had a quilting group that kind of imploded that way. Well-intentioned people but bad follow-through or a kill-two-birds mentality that was not kosher (like buying up yarn that wasn't selling).

[Jenn]

I haven't seen those types of e-mails, but I'm only one one knitting group anyway.

Now I'm wondering if my parents were slacking - we never had first day of school pictures. Cute!

[Susan]

Hmmm. . . thus far I haven't received any requests for gifting of list moms on any of my lists. My feeling is that it's spam when someone asks you to do that, except in the case where there are extenuating circumstances.

How well I remember having to pony up for office gifts. I will never forget the day that I was given a "bill" for $35 to pay for a floral arrangement for the department head's grandfather's funeral. Not only did no one in the department know that the man had died, we didn't know that anything was sent until after the fact. For $35 each, I imagine we probably had the largest floral arrangement at the funeral. The department head ordered it herself, so the card probably didn't even indicate that it was her serfs who were paying for it. I was young and intimidated and I complied with the demand for the money, but if I ever had someone do that to me again, I'd just say no. . .of course, if I'd done that then, I probably would have been fired.

[Lucia]

Lucky you: we don't start for another two weeks. In the meantime, I'm thinking of starting a Yahoo group.

[Mary Beth]

I know what you mean about the donations! My husband actually (somehow) got his check GARNSIHED for a Secretary's Day donation! Small company and boy were we ticked. What ever happened to taking care of these things yourself? I think I would be agreeing with you when I say that handing out an e-mail for the reason you did does not license soliciting and is considered "bad form". Boy I can also relate to the trainwreck story....I have had several of these in the past 4 years.

LOVE the pic of the kids....LOL. My kids are HAPPY to be back in school. Win-Win for me! :)

[Amanda]

Happy First day of school!!!!! Ours went well.

I agree about the e-mails. They over step the bounds. Some people don't understand limits.

[Carole]

The first day of school here is still 2 weeks away. But since Hannah is still on Martha's Vineyard, well, things are pretty quiet.
As for the gift request stuff, I haven't received those myself but if I did I'd just delete them. I have plenty of charities that I donate too and enough family and friends to gift without gifting to total strangers.

[Michelle]

I never cared for the C lady wont' order from her and I was invited and sent several emails btu would NEVER give it to her!! She can not be trusted but I don't post to any groups. Just ignore them. jeannie is a wonderful person and I dont' think she had anything to do with this at all. I hope you stay with thte list. I've test knit for her in the past and she has always coem through and took care of her list without anything in return... Last year In precvious years I have included gift certificates for her to include in the basket but Jeannie didn't always receive them I stay uninvolved as much as possible...;o)

[Laura]

I actually did donate for the gift to the pattern maker. Each person could do it if they wanted to. I wanted to. It wasn't like some giant amount of money and I was willing to go along with the idea in the interest of appreciating her for the patterns that she lets us use for free. If I didn't feel like I knew who the "asker" was, I would have deleted. But she seems to have a decent reputation - several people I know have bought stuff from her and recommend her highly. The resulting mess should be a comlete embarrassment to both of them, really. It personally does not degrade my opinion of the "asker", and regardless of her actual motives, she DID give gifts to the pattern designer that I thought would be useful and I would personally LOVE to have received as a gift. In the end the whole thing makes the designer appear to be ungrateful because no matter what the "asker's" actual motives were, the people who donated for the gift did it out of sincere appreciation for the pattern designer. She makes herself seem to be extremely ungrateful about the entire thing. And I actually stopped receiving even the digest version of posts from that group a LONG time ago because I wasn't very entertained by the general chatter and only cared about the patterns.

The pattern designer's response to the group (which I received as an email from the organizer) makes it sound like she would have rather had the money to pay bills with. If that's the case, sheesh - I'll send her $5 - but sometimes the idea of a gift is to buy something that the person might not necessarily buy for themselves.

I've been thinking about the whole thing entirely too much and really shouldn't have written this GIANT comment on your blog but I'm not going to address it any other way any other time so you get my two cents Annie. heh Sorry. You sort of asked for it, right? :)

[Lucinda (That other Cindy)]

My kids feel the same way that yours do with regards to silly pictures -- & I love not having to pay to have them developed. Mine have been back in school for a week & seem to be doing fine so far.