Don't you just hate that?
Last night was the second meeting of the Mid-Missouri .NET User's Group that I started this past summer to get some discussion going among peers here in the middle of nowhere (the closest user's groups before that were two hours away). It has actually turned out to be a bigger group than I thought it would be, and we are close to 50 members in the online group and had 23 people show up at our first "real" (non-organizing) meeting in September. I thought that qualified as a success, given where we are.
Most people want the meetings to be during the day because they can take a bit of time off of work, don't have to deal with child care or dinner or what not. But there was one person who was very vocal about not being able to ever get away from work during the day, ever (boss wouldn't let him, blah, blah, blah) and could we please have some meetings at night? We took a poll about various things including meeting times and enough answered they could make it at night that we decided to run an experiment of having an evening meeting, which happened last night. Six people showed, including myself and the presenter. And while it was a good meeting and we had a good discussion, I don't think we're going to do another evening meeting. "Greatest good for the greatest number" and all that.
But here's the thing. The guy that whined about not being able to get off during the day? Yeah. He didn't show.
Grrrr....
5 comments:
Any chance it was just a fluke that he couldn't come this time? I mean, we all have that happen from once in awhile. Did he communicate that he wouldn't be there?
Anyhow, I know that's frustrating, and yes, you do have to cater to the majority. We have an emergent cohort here in PDX, that while I am happy about it's creation, I have never made it to a meeting because the times haven't worked well with my family schedule. That's life, but I don't make a stink about it.
Erin,
Possibly. But here's the thing. This isn't a weekly event, nor even a monthly. It is scheduled for the second Wednesday of every odd-numbered month, and the date for last night's event was known in September. Plenty of time to make a bit of life-planning to attend, if'n you're the cause of it happening at night in the first place, eh?
Ah, well - I am not bitter (really). It was still a good meeting, and a learning experience. But at the same time, it was still...irritating.
I guess you can please some of the people some of the time...
Grace for that person dude... yeah. Know what you mean, there's not a lot you can do for that, and boy do I know that side of the coin (yeah sometimes I've been so THAT guy) too.
Grace.
BTW - I'd love it if my local .NET UG met during the day for the reasons of one more thing away from my family (e.g. playtime, dinnertime, reading books, prayer, laying down for sleep, etc.) *and* it just so happens that the mens group (growth group) I'm in is also Thursday nights... Yeah. Oh and the SQL Server UG *also* meets Thursday nights too!! grrr..
You're right, Chris, you're right. [breathes through nose - calms a bit]
And it was a good meeting. It just could've used a few more people.
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