Tuesday Has No Phones (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thebratqueen) wrote2005-06-15 10:19 pm
thebratqueen) wrote2005-06-15 10:19 pm
Entry tags:
Phooey!
Knitting group was most disappointing. Only two people showed up, neither of whom was there last time and only one of them was even somewhat nice to talk to. I have my suspicions about why the group was so small . Basically I found out about the group via Meetup. I think I mentioned last month how I just snuck in because Meetup changed the way it works and started demanding fees from the groups. So the knitting meeting last month was, as far as Meetup was concerned, canceled, but the group met anyway.
The women who showed up last month had all come before and they all said they felt no need to pay a fee to Meetup since they could meet on their own for free. So we agreed to meet this month, Meetup be damned.
Well this one woman apparently got confused by the whole thing. Which I can sort of understand as I hadn't been sure if last month's meeting was closed either. But she actually showed up at the bookstore where we met and somehow, even though the group meets in the same spot every month, didn't find the group and thought the meeting was cancelled. So already I'm lacking confidence in her savvyness.
Now with the best of intentions I'm sure she signs up to be the group organizer on Meetup and sets the meeting for June. Okay so far. Except she puts down that there's now a one dollar entrance fee in order to come.
Now one dollar isn't going to break anyone's bank, obviously. However as soon as I saw that I had a feeling this was not going to go well, because basically what she did - again I'm sure with the best of intentions - was effectively take over the group and totally change it without asking anybody. It's one thing to talk to the other group members about how to handle the monthly fee and agree that yeah, a buck hurts nobody. It's another to decide on everyone's behalf that they're not allowed to show up to their own group anymore unless they're prepared to pay.
I did email her and let her know that the people who'd been there didn't seem keen on using Meetup and that there might be some confusion because of her putting a fee on what they'd agreed to do for free, but she didn't change it and there we were.
Now me, I'm so eager to find anybody in this apathetic town who likes to sit and knit that I go anyway. Plus, you know, a buck. But sure enough out of the - I think it was 6 or 7 - people who were there last month who were eager to go, none of them show up. I've got no proof, it's the start of summer so maybe they were just busy, but still, I have my suspicions about this woman's lack of social skills being a possible case as to why.
So it was just the three of us which could've been fine but our self-styled leader was just such a pill. She was one of those people who can't stand not being in charge of the conversation so if you try to introduce a topic she immediately snatches it. You know the kind. "So I, who am a neurosurgeon, was performing brain surgery the other day and - " "You know I read an article that said the human brain is made of Swiss cheese." "Um, okay, but speaking as someone who's touched a brain - " "No, really, brains are made of Swiss cheese because this article I read said so. People say brains aren't made of Swiss cheese but they're wrong. And speaking of Swiss cheese did you know that Switzerland is made entirely of chocolate and the people there are very rude, which is why I don't travel to Switzerland on any of my vacations, the last of which involved going to this hotel in New Brunswick which had a breakfast buffet of blah blah blah...."
We get people who talk to me a lot in the waiting room at work and while it can be very distracting while I try to do that thing for which my boss gives me money (aka "work") I do try to grin and bear it because I can tell that for a lot of them they're just lonely and happy to have someone to talk to. This woman wasn't like that, though, she was a total conversation dominator, so argh. All I could do was sit and knit and make the occasional "Oh? and "Uh-huh." sounds. Though admitteldy that's when I gave up trying.
About the only amusing thing to come from all that was the one part of the conversation where it was established that this woman's daughter was:
1) Not married
2) Living with another woman
3) About to buy an apartment with this other woman
4) Looking to adopt a child
5) Looking to adopt a child from the home country of the woman she lived with
6) Owned a cat.
To which I really had to marvel at this woman's inability to recognize gay when she saw it (I mean come on, if my dykedar was jumping up and down and waving its arms...) but then I realized that it was entirely possible that the daughter had come out to her years ago and she just hadn't listened. ("Mom, I'm gay." "You know I read this article about gay people that say it's only men aged 21-30 and after that they all get married and have children. Speaking of children did you know...")
The other, slightly older, woman who was there was nice and when our erstwhile leader got up to go to the bathroom we actually started a nice conversation about knitting. She learned when she was six and talked about knitting during WWII, and I told her all about No Idle Hands and how I'd just finished the chapters about how women in the North and South would knit for soldiers during the Civil War and various bits of trivia about that. So that was enjoyable, albeit brief.
Beyond that - bleh. Our erstwhile leader declared there would be no meetups in July or August and, again, I can see that from the POV of someone who's voluntarily paying Meetup's stupid fees, but on the flip side maybe ask people first? I'm not going away, I'd love to keep meeting, but I got steamrollered over any attempts to mention this and possibly work out a compromise (and again - if I'm being steamrollered over...) so there we are.
On the plus side I think I have the email addresses of three of the women who were there last month, so I might email them privately to ask if they want to keep meeting outside of the meetup thing. And/or nudge my LYS again about having an organized group meetup once a month. They're kind of doing one, but it's only for people who are going for master knitter status with the Knitting Guild. Which is fine enough but I've looked at it and it strikes me a lot like signing up to do homework. Which is totally fine for somebody who has being a master knitter as their goal, but I'm here for fun and having to write reports on my hobby would not be fun. (And for those about to suggest the local Stitch and Bitch mailinig list - been there, done that, got nothing but crickets in response. I told you, this town is really apathetic. Teeming with people, totally apathetic.) (No love on Craftster either.)
And then I come home to find that my Tivo did not record The Inside because another show was on that had higher priority. Which isn't horrible per se as I did want the other show, but again I say: Phooey. I could've stayed home and knit while watching one show and then watched the Tivoed one later if I'd known about both the conflict and the lack of joy in knitting land.
But on the upside I do have chocolate, and my short story came out today, so on the whole it's been a yay day for me. =)
The women who showed up last month had all come before and they all said they felt no need to pay a fee to Meetup since they could meet on their own for free. So we agreed to meet this month, Meetup be damned.
Well this one woman apparently got confused by the whole thing. Which I can sort of understand as I hadn't been sure if last month's meeting was closed either. But she actually showed up at the bookstore where we met and somehow, even though the group meets in the same spot every month, didn't find the group and thought the meeting was cancelled. So already I'm lacking confidence in her savvyness.
Now with the best of intentions I'm sure she signs up to be the group organizer on Meetup and sets the meeting for June. Okay so far. Except she puts down that there's now a one dollar entrance fee in order to come.
Now one dollar isn't going to break anyone's bank, obviously. However as soon as I saw that I had a feeling this was not going to go well, because basically what she did - again I'm sure with the best of intentions - was effectively take over the group and totally change it without asking anybody. It's one thing to talk to the other group members about how to handle the monthly fee and agree that yeah, a buck hurts nobody. It's another to decide on everyone's behalf that they're not allowed to show up to their own group anymore unless they're prepared to pay.
I did email her and let her know that the people who'd been there didn't seem keen on using Meetup and that there might be some confusion because of her putting a fee on what they'd agreed to do for free, but she didn't change it and there we were.
Now me, I'm so eager to find anybody in this apathetic town who likes to sit and knit that I go anyway. Plus, you know, a buck. But sure enough out of the - I think it was 6 or 7 - people who were there last month who were eager to go, none of them show up. I've got no proof, it's the start of summer so maybe they were just busy, but still, I have my suspicions about this woman's lack of social skills being a possible case as to why.
So it was just the three of us which could've been fine but our self-styled leader was just such a pill. She was one of those people who can't stand not being in charge of the conversation so if you try to introduce a topic she immediately snatches it. You know the kind. "So I, who am a neurosurgeon, was performing brain surgery the other day and - " "You know I read an article that said the human brain is made of Swiss cheese." "Um, okay, but speaking as someone who's touched a brain - " "No, really, brains are made of Swiss cheese because this article I read said so. People say brains aren't made of Swiss cheese but they're wrong. And speaking of Swiss cheese did you know that Switzerland is made entirely of chocolate and the people there are very rude, which is why I don't travel to Switzerland on any of my vacations, the last of which involved going to this hotel in New Brunswick which had a breakfast buffet of blah blah blah...."
We get people who talk to me a lot in the waiting room at work and while it can be very distracting while I try to do that thing for which my boss gives me money (aka "work") I do try to grin and bear it because I can tell that for a lot of them they're just lonely and happy to have someone to talk to. This woman wasn't like that, though, she was a total conversation dominator, so argh. All I could do was sit and knit and make the occasional "Oh? and "Uh-huh." sounds. Though admitteldy that's when I gave up trying.
About the only amusing thing to come from all that was the one part of the conversation where it was established that this woman's daughter was:
1) Not married
2) Living with another woman
3) About to buy an apartment with this other woman
4) Looking to adopt a child
5) Looking to adopt a child from the home country of the woman she lived with
6) Owned a cat.
To which I really had to marvel at this woman's inability to recognize gay when she saw it (I mean come on, if my dykedar was jumping up and down and waving its arms...) but then I realized that it was entirely possible that the daughter had come out to her years ago and she just hadn't listened. ("Mom, I'm gay." "You know I read this article about gay people that say it's only men aged 21-30 and after that they all get married and have children. Speaking of children did you know...")
The other, slightly older, woman who was there was nice and when our erstwhile leader got up to go to the bathroom we actually started a nice conversation about knitting. She learned when she was six and talked about knitting during WWII, and I told her all about No Idle Hands and how I'd just finished the chapters about how women in the North and South would knit for soldiers during the Civil War and various bits of trivia about that. So that was enjoyable, albeit brief.
Beyond that - bleh. Our erstwhile leader declared there would be no meetups in July or August and, again, I can see that from the POV of someone who's voluntarily paying Meetup's stupid fees, but on the flip side maybe ask people first? I'm not going away, I'd love to keep meeting, but I got steamrollered over any attempts to mention this and possibly work out a compromise (and again - if I'm being steamrollered over...) so there we are.
On the plus side I think I have the email addresses of three of the women who were there last month, so I might email them privately to ask if they want to keep meeting outside of the meetup thing. And/or nudge my LYS again about having an organized group meetup once a month. They're kind of doing one, but it's only for people who are going for master knitter status with the Knitting Guild. Which is fine enough but I've looked at it and it strikes me a lot like signing up to do homework. Which is totally fine for somebody who has being a master knitter as their goal, but I'm here for fun and having to write reports on my hobby would not be fun. (And for those about to suggest the local Stitch and Bitch mailinig list - been there, done that, got nothing but crickets in response. I told you, this town is really apathetic. Teeming with people, totally apathetic.) (No love on Craftster either.)
And then I come home to find that my Tivo did not record The Inside because another show was on that had higher priority. Which isn't horrible per se as I did want the other show, but again I say: Phooey. I could've stayed home and knit while watching one show and then watched the Tivoed one later if I'd known about both the conflict and the lack of joy in knitting land.
But on the upside I do have chocolate, and my short story came out today, so on the whole it's been a yay day for me. =)