Wednesday, November 14, 2012

95%

I hate it when I'm almost completely right. It somehow allows your opponent (hmm, psychological give away in that choice of word) to claim a little bit of moral high ground. I know the pedestrian, clad in dark clothes on a November evening, stepped out in front of you without warning, but if you hadn't been singing along to that song...

Anyway this isn't about pedestrians. Nobody has been knocked down.

No, it's about missed appointments, a thing I almost never do and hate it when I make a mistake.

Ages ago the dates for a particular diocesan committee were published and I had a meeting in Wells diaried for last Monday at 10.00 a.m. Then in August a list was circulated of all the dates for that committee for the next twelve months and the one for this week had mysteriously changed to the afternoon. I checked:

Have I missed a discussion about changing all our meetings to afternoon? Not a particular problem (although I already had the November 2012 one in my diary for the morning) but may be for some people.

I received this reply:

Nope, these were simply what came through from the in the Office – I have to start somewhere!

I read this as meaning that the meetings were afternoon. Someone else did too after checking with another person and not being called back.

So it was a blow (as I enjoy this work) to find out (luckily before I set out) that the meeting had been in the morning after all and I had missed it.

Now I check the recent reminder letter I see it had the original timing on it after all, but being clear in my mind that I knew the meeting time I never read that line. And that is the 5%.

All the people who made the meeting were the ones too scatty and disorganised to have noticed the earlier emails and changed their diaries. Or bishops, he added self-protectively.

Me and the other person who missed the meeting had a very pleasant lunch and chat together.

I wish I didn't care so much about being organised and punctual.

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