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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Colleague cancelled on a volunteering event - WWYD

170 replies

MsJamieFraser · 07/05/2017 05:50

I am supposed to be volunteering at an event today (crowd control and afterwards to the VIP bash) my colleague sent a text message dusting the night to say that he is now not coming.

I am bloody furious with this as it leaves me in a tricky position, I said I would attend as he really wanted to go however did not want to go alone, I was supposed to be attending a christening today which I cancelled due to the event.

It also leaves me in a tricky situation with my friends company (they wrote to me asking if I had any colleagues wanting to help out) as they could not attend as they had another plans, that could not be rescheduled.

I don't want to attend this event by myself, as public transport is limited and roads are closed (due to the event) it will also take me an hour to get there, I just don't fancy attending this event alone and also doing it by myself.

I had a funny feeling he was going to do this as I over heard him saying he was going to cancel on Friday to another colleague however when I asked him he said he was talking about something else

I only agreed as he begged me to attend with him.

However I feel bloody bad on the event organisers and that's what's stopping me from cancelling even tho I really don't want to attend.

My dh and friends can't come with me as they are all at the christening.

WWYD

OP posts:

MaudOnceMore · 10/05/2017 01:42

Ah, so when you said you nipped his bum we weren't meant to believe you. Glad you were able to help the constabulary in the performance of their duties. Very noble of you. ::wink::

kali110 · 10/05/2017 01:49

Op don't name change.
Posters on here should be ashamed of themselves.
Posts regarding your writing skills were particularly nasty.
As if you can't run a company if you Have poor writing skills
You don't need to name change, some people on here should do.

Blinkyblink · 10/05/2017 06:53

Oh for goodness sakes.
All this, "posters should be ashamed of themselves for ridiculing the Op's writing skills".

Why don't you read the thread.

Two posters. TWO. Make reference to the fact they can't make head to tail of the thread because of the OP's writing skills. They didn't know the OP had writing issues! They didn't say she was thick, they didn't take the piss out of her learning difficulties. At that point they didn't know that the OP had learning difficulties. They literally just said they couldn't make head nor tail out of the thread and made reference to fact that bit strange to have someone with poor communication skills in charge of a massive organisation. Surely a fair enough point.

So TWO posters made reference to poor writing skills.

Are we to go around assuming everyone has learning difficulties? Or can we make a comment (there was no malice, no name calling in the TWO posts) about poor writing skills and make a valid reference to the OP's job.

What a furore over TWO mild comments on poor communication skills.

yellowfrog · 10/05/2017 10:50

MsJamie Fraser

I already feel know I am inferior

You bloody well are not! I work with people paid to write stuff. Trust me, your writing is no worse than any of theirs!

kali110 · 10/05/2017 12:46

Blinkyblink so? They shouldn't have taken the piss in the first place, whether the op had a learning difficulty or not.
I especially loved the fact that people with poor language skills couldn't possibly run a company
I had no problem reading the op's posts, neither did others, some people just wanted to pick and make the op feel like shit.

Norland · 10/05/2017 13:35

I'm surprised the OP has thousands of people working for her but needs to ask advice on a web forum. I can't think of any of the several people I know with thousands of people working for them, who would think to ask for such help.

Jupitar · 10/05/2017 13:50

norland
People can be good at making business decisions and bad at making personal ones and vice versa. People who run successful companies arent necessarily good at all aspects of life,

SaltySalt · 10/05/2017 13:59

Good for you

Norland · 10/05/2017 14:09

Indeed Jupitar, indeed.

However it's fairly common for people who run such large organisations (2,000+ employees is

Blinkyblink · 10/05/2017 17:05

But Kali, they didn't take the piss.

They said commthey couldn't make "head nor tail"of the thread.

BigGrannyPants · 10/05/2017 17:35

@MsJamieFraser sorry you're having to change your username, and that you've had so much shit on this thread. Hope you're ok

toleybum · 10/05/2017 18:35

*But Kali, they didn't take the piss.

They said commthey couldn't make "head nor tail"of the thread.*

Personally I found them highly unpleasant, and a lot of their comments were unnecessary.

Blinkyblink · 10/05/2017 18:47

Toleybum
"A lot of their comments were unpleasant"

Ok, lets have a couple because I honestly can't see anything unpleaaant. Two posters commented on having difficulty understanding the thread. They didn't know the OP had learning difficulties. So, where are these "lot of their comments were unpleasant"?

Blinkyblink · 10/05/2017 18:47

Sorry, these "highly unpleasant comments"

Sallystyle · 11/05/2017 06:44

I cannot make heads nor tails of this. for someone who runs a big company your written communication skills could use some work.

I'm always a little baffled when someone on MN claims to be a successful business person running a massive company yet communicates so poorly in their OP that no-one can quite work out what the issue is.

It all seems a bit weird a senior manager or MD running a company of 1000's putting themselves in a tricky situation and sacking off a christening to appease one employee and then posting about it all over mumsnet. What's the company, I'll be sure to avoid it like the plague if this how management behave

FFS that is sexual assault and makes you sound terrible

I'm surprised the OP has thousands of people working for her but needs to ask advice on a web forum.

There you go Blinky and that's before we get to the posters trying to catch her out.

SoupDragon · 11/05/2017 07:13

There's nothing at all unpleasant about commenting unfavourably on her original comment that she had "nipped" a policeman's bum. As theoriginalcomment stood, it was bad behaviour and had a man claimed to have done it to a woman there would have been uproar, as there would have been had a woman said it had been done to her.

Lostwithinthehills · 11/05/2017 07:52

Businesses with more than 250 employees account for 0.1% of all businesses in the uk. As far as I can understand women make up only around 20% of the very senior staff of big businesses. So the op is one of the 20% of 0.1%, she is in an remarkable position and I think generally people expect such an exceptional woman to be a fearsome communicator, with very a strong sense of what she wants out of life, Deborah Meaden type. It is that woman that people were originally commenting on and I would consider them to be critical but not highly unpleasant.

Obviously everything changes when it becomes clear that the op arrived in her position through family connections and that she has learning difficulties. I guess that if the op hadn't mentioned that she was senior to 1000s of people in her business people would have been less critical.

Blinkyblink · 11/05/2017 09:54

But U2, the TWO posters didn't know at that point the OP had learning difficulties. And with that in mind, it most certainly is odd to have someone running a company of thousands of people who had difficulty communicating (OP circumstances aside). It just is.

And as for the comments re pinching the policeman's bum... not awful. Spot on.

MaudOnceMore · 11/05/2017 10:52

Well, quite. Throughout this thread, OP has been insistent that everything she has said has been the truth and nothing but the truth and has taken to task anyone who has questioned her veracity. So it was a surprise when, after apparently admitting to nipping a policeman's bottom, she came back to say that actually that was not, err, the truth. It's a sad reflection, I guess, of a culture in which low level, casual sexual harassment is common, that the comments weren't so obviously a joke. I'm glad they were.

JustMe77 · 19/05/2017 11:46

Wow.... I wish I could unread this thread it made me feel quite sad inside.

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