Is it just me, or do people not communicate enough and expect too much sometimes? The Love Bug goes to nursery school 2 mornings a week. Because it is a co-operative nursery school they rely on help from the parents - which I am happy to do. I volunteered this year to run the monthly book program for the school. I am happy to do it although it does take time every month organizing the flyers and writing little notes to encourage people to purchase books. I then have to distribute the flyers to everyone, collect the orders, input all of the orders into the wesbite, and then organize and distribute then to everyone when the order comes in. Also, keep track of back-orders.
Not to mention, deal with issues that arise. For example, in December I picked up the orders and noticed that there were 3 order sheets given to me for Book Clubs which we don't participate in. There was no note attached so I thought that perhaps the parent meant to give the order forms to their older child's teacher (not the one in nursery school). Since there was no letter I had to go ask the teacher if they knew anything about it. They had to ask the other parent for me since they weren't in the Love Bug's class. It turns out they thought I could submit the orders on their behalf so their older child wouldn't see the books. Ok, I don't mind doing that but I really think it would have been nice to be given a note of explanation. It did create a bit more work for me. I did it and never heard anything afterwards...like a thank you.
The second incident happened this month. After the Christmas holidays I took Love Bug to nursery school to find a book (in the bag I distribute them in) sitting in Love Bug's cubby basket. Again, no note of explanation. I went home and looked to see if I had made a mistake distributing the books. Nope! When I went to pick Love Bug up, I again had to go ask the teacher what was going on. She told me that the parent didn't like the book and wanted to know how to return it. Again, a note would have been helpful. I said I would be happy to check in to it. I looked up the return policy, typed up a detailed letter on how the parent could return it, and put everything back in to their child's cubby basket.
The next time I was there, I heard someone mention the kid's name and I asked the mother if she was the one who wanted to return the book. She said yes. I explained that if she shipped it back to the company they would refund, exchange or credit her but they didn't pay for the shipping. She looked at me (mildly annoyed) and said "can't you do it for me?" I calmly explained to her that I was a parent volunteer running the book program, and since the company didn't pay for the return shipping, she would have to incur the expenses of shipping it back. At that point the teacher heard the conversation and came in. We had a bit of small talk on whether or not it was a difficult return policy (which I didn't think it was). I then left and haven't heard anything since.
I'm not running the program to get recognition, just to help the school out. I just wish people would maybe respect the time and effort I am putting in to it a bit more.
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1 comment:
Oh, book orders!
They can be so much fun, can't they?
When I was doing that for my Kindergarten classes, it was so difficult to manage it all and deal with the parents who were uphappy for one reason or another.
I'm surprised that the parent isn't just grateful that you are doing the book orders for them!
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