I like to help out at my kids’ school as much as the next sucker mom. The boys’ teachers are fabulous and, in fact, the whole school pretty well rocks so I’ll do what I can to support them. Besides donating construction paper and pipe cleaners or showing up for classroom projects, I also help out with the PTO and another school council. The inherent politics are enough to drive me mad but I’m pretty good at tuning it out:
"Did you hear? Sally’s mom brought pre-made cookies to the class party! I spent all last night with my angelic offspring, toiling in the kitchen and measuring everything just so. Then my cherubs and I took an extra hour to decorate each cupcake with sprinkles applied with tweezers. Didn’t my daughter do an excellent job mapping out the African Rain Forest in butter cream frosting?"
"Here, have a Clamato and Ready-Wip cracker. It’s all I had handy this morning when I remembered today’s party."
Moms tend to leave me alone after that.
Anyway, I have far more pressing things to think about (where did I leave my cute red flip-flops?) than the things these moms get lathered up about so I usually check out mid-sentence. That bit me in the butt a few weeks ago when I didn’t listen carefully to what a fellow mom was saying to me when she cornered me in Wal Mart. I thought she was telling me about her plans to run for PTO president. I muttered something about how that "sounds great" and next thing I knew, I found out I’d offered to run for PTO as well.
Oh, bloody hell.
A few days later, another mom chatted me up at school and said she, too, was running for PTO president. Stupid me, I said "sounds great" again. Whoops.
Now the two warring factions had a pull toy. I gracefully told them over an over again that I would help out if there was a need but, please, by all means, if someone else wanted to be on the PTO, I would gladly step aside. What I really meant is "please leave me out of this little cold war because I just won’t go there." I guess I should have been more clear about that point.
I got a call from the principal today that I have been nominated for Treasurer. God help me, I’d rather be lunchroom monitor for the next ten years than be Treasurer! If I wanted to play accountant, this blog would be called Sharp C.P.A. Even the principal said, "Hey, I wouldn’t want that job." Gee, thanks.
I politely declined, using the old excuse "I’m probably not the best person for the job." Again, what I really meant was, "In the grand scheme of things I could do for this school, I’d prefer shaving my head, applying blackboard paint to my scalp, mounting a bookshelf on my back and becoming a traveling classroom."
But I’m sure if I said that out loud to the principal, he would have just replied, "sounds great."
OK, I’m laughing (just a little) over your oh-so-lucky nomination to the PTO. I’d rather walk through fire than serve on ours. :::shudder:::
And my kids’ schools don’t allow homemade treats anymore. I was SO disappointed to hear that. Snicker.
Unless you have a group of people who can stand up to one or two bullies and who understand basic accounting principles like why you need to have a receipt to get reimbursed, you have bylaws to clearly define how things should be run on the up and up, and you have an auditing team that will give you clean books, RUN, do not walk, in the other direction from this honor! I’m in a position where, if I turn the books over, I’m afraid they’ll cook them, and if I don’t, I am threatened with removal. Good Luck!