I am livid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several months ago, I had proposed to a UXR conference about an idea that had been in my mind\u2014research just needs to pivot. I came up with a catchy title in the realm of the queen is dead. Long live the queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It got rejected, but then I got served up another opportunity from a local women’s chapter on research. I had given a talk pre-pandemic with them and it was fine. It was a rehash of something I had presented at IxDA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I gave them some ideas of what I wanted to speak about and they picked a talk that was in the future. I was sort of ready to give it, but then suddenly, they wanted to postpone it, just 2 weeks ahead of time. I was like fine…there was really bad organization anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then this time, another date was chosen. It was a weird ask. I gave several dates and times. The organizer chose one and so I thought…okay good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then two weeks ahead of time, they started publicizing it. But to my surprise, my name wasn’t included. I was annoyed and wrote back. It didn’t seem like the event included me at all. So I was added quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took the next two weeks to prepare my talk. Now this is where you can really go either ways about this. I wanted specific things like breakout rooms with a specified number of attendees. I wanted the attendees to change. I wanted someone to oversee all the Zoom things like chat. I wanted to ensure that there was a waiting room. Maybe I got super micromanaging, because I didn’t get a sense that they knew what they were doing. Like they didn’t even use Zoom that frequently. Like making sure that I am the co-host because that’s the only way I can screenshare. And most importantly, were breakout rooms even enabled on this account?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And instead, the response was “I haven’t done this before. I think that I did it right?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erosion of trust! So because I had no confidence or trust, I got more anxious which made me laid down in very detail about what I wanted. And providing solution (like inviting Chris to make it happen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was livid!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, I was starting down an pissed off path so I could barely unblock myself from it. I couldn’t stop, because I had one goal in mind, ensure that the attendees got the best experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And just an hour before the event, the event was cancelled. The organizers told me that they couldn’t do it more because misalignment and the communication. And so and so on. I wished them the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the choices, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How can you not be prepared?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe yes, I called them out on not being prepared. That a small volunteer organization should know how to use Zoom. How can you not? And that I wasn’t being paid at all. So this was all bad around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of all, don’t ask a speaker to actually do all the things. That was the impression that I got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday, I said aloud that I wanted to give them an one-star review, but how can you really? You can’t. And that’s all you can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But who knows, word travels fast. We shall see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am livid. Several months ago, I had proposed to a UXR conference about an idea that had been in my mind\u2014research just needs to pivot. I came up with a catchy title in the realm of the queen is dead. Long live the queen. It got rejected, but then I got served up another … Continue reading At the very least, set me up<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/j.unoccupied.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}